Literary Techniques In John Gillespie Magee's 'High Flight'

English Sonnets Essay
Poets usually write poems in order to communicate ideas or views to readers. In the two poems, “High Flight” (John Gillespie Magee) and “Suburban Sonnet” (Gwen Harwood), the poets are trying to convey their experiences and lives.
In the poem, “High Flight”, the poet uses various techniques such as active verbs, imagery, personification, a metaphor, exaggeration, alliteration, and symbolism in order to portray his joyful experience as he test- flies a new plane.
Active verbs like ‘’slipped’’, ‘‘danced’’, ‘‘wheeled’’ and ‘‘soared’’ are utilised frequently by the poet in order to convey the sense of action and movement that he himself is feeling as he flies the plane. Combined with the use of verbs such as ‘’Hov’ring’’, the active verbs also emphasising the variety of movements that the plane is able to make, further showing his experiences on the plane.
Imagery is also used by the poet. “Sun-split clouds” is used to describe what the poet is seeing, the action of the sun breaking through the clouds. By describing exactly what he is seeing, his experience is being communicated effectively.
“My eager craft” is an example of personification in the poem.
This emphasises the joy and eagerness of the pilot himself by suggesting that his emotions may be so strong that they are overflowing into the world around him, in this case, his craft. “Laughter- silvered wings” is another example of personification in the poem. It also shows how the poet’s own emotions are being projected into the world around him, thus emphasising his emotions and personal experience. The poet also uses “delirious burning blue” in order to reinforce how overwhelmed with joy he is that it is spreading to the surrounding environment, in this case, the blue
sky.
A metaphor is also used by the poet in order to convey his experiences on the plane. “Tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds” has a similar effect to the personification. It shows how his laughter and joy is seeping into the world around him. However, the use of tumbling also suggests the barrelling movement of the plane as he flies it.
The poet uses exaggeration when he writes “footless halls of air”. The effect of this is to emphasise just how large and free his surroundings are and thus convey the grandness of his experience. The magnitude of his experience is further communicated when he writes “where never lark, or ever eagle flew” and implies that he is the first to be where he is.
Alliteration is another technique used by the poet in order to convey his experiences. The repeated ‘b’ sound in “burning blue” is used to create a sense of speed when the poem is read aloud. This helps to convey the action of his experience.
Symbolism is very important in conveying the poet’s experiences in this poem. The poet uses words like “sanctity”, “space”, and even a direct reference to “God” in order to create a sense of spirituality and grandness. “Silent, lifting mind” is used to further emphasise the reverence, spirituality and positivity of the experience.
Therefore, it can be seen that the poem “High Flight” was written in order to convey the joyous experience of a test- pilot and does this through the use of many poetic techniques like active verbs, personification, imagery, and symbolism.
In contrast to this, the poem “Suburban Sonnet” was written to convey the ideas and life of a middle- aged woman, who is trapped by motherhood and placed in the traditional role of a woman, and feels like her life is being wasted. These main themes are communicated to the audience through the use of enjambment, alliteration, metaphors, and symbolism.
The poet uses enjambment in three main ways in the poem. Firstly, enjambment is used in order to emphasise the negative concepts by placing them at the fronts of lines. By placing “too late” at the beginning of the line, it suggests that it is not just too late to get to the stove, but it is also too late for her in terms of a successful career. “Drain out“ is used to show that her life and energy are draining out and being wasted. This idea is emphasised by the use of enjambment. Moreover, the nature of enjambment in this poem reflects the disjointed nature of her life. An example of this is “she hushes them. A pot/boils over.”This reinforces how in her life, many bits and pieces are all happening at once, in this case, dealing with the children and having to watch the pot. Finally, the structure of enjambment in this poem is suggestive of the structure of a fugue, a musical piece with several main themes which play at the same time. Both the poem and a fugue have clashing ‘events’ or ‘parts’ happening at the same time and are very disjointed. This can be seen in the poem from the continuation of many concepts from one line to the next. The poem begins with the character practising a fugue before she is interrupted by household activities. However, the ‘music’ continues through the syntax and structure of the poem. This further reveals that music is still an integral part of her life and is still being wasted because of her household duties. It is in these three main ways that enjambment is used to help convey the main messages and themes of the poem.
Alliteration is another technique employed by the poet. “Children chatter” is used because the alliteration evokes the chattering sound of children and an annoying chipping sound which helps connect with the idea of noise and the unwanted sounds of children.
Metaphors are also important in the communication of the viewpoints of the poet. The mouse is an extended metaphor for what has happened in her life. The mouse was dead after it tried to achieve something but failed. This happened with the character as well; she tried a musical career but failed. When the character wraps the mouse in paper, it says “Tasty dishes from stale bread” which suggests the idea of making use of something useless. The character feels that she is also being used, as a nurturer, when she was useless with her musical career.
Another technique used by the poet is symbolism. When she refers to “crusted milk”, it is symbolic of her. The connotation of crusted milk is that it is something old and left over, which is representative of how the character is feeling.
It can be seen that the poet of Suburban Sonnet wrote the poem in order to convey her life and her views on it, through the use of poetic techniques such as enjambment, alliteration and metaphors.
From the two poems above, it can be concluded that poets write poems for all sorts of reasons, but most poems are written to communicate an idea, experience or view of some kind to an audience through the use of a wide range of poetic techniques like the examples above.