Those Winter Sundays Analysis

While “Those Winter Sundays”, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”, and “Still I Rise” revolve around different themes, the authors explore those respective themes by employing similar literary devices, effectively enhancing the tone and meaning of their poems thanks to sound.

Shakespeare and Hayden’s poems revolve around the theme of love, while Angelou delivers a powerful poem about self-empowerment In poetry, theme is “an idea that the poem expresses about the subject […] and it may be stated explicitly or implicitly” (Jefferys). While “Those Winter Sundays” and “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” both share the theme of love, the authors decide to explore it in different ways. Shakespeare, a master at expressing emotions,
explicitly presents love as the mutual feeling between two lovers. In the poem, he states that “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds” (Shakespeare lines 2-3), but it is rather an “ever-fixed mark” that may face obstacles but will never crumble (Shakespeare 5-6). On the other hand, love as the theme of Hayden’s poem is implied; he never mentions love in the way Shakespeare did, but instead he talks about the love a father has for his child. The persona mentions how his father worked hard and polished his kid’s shoes, but no one, including the son, ever thanked him (Hayden line 5, 12). In “Still I Rise”, however, author Maya Angelou focuses her poem on self-empowerment; she declares in the very first stanza: “you may trod me in the very dirt, // but still, like dust, I’ll rise” (Angelou lines 3-4). The authors effectively represent their respective themes with the help of literary devices.
The authors seek to evoke feelings related to the theme of their poems by using different literary devices.
Shakespeare uses metonymy and personification to explain what love is and is not. A metonymy “substitutes one item, entry, or concept to represent another associated one” (Moen), and, in Sonnet 116, a metonymy is used to explain what love is by saying it is a star, and an ever-fixed mark. (Shakespeare lines 5, 8). He also personifies love in the line “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks” (Shakespeare line 9). By using imagery, Hayden’s poem first elicits feelings of melancholy and fear, and, as the poem progresses, he evokes feelings of regret. Imagery refers to “[the] use of figurative language to represent objects, actions, and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses” (“Imagery”). Hayden makes use of imagery when his persona describes what his father went through; “… put his clothes back in the blueback cold // then with cracked hands that ached” (Hayden lines 2,3). Heavily relying on figurative language, Angelou is able to express her feelings by using metaphors and similes. A metaphor is “a thing regarded as representatives or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract” (“Metaphor”); similarly, a simile is a “figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid” (“Simile”). In the first stanza, Angelou affirms with a simile
that “like dust, [she’ll] rise” (line 4). She employs a metaphor in the second stanza when she says “… I walk like I’ve got oil wells // Pumping in my own living room” in order to express how proud and confident she feels (Angelou lines 7,8). These feelings are also evoked with the use of sound.
The tone of these poems is heavily influenced by sound, which the authors create through repetition, rhyme, consonance, and assonance.
Consonance “repeats any consonant sounds, without a focus on initial consonants” (Moen). In “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”, the use of consonance is present especially with the letter ‘t’, and consonants with a similar sound; “Let me not to the marriage of true minds // Admit impediments. Love is not love // Which alters when it alteration finds” (Shakespeare lines 1-3). The sonnet also has a vague rhyming scheme. Maya Angelou employs repetition and rhyme to enhance the overall tone of the poem. Repetition is “a literary device that repeats the same words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer” (“Repetition”). In “Still I Rise”, the author repeats the phrase “I’ll rise” and its variations 11 times, including the title. (Angelou lines 4, 12, 24, 30, 32, 36, 38-40). Hayden uses consonance to generate a harsh mood that may reflect the chronic angers he mentions in the poem; he uses the sound “k” to reflect the harsh environment his poem is set in. He also uses repetition in the eleventh line to emphasize the persona’s feeling of melancholy; “What did I know, what did I know” (Hayden line
11).