Influence of Past
Influence of Past in “The Uses of Sorrow” and “One Art”: Theme and Methods
In numerous literary works, the everlasting subject around how people perceive their past and let their experience shape their present life has been of great aesthetic interest and playing a unique role among readers. The human race’s empathy, when given a context made up of beautifully crafted words capable of building efficient communications, makes the theme of the meaning of history highly advocated. During presenting the classic theme, two American poets, Mary Oliver, and Elizabeth Bishop, in their fine works, contribute their interpretations over functions of prior experience as well as ways of coping with possible consequences. In the poem titled “The Uses of Sorrow”, Mary Oliver adopts a precise language to explain her embracing attitude towards the importance of emotional grief. Elizabeth Bishop, on the other side, focuses on the high ability to accept varying degrees of losses in her poem called “One Art” via taking a strict form of villanelle. Through a look at three major aspects of literary techniques, this essay suggests that Mary Oliver’s “The Uses of Sorrow” and Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” demonstrate a positive living philosophy, where emotional turmoil and acute sufferings caused by the past are proclaimed as things that could be neutralized and forgiven. Illustrations of two poets’ use of appropriate poetic imagery, introductions of personal colors, and reliance on optimistic tones exemplify the equipment of creative tools during the process of arriving at their goals of giving effective instructions for the workable nature of emotional and psychological difficulties left by previous encounters.
Two poems’ clever constructions of imagery that runs throughout the contents is one crucial practice in shaping an evocative language used to emphasize the acceptability of past failures and frustrations. Aimed at enhancing the sensory knowledge of readers, Oliver and Bishop reveal efforts of stimulation of creativity while resorting to commonly seen images and appealing to the audience’s feelings over forms and characteristics of daily materials. In “The Uses of Sorrow”, Oliver takes full advantage of a small, three-line poetic structure with the application of one primary image, which is a box stuffed by darkness (line 2, Mary Oliver). Success in utilizing this image consists in that it remarkably calls upon readers’ experience of being in the presence of a container that is able to carry or store up things. Though associating the box with darkness, Oliver makes clear one compelling message that the storage of negative emotions and cloudy moods, though appear disappointing, could fulfill its function of being mentally processed and disposed of properly. In “One Art”, a series of images is extensively showcased and exist as the most defining feature of the poem constituted by six stanzas, with obvious examples ranging from “door keys” and “hour” (3-4, Elizabeth Bishop), to “cities”, “rivers” and “a continent” (13-15, Elizabeth Bishop). Benefits of this method stem from its convenience in encouraging thoughts and ideas over daily-life scenarios, where losses of personal items, like keys, and departure from living places and cities shape one’s history of struggles in the world. Bishop’s arrangement of imagery indicates her intention of giving a well-thought-out perception that the act of losing things, regardless of the scale or type, should not be attached with destructive effects, but rather activities that could be handled. In this sense, two female poets’ engagement in intensifying mental pictures of readers through incorporating ordinary objects and practical situations proves a similar step towards building the value that emotional growths and gains can be harvested from facing past setbacks.
Oliver and Bishop’s inclusions of personal responses is another useful device suggestive of careful considerations in developing their theme that painful memories and past imperfections can be worked through. Considering the fact that traces of the human’s past and human’s tackling systems over their impacts are topics that suggest the nature of universal senses of humans, two poets’ decisions of adding personal touches to content are undoubtedly wise in terms of channeling with minds of readers. In “The Uses of Sorrow”, the background information expressed in “In my sleep”, Oliver’s reference to someone that “I loved (line 2, Mary Oliver 2006)”, combined with her mention of “me (line 3, Mary Oliver 2006)” in the end of the poem significantly shortens the distance between readers and the situation of the person portrayed in the poem. Within the tiny space, as readers are invited to recognize and sympathize with what the person in the literary work undergoes, Oliver’s ambition showed in intentionally exploring the understanding capacity of readers remains evident. A result of agreements with and appreciation for the poet’s perspective, which claims sadness and anguish generated by previously close relationships contain therapeutic values, becomes natural. When it comes to “One Art”, Bishop’s firm purpose of involving individual effects could be easily identified in the overwhelming use of “I” in the last three stanzas, with other visible examples coming from the revelation of losing “my mother’s watch (9-11, Elizabeth Bishop)”, three houses (10-13, Elizabeth Bishop), and someone that “I love (16-19, Elizabeth Bishop)”. The strategy, when materialized through a gradual upgrade of the weight of deprivations, manifests an intelligent control of the human heart while measuring the significance of losses, from inanimate items to people. It helps provide a foundation where readers are allowed to grasp the standpoint that wounds, even from losing beloved ones, are not disastrous but bearable. The profundity regarding going deep inside of patterns of individual struggles gives rise to two authoritative voices taken by Oliver and Bishop in conveying their messages.
Two poets’ attitudes that show clear signs of hopefulness and certainty, which are embedded in lines of “The Uses of Sorrow” and lines of a majority of stanzas of “One Art”, serve as an equally powerful vehicle. Rather than being exposed to a negative atmosphere, readers are placed into a world decorated by hope and positive thoughts as they are required to deal with “darkness” and “losses.” Oliver’s high achievement in maintaining the environment of optimism is manifested in her title and the last word of her short poem: “The uses” of sadness and “gift (line 3, Mary Oliver)”, the first highlighting the multiple functions of human grief, and the latter underlining the characteristics of rewards of this dark emotion. Oliver’s adoption of a plural form and her emphasis in the advantage of the passage of time unfolds a hidden side of the traumatic experience, which is helpful for spiritual maturity and accumulation of wisdom. In “One Art”, the same effects are formed through Bishop’s repetition that material and emotional losses, as some art, are not difficult to “master”, and that no type of losing could lead to a consequence of “disaster” (line 1, Elizabeth Bishop). Despite that the mood in the last stanza reveals a reduction in the level of positivity towards the agonizing experience, a substantial number of lines in the poem emerge in cheerful and even casual manners. Through repeatedly addressing varying losses as things that could be learned and digested by human’s mental ability, Bishop reinforces a faith that challenging moments defined by objects completely gone from one’s life should be treated with full acceptance. Without any question, Oliver and Bishop’s inspirational language brings immeasurable help in sweeping the dust of readers as they deal with the unease from prior experiences.
Via separate efforts involving rich sets of literary methods, Oliver and Bishop deliver high clarity in announcing their vision that unavoidable past damages and low points of life could be overcome, at the same time, guiding people toward a road of recoveries. As one notable element in both “The Uses of Sorrow” and “One Art”, the subtly arranged imagery composed of different categories of daily objects plays as one beneficial step in deepening impressions left on readers. Portrayals of personas that display an individualized feature function to add the credibility of perspectives of two poets on the subject. Further, the similar tones made possible by meanings of words that point out an openness towards frustrating past events purify souls of the appreciators. Superior services generated by these writing choices aim to enlighten the world about taking calm and confident gestures in handling their relations to dark sides of past issues taking on different forms.