Zusammenfassung der Ressource
One Art - Elizabeth Bishop
- There are two ways to read the poem
- i. The speaker is lying - she is trying to convince
herself but knows she won't recover from the loss.
- ii. It feels like a disaster but
she can eventually recover.
- Structure
- Villanelle
- Has 5 tercets and one quatrain
- Two rhymes (in this poem -aster, -ent)
- Two refrains: line 1 becomes
line 6, 12 and 18; line 3
becomes line 9, 15, and 19
- In the end the poem feels forced -
she is repeating herself to impose
structure on experience of loss.
- Because of the villanelle, we know
the final word will be 'disaster' so
creates a sense of inevitability
- Has idea of two at the heart of its course
- Losses in poems escalate from keys, to names, to a
mother's watch, to a continent (a hyperbole? - so
exaggerated we don't believe her) to a loved one.
- Themes
- Loss and grief
- Relationships
- Voice and tone
- Begins boldly - narrator sounds
self-confident and even fussy as she's
instructing us that she has the answers.
- Reassuring us and trying to be
brave at the same time
- Breaks down in end
- Addition of 'too' in 'the art of losing's not too hard to
master' and repetition of 'like' as she stutters to repeat
her mantra appear to be a struggle and denial of truth.
She's vulnerable and can't maintain her facade.
- Language
- Image of 'two cities' and 'two rivers' could
represent her relationship with her partner.
- Loss of one means the loss of both