Louise Gluck: Poems Literary Elements

Louise Gluck: Poems Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The poem “Celestial Music” is told from the perspective of a first person subjective point of view.

Form and Meter

The poems have no form and meter because they are written in blank verse.

Metaphors and Similes

In the beginning of the poem “The Wild Iris” the narrator describes a door which he sees at the end of his sufferings. The door is used in this case as a metaphor to represent the ending of the narrator’s suffering and the possibility of the end of his problems.

Alliteration and Assonance

We have an alliteration in the lines “When I look up, nothing./ Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees” in the poem “Celestial Music”.

Irony

We have an ironic element in the poem “The Wild Iris” in which the narrator thinks about the idea of living as something tragic while the idea of dying is something appealing to the narrator.

Genre

The poem “Celestial Music” is a meditative poem on the possibility of the existence of a God.

Setting

The action in “October” takes place in the month mentioned in the title of the poem, inside a wilted garden.

Tone

The tone in the poem “The Wild Iris” is a tense and dramatic one.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist in “Horse” is the narrator and the antagonist is the animal described in the poem.

Major Conflict

The major conflict in the poem “October” is between life and death.

Climax

The poem “Horse” reaches its climax when the narrator realizes that the horse is not his enemy but rather just like him.

Foreshadowing

The extreme cold mentioned in the first line of the poem “October” foreshadows the description of the dead plants in the later stanzas of the poem.

Understatement

In the second poem “Celestial Music” the narrator calls the death of a caterpillar a disaster. This is later proven to be an understatement when other much more catastrophic events are mentioned.

Allusions

In the poem “Horse” the narrator alludes the idea that sometimes, many people find more comfort in their animals rather than in the people who are close to them.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

We have a personification in the poem “October” in the line “didn't vines climb the south wall”.

Hyperbole

We have a hyperbole in the poem “Horse” in the lines “I watch you when you are alone,/ When you ride into the field behind the dairy”.

Onomatopoeia

We find an onomatopoeia in the poem “October” in the line “voice for the wind's cries, whistling over the bare ground”.

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