One Art Literary Elements

An unidentified first-person speaker

Villanelle in iambic pentameter, with some modifications

The concept of loss is itself used as an extended metaphor, encompassing the "loss" of time, memory, and place in addition to inanimate objects.
Artistry and artistic practice are also used as an extended metaphor, so that loss is treated as an art form to be practiced, mastered, and learned.

The phrase "losing farther, losing faster," uses alliteration, repeating both beginning "l" and "f" sounds.
The phrase "Look! My last," uses alliterative "l" sounds.
The phrase "The art of losing isn't hard" uses assonance, with its repeating, long "a" sounds.
The phrase "losing you" uses assonance, with two repeating long "o" sounds.

The speaker claims to believe that loss need not be an upsetting or impactful experience, but is clearly impacted by a variety of upsetting losses. Depending on one's reading, this may be a case of either dramatic or verbal irony. The speaker may not realize, even though the reader does, that they themself are affected by loss. This would be an example of dramatic irony. However, the speaker may be using sarcasm, at least towards the end of the poem, in which case this is an instance of verbal irony.

Lyric poetry

The poem has no clear setting; very broadly, it seems to take place in Elizabeth Bishop's 20th-century America.

By turns determined, tender, severe

Protagonist: the speaker of the poem. Antagonist: the idea of loss.

The central conflict is the speaker's attempt to overcome large and small losses, particularly the loss of the "you" addressed in the final stanza.

The poem's climax is the revelation in the final stanza that the speaker is dealing with the loss of a loved one.

The phrase "so many things seem filled with the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster" hints at the potential for loss in all things, foreshadowing the ever-greater and more devastating losses that will be described later in the poem.

The poem as a whole centers around a fundamental understatement, in which intense grief and nostalgia are described as being similar to the loss of small objects. This understatement reveals the speaker's attempt to overcome grief by denying and understating its impact.

The poem contains no visible allusions.

The "mother's watch" refers literally to a watch, but also can be understood as a metonymic representation of the mother herself, or else of the relationship between the speaker and the mother.

Lost objects and concepts are personified and imbued with intentionality in the phrase "so many things seem filled with the intent/to be lost."

The speaker's statement that they have lost geographical places—rivers, cities, and even continents—is hyperbolic. Readers are not meant to assume that the speaker has literally lost an entire continent, but rather to understand that their distance from certain places feels as dramatic as a loss.

The word "loss," with its sibilant, fading ending, onomatopoetically echoes the experience of ending, loss, and separation.