Richard Wilbur: Poems Themes

Richard Wilbur: Poems Themes

“Endings”

Endings are unequivocally foreseeable. The winter announces the culmination of a year. The end is a splinter of change: “These sudden ends of time must give us pause. /We fray into the future, rarely wrought.” The afterthoughts that trail endings groom individuals for the future. For the future to materialize there must be a termination of history and of the present. The winter equips humanity for additional forthcoming seasons such as spring. So finales subsidize the steadiness of change.

“Under a Tree”

Richard Wilbur portrays a tree as an ideal milieu for both allegorical and classic chronicles. With regard to mythology, Wilbur elucidates, “We know those tales of gods in hot pursuit/Who frightened wood nymphs into taking root/ And changing then into a branchy shape.” The mythological account integrates the image of a tree to relay covert morals concerning rape. Comparatively, concerning classic tales, Richard Wilburn writes, “But this, we say, is more how love is made-/Ply and reply of limbs in fireshort shade.” The classic love panorama proceeds underneath a tree. Therefore, the tree’s shade exemplifies classicism and mythos.

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