The Poems of Lord Rochester Literary Elements

The Poems of Lord Rochester Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

"Constancy" is told from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view narrator.

Form and Meter

The poems are written in an iambic pentameter.

Metaphors and Similes

Nakedness is used in the poem "The Imperfect Enjoyment" as a metaphor to represent sexual pleasures.

Alliteration and Assonance

We have an alliteration in the lines "Two rival fleets appearing from afar, / Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill;" in the poem "The Disabled Debauchee".

Irony

One of the main ironic ideas we find in the poems is that the characters still try to find a person to love them even though they have been hurt in the past by their lovers time and time again.

Genre

"Constancy" is a meditative poem on death.

Setting

The action described in "The Imperfect Enjoyment" takes place inside the narrator's own home.

Tone

The tone used in "The Imperfect Enjoyment" is a sensual and sexual one.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist in "Love and Life: A Song" is the narrator and the antagonist is the lover.

Major Conflict

The major conflict in "Constancy" is between life and death.

Climax

"The Imperfect Enjoyment" reaches its climax when the narrator achieves sexual bliss.

Foreshadowing

No foreshadowing elements can be found in any of the poems.

Understatement

At the beginning of the poem "The Disabled Debauchee" the narrator describes the commander as a brave ruler who is not afraid of death. This is proven to be an understatement because the commander is later described as watching the whole fight from afar and from safety.

Allusions

The main allusion in the poem "The Disabled Debauchee" is that the ruling class will never get involved in any fights which may put their lives in danger, always choosing instead to send others to their death when this is possible.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

In the poem "Love and Life: A Song" the narrator uses the term song to make reference to joy and happiness.

Personification

We have a personification in the line "The flying hours are gone," in the poem "Love and Life: A Song".

Hyperbole

We have a personification in the line "My fluttering soul, sprung with the pointed kiss," in the poem "The Imperfect Enjoyment".

Onomatopoeia

We have an onomatopoeia in the line "The sighs that now unpitied rise;" in the poem "Constancy".

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