Analysis of Fire and Ice by Robert Forst Essay

This article tries to analyze the queer features in structure, lyric metrical composition, phonology, syntax and rhetoric in the rime of 40-Love by British poet Roger McGough in order to surrender a deeper understanding of the content and form of a metrical composition. Keywords McGough, 40-Love, Love, Style 1. Introduction It is well known that in a novelty of literary genres, the form of poetry has been stressed most. Efforts assimilate been exerted on the dainty combination of rhythm and structure to create numerous great working all over the world. Modern Ameri butt poet E. E. Cummings (1884-1962) is a sizable case in point.He is famous for odd style, novel and unique form in the poetic world. His l (a has been regarded as the the most dandified and beautiful structure of the literature created by Cummings. (Kennedy, 1980). in that locationfore, his poems ar noneworthy as poem picture or optic poetry, or the concrete poetry that we be quite familiar with. The f eatures of it is that vivid visual images of words coming from irregular syllables, letters, punctuation, syntax, format and print strengthen the internal imagination of poetry, deepen the artistic conception, convey and enrich the con nonation. (Abrams, 2005). Coincidentally, besides E. E.Cummings, coeval British poet Roger McGough (1937- ) is an new(prenominal) master in writing concrete poems. His 40-Love can be considered as one of the greatest concrete poems. McGough is the second of the triplet in Liverpool Group. The different two argon Henry Adrian Henri and Patan Brian Patten. McGough, born in 1937, 5 years younger than Henry, is always in naughty mentality. His poems are right-hand(a) of secular fun and display more profound demeanor from the perspective of a child. This article, from the viewpoint of stylistics, analyzes the features of structure, words, phonology, syntax and rhetoric in the poem of 40-Love in order to gain a eeper understanding of this poem. 2. S tylistic psychoanalysis Greek poet Simonides once said, Poetry is the picture with sound while the pictures are the silent poems. (Zhu, 2005). That is to say, the content of a poem must be unite with its form to achieve its perfection, namely, the combination of form and animation, what we much cherish. Here we ordain try to find how Mcgough do it in his 40-Love. The poem tells that a old couple is playing tennis. Then they go home. exactly the clear upwork is silent between them. It reflects the gap between old couples.I volition name the poem here to help to explain my opinion. 40-Love (Peng, 2000) core couple tenwhen racy and go the 118 aged playing nis the ends they home net Asian amicable Science will be tween 2. 1 Structure still be them June, 2009 As a consentient, the poem has a total of 20 words. But the two words tennis and between are separated by hyphens to be symmetric in structure. The words in the poem are set in two sequences, ilk two sides of the couple. The middle dope or empty is like a net to separate the two. There are only two words in each draw in to symbolize the bouts of the orb.The title of 40-love, the top of the net, is right on the top of the poem, signifying the scoreboard. This poem looks like a tennis court with a net universe utilize to separate the words. It is like a tennis game. This side serves and the other side hits back. Many bouts form the poem. The invisible net is like the rampart between the old couple. Even if they finish the tennis game, they still have the net, which still exists invisibly. However, it is this net that they can depend on to handle their hymeneals and have the responsibilities not to break the rules.There is a net in tennis and there are rules to obey. With the net, there are more bother and more interests. So, accordingly, more training and attention is a must. Imagining that, when playing tennis with no net or rules, wad would feel difficult to culture their games f or longer period. In addition, only the letter of L of Love in the title is capitalized and the rest is de-capitalized, which shows that, to some extent, the couple has not been in the pursuit of the perfect details again, because love between the middle-aged couple has attenuate away.Furthermore, there is no punctuation in the whole poem, indicating that support of mating is come togetherd and uninteresting. Since there is no end, gap appears. 2. 2 Words The poet pays supernumerary attention to the words in the poem. First of all, the title 40-Love one of interests incorporated in the poem. The class of 40 stands for the age of middle-aged people. And 40-Love is a tally term in tennis. Tennis scoring is love, 15, 30 and 45 in sequence. Love here means zero. Three goals scores 40. No goals, no score. Thus, the title is of pun with two meanings. One refers to be 40-year-old love and the other is 30.Whether 40-year-old love is vain or not depends on attitudes of the two partie s. Let come to two words of middle and aged in the first line. Middle-aged means people are in their midlife. The poet designedly separates it to achieve the reunification of form and others. It also symbolizes that middle-aged economise and wife can not be integrated again. The two important words of tennis and between are placed in two tumid columns to get a metaphorical meaning that there is an invisible net in the emotional world of the man and the woman. They are not adumbrate any longer. Game in the fifth line can be referred as either play game or sport. The scoring in tennis competition is more complex. Tennis game has games and sets. In a game, those who win 15, 30 and 45 will get one point. And the shammer who gets 6 points will win one set. In the poem, the couple does not finish even one game and go home since they have a deep estrangement. Still in the ninth line shows that the middle-aged husband and wife have ineffable anguish and can not get rid of their unplea santness and gain relaxed though they make concessions as faraway as possible. 2. Phonology Words in the poem are basically monosyllabic. They are mechanical and boring to read and easy to suggest that the life of the couple is dull and lack of amenities. From the perspective of phonology, the short vowel such as /i/, is used for many ages in the poem to leave the pressing impression to the readers to realize the urgent emotional crisis of the middle-aged couple. But there is slowness in the urgency. The diphthong /ei/ and / u/ are engaged to slow down the speech rate and demonstrate that the middle-aged people have become calm and unhurried when dealing with things.Especially, the long vowel / i / in tween in the last line leaves enough time for the middle-aged couple in crisis to think over the issue. In addition, there are rhymes in the poem, such as, middle and couple, ten and when, game and they, go and home, will and still. Rhymes here fleet the readers boredom, and sym bolize the dull life of the middle-aged couple. Moreover, the alliterations of be and be-, tween and them, make the two words close and imply that the middle-aged husband and wife still have the ties that can not be cut off although there is a gap between them. 2. phrase structure For the convenience of analysis, I rearrange the order of the whole poem middle aged couple playing ten-nis when the game ends and they go home the net will still be be-tween them. First of all, from the angle of tense, the plain and directly present tense, used from the beginning to the right end of the poem, indicates the dull or prosaic marriage life of the middle-aged couple. Nevertheless, playing is used unconventionally. If plays is used here, readers will know that the couple play tennis often sooner than occasionally. There will be not much gap between them. Playing indicates that there is absence of regular communication between the husband and wife. It stresses that it is just at this moment th at they are playing tennis. In disapprobation structure, there is a time adverb when to combine the sentence. As usual, however, there is no alliance of and between the main clause and the subordinate clause. Thus and is added here to deliberately create a loose state, suggesting that there is no close contact between the husband and wife. And there should be an adversative conjunction of but in front of the next sentence the net will still be be-tween them.As we 119 Vol. 5, No. 6 Asian affable Science all know, an adversative conjunction word usually give people an unexpected, rising and falling impression. The word but is omitted here to necessarily imply that life of the middle-aged couple is no longer full of ups and downs, great happiness or sadness. 2. 5 figure of speech Poets often use figure of speech because, as Emily Dickinson once said, the mission of a poet is to speak the truth, but to put it in an implicit way in order to seize the readers interest and stimulate th eir imagination.In the poem of 40-love, the poet employs the figure of speech, e. g. metaphor. On the one hand, in form, the blank along the net is like a net to suggest the gap between the middle-aged couple. On the other hand, everyday life is like playing games. Everybody hit the ball to the others. Such routine game results in no passion at last. Moreover, in my opinion, the writing technique of understatement is employed in this poem. The tone of the whole poem is calm, without any fluctuating. However, it is the deliberate understatement that discloses the theme of the poem incisively and vividly. . inference This poem written by McGouph with unique style has rich intension in its unique form. In this poem with perfect combination of the spirit and form, the emotional gap of the middle-aged couple can be discerned and explicit by the stylistic techniques in the structure, words, phonology, syntax and figure of speech. In secureness Wall, a poem written by American poet Robe rt Frost, the neighbor is intransigency and stubborn. Even at the last line of the poem, he still murmurs that good smothers make good neighbors (GU, 2005).Every couple, therefore, especially the middle-aged couples, should pull the fence between them down, believing good communication makes good couples. References Abrams, M H. (2005). A Glossary of Literary Terms. Beijing Foreign language Teaching and Reasearch Press. Gu, Zhengkun. (2005). exchequer of Appreciating English Poems, Volume of Poetry. Kennedy, Richard S. (1980). Dreams in the Mirror A Biography of EE Cummings. New York Liveright. Peng, Yu. (2000). Two Concrete Poems. College English. Zhu, Guangqian. (2005). Poetics. Shanghai Century Publishing Group. cxx