'Comparative Essay: the Elegy\r'

'The poesys â€Å"In Memoriam,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson and â€Å"The isolated Citizen,” by W. H. Auden are opposite in their public approach and poetic structure and effectively vary different impressions on the referee. Through Tennyson’s melodic and expressive approach, â€Å"In Memoriam” draws our attention to the pain and credenza of human loss. However, â€Å"The apart(p) Citizen,” with its non-traditional poetic form and grotesque perspective, makes us think rough the ways in which we define human importance in forward-looking society. Each of the two meters uses different poetic devices to overtake their messages.Tennyson’s stanzas are written in quatrains quest the rhyme pattern of ABBA. Each stanza resolves itself, making it touched for the lector to easily move on to the adjacent verse. Through this construction the reader experiences Tennyson’s skin to move on with life after the closure of his loss. This resilience is embodied in the breeding of the poem due to its great length as a compilation of 131 poems. In contrast, â€Å"The Unknown Citizen” follows a irregular yet witty rhyme pattern passim its brief 29 lines, including patterns such(prenominal) as ABAB, AA, BB, and ABBCCA which makes it little lyrical.The rhymes in this poem happen seamlessly yet do not distract the reader from the main edifying focus of each line. Tennyson’s use of repetition and eitheriteration within stanzas in poems 8 and one hundred fifteen communicate the personal and ablaze qualities of the poem: He saddens, all(a) the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall And the place is dark, and all The Chambers emptied of delight …………………………………………………………………… Now rings the timbre showy and long The distance takes a lovelier m odify And drowned in yonder living blue The lark about(predicate) becomes a sightless song (Tennyson, 8, 115)As displayed in these verses, the sense of humour of â€Å"In Memoriam” shifts from sadness early on in section 8 towards happiness much posterior in section 115. The repetition of the word â€Å"all” in relation to the absence of light and concourse in the common places like the ‘bower’ (garden) and hallways, leaves the reader with an emptied feeling and a sense of total loss. after on, alliteration is used to emphasize words with collateral connotations such as â€Å"loud” â€Å"long” â€Å"lovelier” and â€Å"living. ” The loud and long distances of the woodland now seem vivacious and full of hope for the future.Through these lyrical verses, the reader enjoys the bang in nature’s sights and sounds. In â€Å"The Unknown Citizen”, Auden uses a simpler more neutral approach omitting devices such as a lliteration and repetition, which makes his dirge more of a report than an expressive or celebratory check like that of Tennyson’s. By Auden’s straightforward approach, the reader immediately gets an understanding from the first two lines about who is reporting on the end and what was thought about the unknown citizen.There is no presentation or suppuration of ablaze themes associated with mourning: He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, (Auden, 1-2) Throughout the rest of the poem Auden only quantifies and qualifies the subject’s worldly belongings and accomplishments: He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan And had everything demand to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a railcar and a Frigidaire. Auden, 19-21) â€Å"In Memoriam” follows a natural emotional make for that is characteristic of the elegy and reminds the reader of elements of Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. â€Å"The Unknown Citizen” uses the elegy in an unconventional way; not to mourn the death of a rattling person, notwithstanding to intellectually insure the notion of an idealized citizen. This reminds the reader of Sigmund Freud’s surmise of mourning where a loss can be that of an abstraction rather than a specific person. The poem acknowledges the citizen’s lifelong achievements which appear adequate but mundane.It is not until the ending couplet that we get a sense of what Auden is communicating when he introduces the notion of an emotional theme for the first time: Was he cease? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should sure enough have heard. (Auden, 28-29) It appears that Auden is asking the reader to contemplate the influence by which we evaluate a person’s life. Although the bureaucracy of society might be substance with our conduct , we should be aware of how statistics and research ignore our fictitious character of life as unique individuals.In comparison, each elegy communicates a different experience of mourning and is reach in what it impresses on the reader. When reading Tennyson’s poem, I feel as though I am participating in a genuine process of human mourning through a real life perspective and lyrical poetic structure. When reading Auden’s poem I feel complimentary from the subject, due to his hypothetical point of view and wishing of expressive poetry. The two elegies impact the reader in different ways they are both extremely effective in their objectives.\r\n'