Everybody knows the feeling of losing little things. For most of us, the list of these things is very long. We lose pens and pencil cases at school, scarfs and gloves on trains or keys and wallets in restaurants. Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art”, which was published in her 1976 volume Geography III, can be read as an instruction on how to deal with our losses. In her essay „Bishop’s Sexual Poetics“, Joanne Feit Diehl argues that the poem presents “a series of losses as if to reassure both its author and its reader that control is possible“ (24). Its aim, as is the case with all of Bishop’s work, is not to be assigned into any particular classification (Vendler 294). Rather the poem reads like a lecture by an expert who teaches us “the art of losing”. In this term paper,
I will show that Bishop’s “One Art” initially succeeds in building up an indifferent façade. However, in the course of the poem, the lyrical I realises that she cannot apply her approach to the loss of a person. While “One Art” serves as a recipe on how to deal with small everyday losses, it fails to provide strategies for coping with significant losses in life we all have to face.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- "One Art": A Lesson in Losing?
- Conclusion
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
Elizabeth Bishop's poem "One Art" explores the themes of loss and coping mechanisms through a series of personal experiences. The poem offers a seemingly simple instruction on how to deal with loss, but ultimately reveals the complexities and challenges of confronting significant loss in life.
- The art of losing as a coping mechanism
- The difference between losing objects and losing loved ones
- The use of poetic form to underscore the theme of loss
- The personal and universal aspects of loss
- The struggle for emotional control
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
- Introduction: This section provides a brief overview of Bishop's poem "One Art" and its themes. It introduces the idea of the poem as a lesson in losing, particularly focusing on the distinction between losing objects and losing loved ones.
- "One Art": A Lesson in Losing?: This chapter examines the poem's structure and themes in more detail. It analyzes the speaker's journey from coping with mundane losses to confronting the emotional weight of losing someone they love. The villanelle form and the speaker's use of language are discussed as integral elements in conveying the poem's message.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
The main keywords and focus topics of the text are: Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art", loss, coping, emotional control, villanelle, everyday objects, loved ones, personal experience, universal themes, poetry analysis.
- Quote paper
- Sabine Strebel (Author), 2017, The Confession of Self-Deception in Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/412603
