Essay on Poetry Analysis - The Fish - 666 Words

The Fish is a narrative monologue composed for 76 free-verse lines. The poem is constructed as one long stanza. The author is the speaker narrating this poem. She narrates a fishing experience. The author is out in a rented boat on a body of water, presumably a lake. She tries to describe the fish to the fullest, which appears to be the purpose of the poem, without saying either the specie or an approximate age. The narration gives the impression that the fish is slightly old. There are a number of reasons as to why that fish got caught by the author, including time of day, the weeds weighing it down, fish’s age, and the fact that it has been previously caught five times. This poem is full of visual imagery; one can imagine being the†¦show more content†¦Next, the speaker talks about the fish’s eyes, larger, shallower, and yellower than hers. The different pieces of fishing line caught in his jaw shows how many times he either escaped or was let go by the other fishers. Then the description of the rented boat, the parts of the boat that all turned into a rainbow. There are four examples of assonance in this poem, lines 6-7, 10, 14-15, and 21. In lines 6-7, fought/all and hung/grunting are assonants. In line 10, skin/strips are assonants and also the speaker uses hung again which she used earlier in line 7 to reiterate that the fish is dying. Blown/roses and stained/age are assonants in lines 14-15. Line 21 is the last line in this poem to employ assonance, green/weed and also the third line to use â€Å"hung†. The fish hanging on both describes its age as well as its weight. There is also repetition of â€Å"rainbow† four times, lines 69 and 75, which shows that she had a â€Å"vision† or a transformation that caused her to release the fish. The author’s diction is easy to understand, not complicated fisherman dialect. In lines 8 and 9, she uses words that offer a precise description of the fish, battered and v enerable and homely. But she also employs words that show that she has knowledge of fishing, such as, shiny entrails (line 31), and isinglass (line 41). There is a little irony in the poem. In lines 5 and 6, the author says, He didnt fight. He hadnt fought atShow MoreRelated Formalistic Approach to Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat (Favourite)599 Words   |  3 Pages Formalistic Approach to Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat (Favourite)nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp; Formal analysis of poetry helps to unfold the underlying meaning of a poem. This technique does not focus on the author of the poem, or what was happening in history during the time when the poem was written, but instead puts emphasis on the actual mean of the work. Formal analysis breaths life into the literary work and allows the poem to speak for itself. 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