W.S Merwin: Separation by W.S Merwin

Friday, April 15, 2011

Separation by W.S Merwin

Separation by W.S Merwin

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

Analysis:

This is one of those poems in which leaves us with endless questions and presumptions abound.

The short, fluid style again leaves much to interpretation and individual analysis.

The poem clearly is about ones love.

The first line tells the reader that the special someone is “absent”, but the following words elude to the fact this love has either left a lasting impression on him, or he has gotten over it.

“Like a thread through a needle” might signify the symbiotic relation the couple engaged in. It also may represent their intertwined lives, emotions and love. Finally the last the line gives the reader a sense that this love truly did have a lasting effect on Merwin. “Everything I do is stitched with its color” may literally mean that everything he does has been effected in someway by this love.

The poem is too short to have plethora of literary devices, but Merwin does employ the use of METPAHOR and ALLUSION, as non- discriminate as it may be.

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Lit. Devices

Allusion: A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. Allusions conjure up biblical authority, scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, historic figures, wars, great love stories, and anything else that might enrich an author’s work.
Anaphora: The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs.
Apostrophe: An address, either to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman that cannot comprehend. Apostrophe often provides a speaker the opportunity to think aloud.
Cacophony: Language that is discordant and difficult to pronounce, such as this line from John Updike’s "Player Piano": "never my numb plunker fumbles." Cacophony ("bad sound") may be unintentional in the writer’s sense of music, or it may be used consciously for deliberate dramatic effect.
Caesura: A pause within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line. A caesura can occur anywhere within a line and need not be indicated by punctuation.
Conceit: An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor.
Elision: Omission of a final or initial sound in pronunciation.
Enjambment: In poetry, when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning. This is also called a run-on line.
Envoi: A short stanza at the end of a poem used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.
Euphemism: The substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener.
Euphony: ("good sound") refers to language that is smooth and musically pleasant to the ear.
Figurative Language: A type of language that varies from the norms of literal language, in which words mean exactly what they say.
Litotes: Creation of a positive or opposite idea through negation.
Metonymy: Substituting a word for another word closely associated with it.
Scansion: The analysis of verse into its metrical or rhythmic components.
Trope: Figure of speech; figurative language.