Discuss The Meaning Of The Poem

Discuss The Meaning Of The Poem

(Iambic dimeter usually expresses energetic position of author) This simple metrical pattern gives an illusion of simplicity of this poem. However, this simplicity isn’t that simple as reader can think. The Red Wheelbarrow is the poem about life as a whole even though there is no people, action, and movement. All the reader has is somebody who observes surroundings without any conclusion. The meaninglessness of the content, in the first view, confuses readers and that stimulates them to think about possible meanings more deeply. Stressful words “ upon”, “barrow”, “water”, “chickens” are archetypal so the special line stresses them out. The author doesn’t use rhymes, instead, he create the poem not only for ears, but also for eyes. Impressionistic motives of the poem associate with certain time and art tendencies that give the glue to the meanings of the poem. The Red Wheelbarrow is clearly modern poem where poet experiments with rhymes, metrical patterns and meanings in order to get reader’s attention. Author points that there is not irrelevant details in the world and in the life when such a trivial picture can influent philosophical thoughts. Absense of the capital letters proves this intention. Moreover, there is one more literary illusion: the genre of Japanese poetry, hokku, even though, the poetic form of The Red Wheelbarrow isn’t authentic to the ancient genre. According to the definition of hokku or haiku in Britannica, “the form was restricted in subject matter to an objective description of nature suggestive of one of the seasons, evoking a definite, though unstated, emotional response. Later its subject range was broadened, but it remained an art of expressing much and suggesting more in the fewest possible words”, reader can confirm that author of the Red Wheelbarrow has the same goals as Japanese poets. As the poetic form suggests, reader has to build his own meaning of the poem to fulfill the images.

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