1. Prepared by: Khushbu Lakhupota
MA Sem2 Batch 2020-2022
Literary Theory, Criticism & Indian Aesthetics
Email Id: khushbu22jan93@gmail.com
I. A. RICHARD'S FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
To: Department of English, MKBU.
2.
3. Poem Piano by D. H. Lawrence
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
4. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the
past.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN POETRY
Caesura: occurs when the poet uses a pause in the middle of a
line, either through the use of punctuation or meter. For example,
“With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour” in the
above final stanza.
5. ● “In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.”
● Enjambment: when the poet cuts off a line before its natural
stopping point. For example, the transition between lines one, two,
and three of the above stanza.
● Alliteration: occurs when the poet uses the same consonant sounds
at the beginning of words. For example, “poised” and “pressing” in
stanza one and “parlour” and “piano” at the end of stanza two.
6. ● “The tingling strings” is an onomatopoeia that portrays the
sounds of the piano and creates a literary effect.
● Furthermore, the lyrical voice says that the song of the woman
takes him/her back to the “vista of years,” serving as a metaphor
for his/her childhood memories.
● “Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong” is
powerful imagery to portray the lyrical voice’s wish to live
his/her childhood memories again. The heart is personified and
given the human capacity of crying.
● In the last line, there is a simile (“I weep like a child”) in order to
emphasize the act of crying and how this memory affected the
lyrical voice.
7. THE BANGLE SELLERS BY SAROJINI NAIDU
Bangle sellers are we who bear
Our shining loads to the temple fair...
Who will buy these delicate, bright
Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.
Some are meet for a maiden's wrist,
Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
Some are flushed like the buds that dream
On the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
Some are aglow wth the bloom that cleaves
To the limpid glory of new born leaves
8. Some are like fields of sunlit corn,
Meet for a bride on her bridal morn,
Some, like the flame of her marriage fire,
Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire,
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
Like her bridal laughter and bridal tear.
Some are purple and gold flecked grey
For she who has journeyed through life midway,
Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest,
And cradled fair sons on her faithful breast,
And serves her household in fruitful pride,
And worships the gods at her husband's side.
9. Poetic and Literary Devices
Sarojini Naidu’s poem ‘The
Bangle Sellers’ in terms of
using literary devices. Here
too we find imagery, simile,
metaphor, anaphora, and
other poetic devices and
figures of speech employed to
express her command over
the language.
10. Simile
Since the poem associates the colors of bangles to the stages of
women, we could see a lot of comparisons being made by the poet. In
the second stanza, while describing the colors suitable for young
maidens she uses the similes “Silver and blue as the mountain mist”
and “Some are flushed like the buds that dream.” Again, in the third
stanza too, the poet compares the colors of bangle for a bride to the
“fields of sunlit corn,” and “flame of her marriage fire.” The simile
used in the last line of the third stanza “bridal laughter and bridal
tear” comprises the joy and sorrow of getting married.
11. Metaphors
The poet has employed Metaphors also to make comparisons.
Compared to the simile’s they are crisp and direct. In the first
stanza she addresses the bangles as “Rainbow-tinted circles of light,”
and the heaviness of their life and the bangle is called “shining
loads.” In the second stanza, the young maiden’s are compared to
the “buds that bloom” to picture the color “rosy-red.”
12. Imagery
Besides the use of simile and metaphor the poet has skillfully
employed ‘Imagery.’ Her adept use of words creates images in the
mind of the readers. One could visualize the “mountain mist,” “buds
that dream”, “new born leaves” and “flame of her marriage fire”
and the ‘tinkling’ sound. They beautifully describe the scene.
13. Alliteration
Alliteration is a poetic device denotes the consonant sounds that are
repeated in two or more words in a sentence. In this poem, we could
see that the sound ‘h’ is repeated in two lines that are located next to
or near each other. “Or, rich with the hue of her heart’s desire” and
“Whose hands have cherished, whose love has blest”.
14. Rhetorical Questions
The poet uses the rhetorical question in the first passage,
which pays the way for further development in the poem.
While advertising the quality of their bangles, also while
wondering about his/her prospective customer the speaker
asks, “Who will buy these delicate, bright/ Rainbow-tinted
circles of light?”
15. Anaphora
The poet has used the rhetorical device anaphora
when describing the ideal wife or a complete
woman. Consecutive three lines in the last stanza
begin with the word “and” making emphasis on the
incidents marking woman a good wife.
16. Works Cited
● Abella, Julieta. "Please Wait..." Please Wait... | Cloudflare,
poemanalysis.com/d-h-lawrence/piano/.
● Alb, Miz. "Please Wait..." Please Wait... | Cloudflare,
poemanalysis.com/sarojini-naidu/the-bangle-sellers/.
● Lawrence, D. H. "Piano by D. H. Lawrence." Poetry Foundation,
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44580/piano.
● Naidu, Sarojini. "The Bangle Sellers by Sarojini Naidu." All Poetry
- The World's Largest Poetry Site : All Poetry, allpoetry.com/The-
Bangle-Sellers.
