Poetry Explication on One Art

Loss of One Is it possible to care for one thing so much that the destruction or loss of a city can have no significance to a person? When a person loses so much on a daily basis, when does the loss start to make a difference? In the poem "One Art", Elizabeth Bishop utilizes structure, rhyme scheme, and conceptual symbolism to portray that the loss of one's love negates the loss of everything else. To begin, the structure of this poem is entirely about the narrator attempting to convince themself of the idea that loss has no importance; then coming to the onclusion that losing one's love is of utmost importance.

In the second stanza the narrator of this poem reminds themselves that to "Lose something every day. [One must] Accept the fluster" (line 4). In this quote, they are reminding themselves that losing things is common and inevitable. In the same light, this person is feverously trying to convince themself that loss is not significant. This is shown with the repetition of the line which is found three times throughout the poem. The quote, "none of these things will bring disaster" shows that the loss of cities and rivers is not ignificant to the narrator compared to the loss of their love (line 9).

Then, in the last stanza the narrator realizes that the loss of their love is a "disaster" and forces themselves to "Write it! " (line 19). With this quote the narrator finally gives up on their feeble attempts to believe that loss is insignificant and now knows that the greatest loss is the loss of love. Correspondingly, the last stanza is the longest in the poem, which shows how great the importance is to Bishop, because this is where the arrator realizes that the only disaster of losing things is when one loses their love.

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Bishop uses her rhyme scheme to highlight the priority of losing one's love. Correspondingly, the first stanza rhyme scheme is a b a, as the lines rhyming with master and disaster. Through this rhyme scheme Bishop emphasizes the importance of "disaster" (line 9) by having the majority of her poem rhyme with disaster. With this in mind, the entire poem except the last stanza of this poem is in an a b a rhyme scheme. The last stanzas rhyme scheme is a b a a which directs the reader's ttention to the last couplet because it is out of order of the a b a rhyme scheme.

As a result, the reader could infer that the last couplet is the main idea of the poem. The last couplet of the poem is the narrator coming to the realization that even though losing things is not hard to do and it occurs often there are things that if they were lost the result would be a "disaster" (line 9). This proves the idea that when one loses significant things it has a larger impact that losing something insignificant would. Furthermore, Bishop utilizes conceptual symbolism to portray the significance of ach thing to be lost by labeling them with numbers.

In the last three stanzas, the narrator states things they have lost throughout time and distances. Bishop uses conceptual symbolism when she begins with the loss of "three loved houses" (line 1 1); adding the number three in front of the house gives the impression that the houses are in the third rank in how great the loss is. She then continues to explain in the tittn stanza that there was a loss ot o cities" (line "two rivers" (line which makes the loss of these cities and rivers rank second.

She then explains that the loss of these things was evident "but it wasn't a disaster" (line 15). Moreover, this shows that what is ranked first is of a greater loss than the loss of two cities and two life sources that are rivers. Lastly, in the last stanza Bishop described the greatest loss which was losing her love. It is established that this is greatest loss because it is in the last stanza and there isn't a number to rank it. Therefore, the loss of her love is also considered the greatest loss because in this stanza Bishop finally states that this oss is "like disaster" (line 19).

To conclude, this narrator is putting the loss of her love above all worldly things. Bishop emphasizes the word disaster in order to convince herself that Just like the inanimate objects in her life, this love is insignificant. Her contradicting thoughts are placed in a way presenting that she knows this love with a specific person cannot compare with anything else she has lost in life. The narrator knows the loss of ones love can never be compared to the loss of inanimate objects or other worldly things.

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