Mezzo Cammin
The poem Mezzo Cammin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow explains his regretful life and his reasoning at why he didn’t live it to its full potential and how he looks at his past. It then looks to his future as being near and bearing a huge weight down on him. The way Longfellow talks about his life is depressing. He doesn’t speak of the good accomplishments, only the things he hasn’t done until he looks back into the past and then forward at how the future may be.
In the first part of the poem Longfellow talks about his life being halfway over and everything that stopped him from really living his life. In the very first couple of lines he says “I have let the years slip from me and have not fulfilled the aspiration of my youth, to build some tower of song with lofty parapet.” This talks about what he wishes he could’ve done while he was young and the things he wishes he accomplished were extraordinary things, so his regret is unneeded in my perspective. He goes on to explain he cared to much about the world around him to get the things he wanted done, “Of restless passions that would not be stilled, but sorrow, and a care that almost killed, kept me from what I may accomplish yet;”.
After telling of all the regrets he has, he metaphorically explains his life as a hill and he is at the peak looking back to the past. He sees it as a city “A city in the twilight dim and vast, with smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights”. The way he explains the city seems very peaceful. The way he describes soft bells and gleaming lights doesn’t seem like a horrible place to be. This makes his look on his past questionable as if he sees the regret as something silly now, and he doesn’t still feel those feelings because his past was a good place.
Or in another view he could be seeing his past as boring and nothing really occurred. He describes it as night time with smoking roofs which could be perceived as a quiet place where nothing exciting happens. This.
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“MezzoCammin ” is an insightful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was a poem that was written halfway through Longfellow’s life and titled as such. It follows the life of a middle aged man who is basically whining about all the things he missed out on in the past. This title comes from the first line of Dante’s divine comedy which is translated to “Midway upon the journey of our life”. Society looks at their past as if “I could have done this in my past, I.
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Irene Lee
Ms. Bufkin
AP Lit and Comp 6
11 April 2011
Timed Essay Corrections—When I Have Fears and Mezzo Cammin
As people near the time of their deaths, they begin to reflect upon the history and events of their own lives. Both John Keats’ “When I have Fears” and Henry Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin” reflect upon the speakers’ fears and thoughts of death. However, the conclusions between these two poems end quite differently. Although both reflect upon Death’s grasp, Keats’ displays an appreciation and subtle satisfaction with the wonders of life, while Longfellow morbidly mourns his past inactions and fears what events the future may bring.
The two poems are similar in their corresponding feeling of dread for death. Using diction, Keats reflects on how he “may cease to be” and how he “may never live.” Similarly, Longfellow states that “[h]alf of [his] life is gone” and that the “years slip from” him. Both narrators then continue to lament their fears of not accomplishing everything they had once aspired to do. Keats uses an anaphora of “when” in order to illustrate the various and wide-ranging fears that are related to death. He also uses the anaphora of “before” in order to further accentuate his concerns of dying before he is able to accomplish various educational yearnings. Similarly, Longfellow also acknowledges his failure in fulfilling “the aspiration of [his] youth” or in building a “tower of song with lofty parapet.” This tower symbolizes a success of literary prowess and legacy the speaker had once hoped to wish for. He realizes that he will not accomplish everything he had once wanted. Both of these poems are ultimately similar in that they both illustrate men who fear that their lives will be coming to an end.
The two poems differ in that Keats’ poem sheds more appreciation for the life he has led in comparison to the morbid tones that Longfellow’s poem displays. In “When I Have Fears,” Keats uses imagery in order to describe his feelings about.
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1.WhenIHaveFears (Summary) Overall Explanation of the Poem Bye Keats \Whenever Ihavefears \ is really a good work, but Keats’ the most prior Wish has not been elaborated in the material. Actually John Keats wanted to be having as much fame as Shakespeare had. He wanted to be one like Shakespeare. So in his First Quatrain he says that he wants to put all the Poetic Material he has in his.
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John Keats: WhenIhaveFears that I May Cease to Be John Keats was a famous romantic poet whose work was characterized mainly by his use of diction, tone, and other literary devices to create sensual imagery in his works of poetry. Throughout the Elizabethan sonnet, WhenIhaveFears that I May Cease to Be, one can see that Keats reflected his.
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represented by the “high-piled books” in line 3. The fear of obscurity was one Keats carried to his death only three years after composing “WhenIHaveFears That I May Cease To Be”. Though he had no way of knowing his life would indeed be cut short before he achieved the kind of recognition he sought, he echoes this concern in the final line of the sonnet. Lines 5-8 Some readers believe that the second.
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Maciej Michalak WhenIHaveFears That I May Cease To Be – John Keats – Analysis WHENIhavefears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charactry, Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain; WhenI behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, 5.
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This poem falls into two major thought groups: *Keats expresses his fear of dying young in the first thought unit, lines 1-12. He fears that he will not fulfill himself as a writer (lines 1-8) and that he will lose his beloved (lines 9-12). *Keats resolves his fears by asserting the unimportance of love and fame in the concluding two and a half lines of this sonnet. The first quatrain (four lines) emphasizes both how fertile his imagination is and.
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MezzoCammin The poem MezzoCammin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow explains his regretful life and his reasoning at why he didn’t live it to its full potential and how he looks at his past. It then looks to his future as being near and bearing a huge weight down on him. The way Longfellow talks about his life is depressing. He doesn’t speak of the good accomplishments, only the things he hasn’t done until he looks back into the past and.
674 Words | 2 Pages
“MezzoCammin ” is an insightful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was a poem that was written halfway through Longfellow’s life and titled as such. It follows the life of a middle aged man who is basically whining about all the things he missed out on in the past. This title comes from the first line of Dante’s divine comedy which is translated to “Midway upon the journey of our life”. Society looks at their past as if “I could have .
424 Words | 1 Pages
WhenI Grow Up Ihave always had a difficult time with the question What do you want to be when you grow up? There are too many things that grab and hold my interest, for a little while at least. Ihave always known that I wanted to go to college, why I didn’t do so immediately after high school is a mystery to me but, I’m finally here and I intend to.
1115 Words | 4 Pages