"Homes"

“Homes”

         “Homes” by Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman is structured as a Sestina. These particular poems have a very distinctive organization pattern and very specific with its classifications. “Homes” holds repetition and is bountiful in metaphors, but the most distinctive technique is Gilman’s tone.

         The tone throughout the poem is calmly accusing. It sheds light on the fact that homes have been turned into a persons “god.” Homes have become the safe haven, private, intimate and expressive. The outside of the house gives the first impression of what the owners may be like. For example, a large house is obviously owned by a wealthy family and so on. One can easily gather a family’s “social rankings” just from the outside of a house. But when did houses become our defining for social ranking? It actually goes to the root of possessions. A home only holds all of a person’s possessions. These possessions can be shown off or hidden within the privacy of the home, but the home still contains all of these earthly things. The “toys” that men work so hard for so that they can flaunt how much money they make, or even the furnishing of a well kept house.

         Each stanza penetrates deeper into what a home or dwelling holds for a human. It goes even deeper than possessions and what it contains; humans have added significance. A home gives significance because of its privacy. Everyone can be whoever they want to be within the privacy of their homes. This is where the connection back to God lies, that the homes control significance, no longer God. 

"Lonely Hearts"

A Villanelle poem has a very organized structure that must be followed exactly for it to be considered this kind of poem. The amount of stanzas, rhyme scheme, and lines all has to fall under the guidelines of a Villanelle poem. The lines specifically have to be repeated in certain orders leaving a unique tone to each poem. For example, the poem "Lonely Hearts" repeats a question at the end of every stanza. This depicts a tone of desperation or searching for affirmation. The tone continues through each stanza as different scenarios are described.

                The content of the poem is shared through different types of people that one might be searching for. The author, Wendy Cope, asks through an athletic man, a vegetarian, business executive, a homosexual, a Libran and ending with an all-inclusive tone of desperation for the different types. These rhetorical questions leave an open-ended wonderment coming from all kinds of people. Cope took a universal question that each person wonders, "is there someone out there for me?" and placed it into genres.

"Ode on a Grecian Urn"

This ode is driven through the emotions Yeats sees while looking at an urn. Urns typically have scenes painted on them telling a story or just a painting of a special, meaningful place. Yeats depicts these scenes through the emotional tags he feels to each. He utilizes these places to take him to a deeper place of thinking. He splits each scene into five stanzas and ties a romantic twist to them.

         The in general the poem is reflecting his belief of love and the innocence of it. He begins with talking about a bride and then on to someone that has never been kissed. It clearly expresses meditation on love and what it should look like, being happy and blissful. He structures it into five stanzas; ten lines each with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDEDCE. One of Yeats main devices is rhetorical questions that he places throughout the whole poem.