“A POISON TREE” BY WILLIAM BLAKE

In the history of literature we can find different famous poets, among them we

can find William Blake as a seminal figure of the Romantic age, one of his

most wonderful and appreciated works is “A Poison Tree”. This poem has

different elements to analyze in terms of structure and form.

First of all, this poem has different characteristics in the structure. For

example, this poem is composed by four different stanzas, the meter of that

poem is iambic tetrameter, and it means that the first syllable is unstressed

followed by a stressed syllable, for example in these lines:

I told /my wrath, /my wrath/ did end.

I told/ it not, / my wrath/ did grow. 

Also, in the four stanzas we can identify trochaic trimeters, it means that the

first syllable in these lines is stressed, followed by an unstressed syllable, For

example:

I was/ angry/ with my friend; 

I was/ angry/ with my foe: 

According to those examples we can say that the meter of this poem is divided

in two metrical forms like iambic tetrameter and trochaic trimeter. Likewise,

the rhyme scheme of this poem is AABB, it means that the first two lines

rhyme and the last two lines rhyme too. Also we have rhyming couplet,

because there are two constructive lines of verse in a couplet, For example:

“I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.”

On the other hand, this poem has different literary elements that allow to

create different interpretations. First of all, we can interpret this poem as a

representation of the human hatred with ourselves and with others, for

example in the first stanza we can recognize that there is a man who is really

angry with an enemy and he expressed that through his wrath, but the wrath in

this poem is a symbol of the evil. In the second stanza we can notice how the

wrath takes strength, after that in the third stanza we can notice that the wrath

created an evil product and finally that evil product created by the wrath grow

a lot and destroyed his enemy. That is a superficial interpretation, but if we are

deeper we can find some elements that show us a biblical context for example,

we can recognize three biblical elements that are a garden, a tree and an apple

it is an allusion of Adam, Eve and the Garden of Eden. In the first line of this
 poem “I was angry with my friend;” in this line we can

say that who is angry is an animal and it is a snake, its

friend is a woman in that case Eve, but she also is its

enemy. In the lines two and three of the second stanza,

“And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.”

We can identify a representation of the hypocrisy that the

snake used to Eve would disobey to god. In the same way, in

the second line of the third stanza we can recognize the element that cause the

disobedience of Eve, an apple created by the wrath and evil of the snake

“And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright.”

Finally, in the last line of the four stanza we have the tree in that case the

poison tree, because the snake watered its wrath over that tree and over the

nature as a poison that caused a punishment for all the eternity in both sense

for the snakes and for the women.

 THE EAGLE BY ALFRED TENNYSON

In poetry we can find different themes like love, death, religion, passion,

historical issues, and one of the most common themes in the history of poetry

was nature. One of the poems that capture the majesty of the nature and the

species of it is “The Eagle” by Alfred Tennyson. This is a short poem that is

really rich in terms of literary devices and it has a simple structure to analyze.

First of all, we are going to analyze the different elements of the structure of

this poem. To begin, we can see that this poem is composed by six lines

divided in two stanzas, in the first stanza we can identify that the meter is

iambic tetrameter

He clasps/ the crag/ with crookb/ed hands;

For example, in this line we can notice that the metric is iambic, because the

first syllable is unstressed followed by a stressed syllable. But in the second

line we have the opposite a trochee, it means that the first syllable is stressed

followed by unstressed syllable, such as in that part

Close to/the sun/ in lone/ly lands,

On the other hand, the rhyme scheme of this poem is AAABBB, also we have

rhyming triplet, and it means that in the two stanzas we have three lines that

rhyme, for example:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Secondly, to analyze this poem and create an

interpretation is necessary to take into account the

different literary devices that we can find in it. For

example, if we pay attention in the way that the author

described the eagle, we can recognize the use of

personification in that description