“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop Essay

In her poem, One Art, Elizabeth Bishop constructs a poem that reveals a struggle with mastering the issue of loss. Through the commit of a villanelle, Bishop utilizes the significance of construction and reciprocation choice to further the meaning of her work. Bishop crescendos individually stanza to create a firm foundation for the salient conclusion, and incorporates expressive words through emerge the poem to illuminate the last stanzas attitude shift from that of drippiness to seriousness.The villanelle form is a type of love poem and Elizabeth Bishops use of this is appropriate for her poem almost lost love. The get-go five tercets (three drawd stanzas) begin by speaking of small objects (keys) then plough to large circumstances (continents). The final stanza is a quatrain (four lined stanza) that contains the occasion and attitude shift of the poem. The poems first line the art of losing isnt hard to master resurfaces throughout the text to reiterate the speakers op inion on the ascendance of loss. And the repetition of the third base lines final word calamity is a key to the meaning of the poem.Bishops word choice furthers the significance of loss and love throughout the poem. Since the first and third lines repeat within the text the middle lines of each stanza remain different from each other. The endings of each middle line have the same rhyme pattern and collectively they spell out an ultimate loss- intent/ spent/ meant/ and went. The speaker, in the beginning, is impersonal and does not mention any valuable item which was lost. In the second stanza the speaker explains how to master the art of loss, and urges the readers to practice, making it a habit Lose something both day (line 4). The lost door keys, the hour badly spent (line 5) become materialistic entities and lost time. The third stanza contains a dynamic list of uncontrollable loss.By choosing the phrase losing farther, losing faster (line 7), Bishop illustrates movement in t ime, ultimately symbolizing loss. The simple shift from the third stanza to the fourth allow for a more personal denote to the poem with the addition of the word I. Bishop chooses the mothers watch to symbolize time and the link among generations. The lost watch makes tangible the feeling of inevitable loss. The speaker also sequences her losses- my last/ next-to-last. Stanzafive is the final tercet that includes materialistic items lost by the speaker. The loss of spacious and lavishing objects such as cities/ realms, rivers, and continents can not compare to the feelings the speaker acquires from the loss of love in stanza six.The final stanza, the quatrain, contains an attitude shift from that of invincibility to somberness. By implementing you, Bishop transformed the poem into a personal piece by breaking away from the pattern of dyspneal objects and incorporating an actual being. Although the tone is of a more personal nature the details are still muffled. The excursion ar ound (the joking voice, a gesture/ I love) creates a caesura for the reader, allowing a pause before confronting the dubiousness of the last lines. The first line refrain varies its form in line eighteen with the addition of the word too which seems to second-guess the original assertion that loss isnt hard to master. And in the closing line the repetition of likes postpones the final word that the speaker is so hesitant to admit-disaster. The parenthetical statement (Write it) is a self-prompt that conveys the aught needed to actually allow the word disaster to be recognized. By putting it in composing the speaker is accepting the fact that they have not yet mastered the art of loss.Bishops use of the villanelle form and strong word choice collectively work together to illustrate the speakers private sorrows over a lost love without including a self-pitied tone. The poem reveals a struggle for mastery that will never be attained. One does attempt to master loss but the recogniti on of impotence may be a more efficient method to tame loss.