Clich's and Poetry

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that one of the most useful aspects of modern poetry as a literary medium is that poetry has the unique ability to take the words of a cliche and use the intense language of the poetic medium to force readers to reconsider that cliche in a new light. The author points out that the cliche in Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" is "Good Fences make Good Neighbors" and Wilfred Owens' "Dulce et Decorum est" (It is sweet and right to die for your country) depicts a man being gassed during the First World War. The paper relates that Owens' poem takes the form an observation, not a stilted conversation as in "Mending Wall"; in "Dulce et Decorum est" the man dies before the poet's eyes and rather than argue with the man as in Frost's poem.

From the Paper:

"The poet uses this specificity of language for similar reasons as to Frost-to set the scene and to verify the poet's knowledge and right to question the cliche at the heart of the poem, but Owens seems even more careful to show that he is a solider, than Frost is to show that he is a farmer and a property owner. Owens does not use metaphors like Frost does, about imagining the stranger as like a savage of old, or dwell on common and natural details. Owens' specific place names and technical references are all unexplained, and are often details and names only a soldier would know and notice, in contrast to apples and pine as in Frost, which not only a farmer would be acquainted with."

More papers on Clich's and Poetry:

• Poem Review # 109999 : "Poetry of John Donne"
• Analytical Essay # 117133 : "Changes in the Perception of Beauty"
• Poem Review # 52494 : "Angie Estes's Poem, "The Uses of Passion"

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