Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons Essay

The majority of poems and sonnets we have read, starting back from the first sonnet to today’s modern writers. They can be said to describe as a moment’s monument. As they describe a time of hurt, happiness or a memory in that was once enjoyed that has been put into words. I am going to discuss the meaning behind, what a moment’s monument is. I am also going to find out between two sonnets, The Forge and Love deaths and the changing of the season. Weather they answer the question â€Å"the sonnet has been described as a moment’s monument’. What is the meaning of a moment, it can mean so many things. Mainly it is described as a setting to a time in someone’s life. A moment in time that has been remembered, it could be happy, sad moment or an event that you have remember such a wedding day. Putting it into a sonnet, it can be a moment of a lost one someone is explaining. A monument is a statue, gravestone or a piece of history that can act as a record or memory for someone. For an example a gravestone is a record of a person’s death and the time they spent alive, it’s their record for people who loved them and also a way of saying â€Å"I was here. The sonnet Love deaths and the changing of the season by Marilyn Hacker can be described as a moment’s monument. The speaker of the sonnet is speaking about herself and about a moment in her life. The moment in her life that she is talking about is her loss of a lover. She is explaining the pain she has to face with letting go. The monument is the record of the tears she cried over her loss of this lover who was once there with her. This is shown in line thirteen and fourteen when she says â€Å"I drank our one year out in brine instead of honey. These lines mean she is describing the one year as drinking brine which is salt water which would cause dehydration and then sickness and eventually death, she has nothing left. When she compares brine to honey it is showing us, her life has gone from something sweet like honey, to something bitter like brine. The monument which can also be linked in this sonnet is that the death of the lover, will give them a gravestone as the record. The structure of the sonnet consists of fourteen line . The rhyme pattern can be debated of being either an Italian sonnet which the pattern the lines are divided into eight and six or English/Shakespearean which consists of the lines of three quatrains and two couplets. If it is an Italian version sonnet can be broken down the first eight lines. The first eight lines are her explaining her wanting him back. Then lines nine to fourteen is her accepting his gone and letting him go. If it is an English version sonnet it can be read as line one to four is her pain. Line five to eight is he realizing his not coming back and line nine to fourteen is her bitterness of crying over her loss. Hacker’s sonnet also allows the reader to get a language image. Some examples of this is, when she says â€Å"flood gates. † This is meaning that she is opening up her heart and letting the grief pouring out. She also says of a â€Å"gift† he left her behind, which is her way of saying bitterly he has left her with nothing but tears. Another language image is â€Å"season,† also mentioned as part of the title and mentioned in the sonnet. This can be used as she also mentions in the sonnet â€Å"winter,† which is a cold and comfortless and empty season, meaning this is how she feels with only have memories now. The metre of the poem is the standard iambic pentameter, but it is used to a good strong effect for the read as it emphasizes the main words such as in line three â€Å"stomach ache, headache and heartache, which is a good effect. As is emphasizes on the main word ache, which is another word for pain. The sonnet The Forge by Seamus Heaney can be described as a moment’s monument. The speaker in the sonnet is speaking from observation, watching the Black smith it could be someone who regularly passes by or an apprentice working with the blacksmith. The moment in time which the person watching is describing is the Blacksmith in the Forge and his every day routine of making horse shoes. This is shown in line nine when it is said â€Å"where he expends himself in shape and music†, we know this as he references to the guy as ‘he’ not ‘I’. The monument within this sonnet could also be considered a moment the lines twelve and thirteen shows a good example when it says â€Å"recalls a clatter of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows. Demonstrating it’s a memory that a moment in time that he recorded of when the streets where once surrounded with horse and remembering the sound of their shoes clattering on the roads, but now it is taken over by car and traffic lights. The structure of the sonnet is a fourteen line sonnet. The rhyme pattern of this sonnet is an Italian sonnet. The Italian sonnets are in the pattern of lines that are divided into eight and six. It can be put lines one to eight is the person watching the daily routine completed by the Blacksmith and him going about his everyday activities. Then line nine to fourteen is the person watching the Blacksmith reminisce on the past and then getting upset and returning to his work. The poem is the normal iambic pentameter, but it is used responsively, for a good outcome. For example in the very first line we already get words like dark, which is a powerful word on its own Both The Forge and Love, Death and the changing of the seasons are sonnets that are a moment’s monument. The both describe a moment in time. Weather it is a loss of a lover or a working day. They both describe a monument a memory, traffic replacing horses or the way he use to take her in his arms.