The Journey Mary Oliver Analysis

Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poesy and writes extensively on the subject. His poems are published online and in print.

Mary Oliver and a Summary of 'The Journey'

'The Journey' is a poem that focuses on the need to get out backside what is bad and incorrect and harmful and start out on a new path.

It has become a pop poem for those seeking guidance and force in their lives.

'Tell me, what is it you program to practise

with your one wild and precious life?'

Mary Oliver is best known for her poems on nature. She is considered one of the foremost modern romantics of her fourth dimension, highly-seasoned to those who are sensitive to ecology problems and those looking for a spiritual awakening.

Nature for her is a constant revelation, she gets inside the skin and whispers dorsum in intimate way to her readers.

'The Journey' is a niggling unlike in that it is more involved with the life of a person who is struggling to find meaning in a relationship and with themselves. The references to the natural world are few and afar - this verse form is about the necessity for change, leaving one dark state of affairs and finding another that is more than positive.
This person who, one day, finally knew what they had to do, is someone who is coming in from the common cold, into the low-cal from the dark, re-joining the world of the whole, finding their own voice, no longer a broken individual.

'The Journeying'

1 twenty-four hour period you finally knew
what you had to exercise, and began,
though the voices around yous
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you lot felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each phonation cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what y'all had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
Information technology was already late
plenty, and a wild night,
and the route full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little past little,
as you left their voices backside,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which yous slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the globe,
determined to exercise
the only affair you lot could exercise –
adamant to relieve
the simply life you could salvage.

Line By Line Assay of the Poem

Lines i - 11

The opening 11 lines suggest that here is a person who has waited a long time for this day to arrive. Now at last they're most to start on a journey out of the dark past and into a brighter hereafter.

Despite those voices from any number of people trying to drag y'all dorsum, giving their 'bad advice' as loudly as they could, yous had made upwardly your mind out of necessity.

Notation the use of the firm which is a symbol of the cocky, how it was made to tremble, that is, how shut this person came to completely collapsing. It's not a abode but an empty person.
And the voices are powerful because they stand for negative energy, quondam patterns that this person had to break out of. There were huge demands made on 'yous' but you just had to escape.

Lines 12 - 22

In a repeat of the opening line, the speaker clearly declares determinedly that 'you know what you lot had to do'. In that location is no looking back, no stopping, no chance of holding onto that past life. However, the wind is nonetheless at you lot, trying to destroy and undermine you lot.

This is threshold time. This person set off in the day merely now it is night and chaos nonetheless might rule. This is the chaotic energy of the past still attempting to stop the new progress, end this journey - sticks and stones may interruption the bones - only voices are not enough to cause a halt.

You cannot cling to the past, you cannot afford to dwell on what has gone. Go along those first few steps. Time will start to heal.

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Poetic Devices in Analysis of 'The Journey'

'The Journey' is a gratuitous verse poem, it doesn't have a set rhyme scheme or a steady dominant metre. On the folio, it is a thin verse form of thirty-half-dozen brusk lines, one stanza, written in an breezy nevertheless wise manner.

Some lines practise rhyme just not frequently enough to propose a definite scheme. They provide a weak bond, for example: knew/yous (lines i and 3) and do/do, save/salvage (end four lines).

Information technology is a verse form with metaphor - the title itself being i, life every bit a journeying - where a house becomes the cocky. And there are symbols: the wind, the nighttime, the road with branches and stones, the stars and clouds; all could be seen every bit representing something else in the challenging life of this person.

Note the interesting approach to time in this poem and the fact that the first two words '1 day' suggest that this person has gone through a kind of hell for a long fourth dimension, for many, many days. The reader meets the poem at a crucial point in this person'southward life: this is the twenty-four hour period when everything is about to modify, for the good.

Diction (Language)

In the opening twenty two lines, at that place are several words that advise negativity in the life of this person. These create a nighttime and slightly sinister background: shouting their bad advice....tremble...old tug....melancholy...terrible...wild nighttime...fallen branches and stones.

It is only when the voices are left behind that the language changes to a more positive vibe: stars began to burn...a new voice....kept you company...to save the only life.

And annotation lines three and half dozen:

though the voices effectually you...though the whole house

and lines 14 and seventeen:

though the wind pried....though their melancholy

This is a near echo which reflects the person'south life - repeating mistakes maybe, unable to let go of the onetime voices.

Sources

Being Alive, ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, 2004

www.poetryfoundation.org

www.youtube.com