How do the studied poets and Shakespeare use literary techniques to show how people respond to forces in the world over which they have no control.

Shakespeare alongside many other poets uses literary devices in order to reflect how characters or people react to forces, such as Fate in the seemingly twisted world around them. In the chosen poems: “On my first sonne”, “Do not go gentle into that good Night”, “A song in a storm”, “Dying of the Light” and extracts from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, all utilize the presence of death as they had all lost someone very close to them. I know this because from my own knowledge I can gather that Shakespeare had named the infamous play, “Hamlet” after his first son, named “Hamnet”, who had succumbed to the symptoms of the Bubonic Plague and eventually died. As most did at that time.

Shakespeare may had felt a lot of grief following his death as “Hamnet” was his only son, heir and individual who could carry on the Shakespeare name. As his daughter who would have not been entitled to the same gratification in the 16th century. The plague was almost impossible to evade as the sanitation in the 1600’s was vile and wretched, meaning it was only the inevitability that one in three people would catch it.

Ben Johnson’s son had also died from an illness, yet Johnson’s son had been presumably diagnosed as terminally ill from birth, as in his poem, “On my first sonne”, he mentions “Seven yeeres thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay”. This translates to his son being given life for seven years and now he has to deal with the grief. An extract from the monologue in Hamlet reads, “Thousand natural shocks that fleshy is heir to”. This means that throughout life your body will be introduced to shocks and pain that your body is to inherit almost as if everyone at some point in time is introduced to the suffering of life which Hamlet had gone through but Ben Johnson’s son did not as he had died young. Johnson is known for his tongue and cheek satirical poems, yet due to the death of his son, it had changed his writing momentarily which shows the severity of the depression and pain. However Dylan Thomas had lost his Father and this could give an alternate relationship from son to Father. His Father had died from old age (natural causes) and yet again there had never been a way in which to prevent this. Finally Rudyard Kipling’s loss had been the many comrades and soldiers who had died around him. Compared to the other poets mentioned, Kipling was not entirely close to the dead around him and therefore was not in depression as we can see in his poems, they are not direct towards a specific person or entity yet of describing the atmosphere of battle etc. He also stands out from Shakespeare, Ben Johnson etc. As his poems tend to give off a positive vibe that leaves the reader feeling uplifted and may have uplifted the morale of the fellow-men around him.

Whether there are small or significant differences between them,  all poets mentioned have something that they all have in common, whether it describes this in their poems or in general. Apart from themselves all being men, another similarity is that they have all lost someone close to them and it had been of no fault of their own, as the illnesses caught by Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet and Ben Johnson’s son, Benjamin, had been all terminal, and nothing could have been done to of prevented those deaths. Along side Dylan Thomas who’s father died from natural old age, which as we know is the most certain inevitable event during life. Soldiers dying in battle is also expected as it is fundamentally known that in battle there is a high risk of being killed, so therefore Rudyard Kipling could certainly not have prevented this.

They all know that they could not of prevented them being witness to loss, yet feel somehow guilty or portray this in their poems. This may just be grief towards the fact that what they once held close was taken from them.

Now looking at other similarities, I can say that even in other poems by other poets, there is a heavy use of metaphors. Metaphors help describe and give personality to a piece of text. The poet can explain, in detail how he would have liked the word to be used. For example “Hamlet was angry” could be emphasised with the use of a metaphor such as “Hamlet almost had fumes seeping out of his ears as he was visually infuriated”. This is more descriptive and helps the reader to understand the level of anger that Hamlet is undertaking.

A great metaphor in Hamlet is “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time”. I believe this means that through time, all will experience many different types of pain ( the fate of experiencing pain) such as mental and physical illness and maybe even spiritual like a family loss.

In Ben Johnson’s, On my first Sonne, ” Seven yeeres thou wert lent to me and I thee pay, Exacted by thy Fate, on the just day”. In this metaphor, Johnson views God as a banker or lender in which had lent him his son to come to earth. When it was time for his son to return with God, his son had died and exactly after seven years. Johnson had known that his son would be given back prior so it had been a loan in some sense.

“Do not go gentle into that good Night” is a poem written by Dylan Thomas, the use of metaphors is profound in the poem as the poet had been an avid reader of Shakespeare from a young age, which can be seen throughout his writings. There is a re-occurrence of light and time of day etc and they are metaphors for death as it explains a lifespan as if it were a day, specifically sunrise being birth and night being death. Seeming as the poem explains that it is sunset which would mean this person or entity is approaching death and is almost saying that you should accept death yet have your head held high This is exactly explained in the poem, “Old age should burn and rave at close of day” overall the poem’s fate is that death will come and the only choice you have is whether to embrace the inevitable or not.

“A song in a storm” is tattered with metaphors such as “The glimmering combers roll”, the abiding oceans fight” and “As our streaming bows rebuke Each billow’s baulked career”. The poem, hence the name is using a storm like setting of a sea to describe a battle, “The abiding oceans fight” or “By force of weather, not of war, in jeopardy we steer”. It is a good use of metaphor as a ocean can be wild and destructive with tidal waves and tsunami’s etc, but yet it can be calm and bearer of wondrous species of fish and coral life. Looking at the physical presentation of poem, the stanzas are much like waves in the sense that as a paragraph glorifies death and righteousness, it heaves back with a parting of the next paragraph and the reader is then hit with a new wave of metaphors and repetition.The sentence  “Be well assured that on our side The abiding oceans fight”, is quite comical as then ocean is thought to be against whoever dares to sail through it yet somehow, something that is treacherous and uncontrollable is on their side.Rudyard was present during the first world war so perhaps he uses these metaphors to display that the battlefield was chaotic and like an ocean, unpredictable.

Personification is used in poems to to give a human characteristic or quality to an object or entity that would not normally feel and think.

For instance, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there are many examples of this such as when Hamlet is questioning the solidarity of life and he says, “Currents turn awry”. Awry means for something to go off on an almost unexpected course, so maybe the word “currents” accompanies the word awry as, when in sea, the ocean and water can be unpredictable and therefore may alternate from calm to awry and can often feel that the sea had changed its mind and had wanted to make your journey hell. The use of personification with water is also present in “A song In a Storm” by Rudyard Kipling.

In Rudyard Kipling’s, “A song in a Storm”, it is tattered with uses of personification as he talks about the ocean being a metaphor for war and battle. For instance, “To welcome Fate’s discourtesy” as it is saying that fate is somewhat inconsiderate of people lives and well beings, by inducing them to pain and suffering. The poem is positive and was probably used at that time for propaganda as the government had needed more people to enlist into the army and this was a good technique to make the readers believe that they had owed something to their “country”.

“Dying of the Light” is an example of personification present in Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not Go Gentle Into that Good Light’ as light does not die, as it is not alive and an entity as it is portrayed throughout the poem rigorously. As the poem is based around fighting against the inevitability of death as a a flame can be calm and elegant with wave like movements or aggressive and primal like a scorching torch. Fate is present in this poem spiritually almost as the poem is a voice in denial of almost “growing old gracefully” or with reluctance to accept departure from the ground beneath us. “Curse, Bless me now with your false tears, I pray”, This is a very powerful collection of words as it describes everyone as being doomed with a time of death even before you are born. The “Fierce Tear” is powerful because the entity is crying because of anger not sadness and really expresses the emotional image being as it is not passing  across sorrow for the fact that he is leaving, yet angry almost at “God” that he has to go through with this transaction in the first place and that there is no choice as it is decided before birth.

Personification is present in Ben Johnson’s, “On My First Son”, as “O have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage”. As he is describing “flesh” as life and that “flesh’s rage” is all the troubles and evil that occur in life. He uses this sentence to describe how his son dyeing before a ripe age had prevented him from experiencing the pain and suffering which occurs throughout a life time.

Rhythm in poetry is the method of describing audible features of a poem. Metre is the basic rhythmic structure of verses or lines in a verse. Many traditional verse forms utilize a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody.

In Shakespeare’s’ Hamlet, and many works, all have metre and rhythm present, as the actors would often perform with a step in their feet to pronounce the beat(Pardon the pun). For instance in Act 1 Scene 2, there is a good representation of metre and rhythm with iambic pentameter.

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ’gainst self -slaughter! O God! O God! The iambic pentameter consists of ten syllables in each line, and has stressed and unstressed syllables. The following letters are what the iambic beat consists of, “Ba” is followed by “Bum“. The Iambic pentameter is said to be of the same beat as a heartbeat or a “Tick-Tock” of a clock.

It is present in Ben Johnson first two lines of “On My First Sonne” that there is rhyme and metre. The words “joy” and “lov’d boy” both rhyme and both appear at the end of both lines.

“Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.

This appears frequently throughout the poem, as Ben Johnson had been perhaps influenced by Shakespeare and had both lived roughly around the same time period of the 1600’s, so the style of poetry would have iambic pentameter and metre etc.

In “Do not go gentle into that good night”, Dylan Thomas also shares a connection with Shakespeare as to end the Iambic Pentameter they will both use a repetition of a word i.e. Rage Rage against the Dying Of The Light”. And Shakespeare’s, “self -slaughter! O God! O God! The physical structure of the poem is in a pattern also as the “Stanzas” are each three lines each, except the last, yet the first two lines of every stanza are longer than the last.

Rudyard Kipling’s poem “A Song In A Storm”, has many types of rhythm and metre. For example, “Be well assured, though wave and wind Have mightier blows in store,That we who keep the watch assigned, Must stand to it the more”. The words, “Have mightier blows in store” and ” Must stand to it the more” both rhyme and have similar phonics. I.E. “Store” and “More”.

Iambic pentameter is also present, “No matter though our decks be swept, And mast and timber crack, We can make good all loss except, The loss of turning back. So, ‘twixt these Devils and our deep Let courteous trumpets sound, To welcome Fate’s discourtesy
Whereby it will be found, etc.

The studied poets and especially Shakespeare use literary techniques to show how people respond to forces in the world over which they have no control, as with the help of metaphors and metre, they are able to talk about their feelings on fate and how it has affected their life. For instance, they are moved by the loss of something close to them and may find writing a poem about it, healing and even maybe comforting. They make subtle references to God also which they could often blame for their chosen fate.