How Does Elizabeth Bishop's Life Affect Her Work?
“The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seemed filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.” (One Art, 1-4, Bishop) Elizabeth Bishop, a famous poet during the Modernist Era, wrote many popular poems including, “Sandpiper.” Bishop’s tragic childhood and role models, her birthplace and the era of selective writing in which she was born into affected the style and messages in her writing. Elizabeth Bishop endured a devastating childhood in the Modernist Era, in which she wrote “Sandpiper”, a poem that shows the struggle and concentration it takes to reach ones dreams. Bishop had a rather rough upbringing, her series of misfortunate events started on February 8th, 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Bishop was
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She was forced to go to an institution in 1916. After her Mother’s institutionalization, Bishop was forced to go live with her grandparents in Great Village, Nova Scotia. Bishop mentions this place numerous times in her writing. Bishop’s mother was kept in the institution until her death in 1934. Bishop was never reunited with her mother. These events greatly affected her writing style. Another Influence on Bishop’s writing style would be the influences of two poets, Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell, who both had substantially different writing styles. “Moore trove to be what Bishop described as, “Fundamentally]...[a poet] who has bought a brilliant precision to poetic language by meticulous conversatism.. [and] maintaining the ancestral, ‘out-of-date’ virtues of American culture” (Ribeiro 15) .The other major influence that Bishop had was Robert Lowell, “had.. embraced poetry in the grand style, thinking in terms of the largest gesture, history and politics’ and, more famously, the poet who started what Bishop herself called :That nonsense of confessional poetry’” (Millier 198 and Schiller 22). Because of the two extremely different points of views, there was a …show more content…
Bishop uses the literary technique of irony to demonstrate the situations in which the sandpiper and herself over finding the one world in which he is searching for. To show the one goal he had to find his perfect world and dream. The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing, states: "the poet is ironic about the birds obsessions: in looking at these details he ignores the great sweeps of seas and land on either side of him." (38) This demonstrates all the distractions and temptations that people face while trying to achieve their goal. Bishop also uses detail, many critics have said that, "Verbs are more prevalent or important in bishops poetry than those of sight" which is legitimately true, Bishop uses verbs to address the specific image that she wants you to see. By using these two techniques, Bishop means to show the distractions that a person faces, and the focus they must have to endure the obstacles set in their way. Bishop perfectly used these techniques to intrigue people in the style she
She was forced to go to an institution in 1916. After her Mother’s institutionalization, Bishop was forced to go live with her grandparents in Great Village, Nova Scotia. Bishop mentions this place numerous times in her writing. Bishop’s mother was kept in the institution until her death in 1934. Bishop was never reunited with her mother. These events greatly affected her writing style. Another Influence on Bishop’s writing style would be the influences of two poets, Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell, who both had substantially different writing styles. “Moore trove to be what Bishop described as, “Fundamentally]...[a poet] who has bought a brilliant precision to poetic language by meticulous conversatism.. [and] maintaining the ancestral, ‘out-of-date’ virtues of American culture” (Ribeiro 15) .The other major influence that Bishop had was Robert Lowell, “had.. embraced poetry in the grand style, thinking in terms of the largest gesture, history and politics’ and, more famously, the poet who started what Bishop herself called :That nonsense of confessional poetry’” (Millier 198 and Schiller 22). Because of the two extremely different points of views, there was a …show more content…
Bishop uses the literary technique of irony to demonstrate the situations in which the sandpiper and herself over finding the one world in which he is searching for. To show the one goal he had to find his perfect world and dream. The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing, states: "the poet is ironic about the birds obsessions: in looking at these details he ignores the great sweeps of seas and land on either side of him." (38) This demonstrates all the distractions and temptations that people face while trying to achieve their goal. Bishop also uses detail, many critics have said that, "Verbs are more prevalent or important in bishops poetry than those of sight" which is legitimately true, Bishop uses verbs to address the specific image that she wants you to see. By using these two techniques, Bishop means to show the distractions that a person faces, and the focus they must have to endure the obstacles set in their way. Bishop perfectly used these techniques to intrigue people in the style she