Elizabeth Bishop's Poetry Analysis

Vocabulary and thematic flashcards based on the analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, covering her stylistic choices, major metaphors, and specific poem structures.

Introspection

The examination of one's own thoughts, impressions, and feelings, especially for long periods.

Precision of language

A hallmark of Elizabeth Bishop's work, characterized by carefully selected metaphors and similes that accurately communicate meaning.

Meticulously detailed style

A style exemplified in 'The Fish' and 'Filling Station' that moves through a distinct process of observation, contemplation, and realisation.

Epiphany

An intense moment of personal understanding or realization that occurs at the end of Bishop's poems, such as when 'victory filled up the little rented boat' in 'The Fish'.

Repetition

A stylistic feature used in 'Filling Station' (repeating 'dirty' four times) and 'The Fish' ('rainbow, rainbow, rainbow') to emphasize feelings of disgust or joy.

Sestina (Form)

A poem structure built around the repetition of six specific words—'house', 'grandmother', 'tears', 'almanac', 'stove', and 'child'—across seven stanzas.

Detached tone

A technique Bishop uses in 'Sestina' by writing in the third person to manage intense emotion without becoming overwrought.

Jungian exercise in introspection

The description applied to 'Sestina', expressing the opinion that the events of childhood dictate the adult a person becomes.

The stuffed loon

A symbol in 'First Death in Nova Scotia' that captures a child's inability to understand the reality of death.

The Armadillo (Themes)

A poem that operates on three levels: personal contentment, man's relationship with the environment, and horror at modern warfare.

Frail, illegal fire balloons

A symbol in 'The Armadillo' representing the destructive effect of human behavior on the environment.

The Prodigal (Form)

A double sonnet written in meticulous iambic pentameter that communicates self-loathing and personal failure.

Brown enormous odor

An image from the pig sty in 'The Prodigal' used to communicate the poet's sense of horror at her own life.

The greasy board

An image in 'The Prodigal' of the protagonist carrying a bucket, which encapsulates Bishop's view of her life as a precarious balancing act of constant falling and failing.