Herman Melville: Poems Literary Elements

The poem entitled ‘’Art’’ is recalled from the perspective of a first person point of view. The narrator is present in the poem through the use of the first person plural pronoun ‘’we’’.

The poem ‘’The Apparition’’ is written in an iambic pentameter.

In the poem ‘’The Berg’’ the major metaphor in the poem is the ship described in the first stanza. The ship is used to represent every human living on this earth who at a first glance, may appear to be indestructible. The iceberg which takes down the ship is another metaphor, used here to suggest the problems a person may face during their lifetime.

We find an alliteration in the lines ‘’He tries to think—to recollect,/ But the blur is on his brain’’ in the poem ‘’In the Prison Pen’’.

N/A

The poem ‘’The Bench of Boors’’ is a meditative poem told from the perspective of a first person subjective narrator.

The action described in the poem ‘’The Apparition’’ takes place on a hill during the night.

The tone used in the poem ‘’Malvern Hill’’ is a violent one, created through the use of long sentences which appear to be hostile in nature.

The protagonist in the poem ‘’The Berg’’ is the ship while the antagonist is the iceberg the ship ended up hitting and which eventually sunk the ship.

The major conflict in the poem ‘’In the Prison Pen’’ is between the main character’s desire to have freedom and the people who do everything they can to keep him locked up in a cage, with no possibility of escaping.

The poem ‘’Malvern Hill’’ reaches its climax when the soldiers appear at the end of the poems.

The arrival of ships in the last stanza of the poem ‘’Malvern Hill’’ is foreshadowed by the description of the trees in the first stanza and the way in which they are compared with flags.

In the beginning of the poem ‘’The Berg’’ the narrator claims that the ship described in the first stanza of the poem is indestructible. This is however an understatement as in the second stanza the narrator describes the way in which the ship was sunk by collision with an iceberg.

One of the allusions made by the narrator when it comes to the true nature of art can be found in the poem ‘’Art’’. At the end of this poem, the narrator compares the struggle an artist does when he wants to create something with the effort Jacob, a character from the Old Testament, made when trying to get a blessing out of an Angel. This transmits the idea that art is both divine in nature and a struggle which few understand.

The term ‘’brain’’ is used in the poem ‘’The Bench of Boors’’ in a general sense to make reference to a person’s feelings and desires.

We find a personification in the lines ‘’ Walled in by throngs that press,/ Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead’’ in the poem ‘’In the Prison Pen’’.

We find a hyperbole in the line ‘’placid hours well-pleased we dream’’ in the poem entitled ‘’Art’’.

We find an onomatopoeia in the line "The clinkers in her last retreat’’ in the poem ‘’The Apparition’’.