One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

There are two ways to read the poem
1. i. The speaker is lying - she is trying to convince herself but knows she won't recover from the loss.
2. ii. It feels like a disaster but she can eventually recover.
Structure
1. Villanelle
  1. Has 5 tercets and one quatrain
  2. Two rhymes (in this poem -aster, -ent)
  3. Two refrains: line 1 becomes line 6, 12 and 18; line 3 becomes line 9, 15, and 19
  4. In the end the poem feels forced - she is repeating herself to impose structure on experience of loss.
  5. Because of the villanelle, we know the final word will be 'disaster' so creates a sense of inevitability
  6. Has idea of two at the heart of its course
2. Losses in poems escalate from keys, to names, to a mother's watch, to a continent (a hyperbole? - so exaggerated we don't believe her) to a loved one.
Themes
1. Loss and grief
2. Relationships
Voice and tone
1. Begins boldly - narrator sounds self-confident and even fussy as she's instructing us that she has the answers.
2. Reassuring us and trying to be brave at the same time
3. Breaks down in end
  1. Addition of 'too' in 'the art of losing's not too hard to master' and repetition of 'like' as she stutters to repeat her mantra appear to be a struggle and denial of truth. She's vulnerable and can't maintain her facade.
Language
1. Image of 'two cities' and 'two rivers' could represent her relationship with her partner.
  1. Loss of one means the loss of both

Resource summary

	Created by Lucy Klein over 6 years ago