It is called 'Her Voice' by Oscar Wilde. I am studying many of his poems for a school project....but this one just doesn't make sense to me. Please help. Thanks :)
http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/2282/
2007-04-25 17:23:36 · 8 answers · asked by brownj218 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Other - Arts & Humanities
They are all wrong.
Wilde is saying that he wanted to tell it to you straight, but all he could do was muster up a poem instead. He is expressing great sorrow, because ultimately he knows that someday someone will be assigned this poem for homework and he knows that this will cause students not to like him and to judge him because a hundred years ago he wrote a poem and now someone else is being forced, against their will, to read this poem, in which he really wanted to say more, you know, like about life and love and stuff.
2007-04-26 03:39:35 · answer #1 · answered by Dancing Bee 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First of all, this poem isn't very interesting. It's about a couple that's breaking up. In the beginning, the speaker is reflecting upon the moment that they committed to each other. They thought they would be together forever.
The line "Dear friend, those times are over and done;" is the first clue that they realized this relationship is over. (Notice after that, the description of the surrounding environment gets a little less "pretty.")
The line "We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!" is saying that they should have known the relationship wouldn't last. They were literally living in a dream world where they thought everything was perfect even though it wasn't.
This next verse (Beginning: Sweet, there is nothing left to say)is saying that it's time to accept it and move on. Life is not over, just changing.
This line, "Nay, do not start" is simply an indication that the "spouse" is objecting to the breakup but the speaker is saying "shut up, get over it, conversation over."
Hope that helps a little.
2007-04-26 00:36:47 · answer #2 · answered by fyonnaskye 1 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Her voice is implicit. The love of a mother for her child encompasses everything. The key idea in the poem is the separation of mother from child and the drive to restore the intimacy that once existed in the womb. The "one world" that is not enough is the womb.
Signed,
Freud
2007-04-26 01:21:03 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wilde is saying that his love is natural and right although destined for fate. He uses imagery like the bee in a lily cup and the sea-gull that loves the sea to show this.
He feels hopeless because he does not know what to do with all his feelings knowing that this love cannot be.
2007-04-26 16:29:41 · answer #4 · answered by AmandaHugNKiss 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Wilde is saying that Love is a trap -- a web that first stifles and then kills. It makes a comment on the fickleness of men.
***
First of all, the title of the poem is ironic, notice that HER VOICE is never heard in the poem.
In fact, the only reference to the possibility of her speaking in in lines 28-29. It appears, however, that Wilde's "eternity" did not last very long. He is, like the "wild bee" that "reels from bough to bough," longing to roam, to see other things,
perhaps to make promises to other women.
It is also ironic that he chooses to describe love as a
spider's web [line 14]. If that wild bee got caught in
a spider's web, it would not long be free to roam. In fact,
the web would eventually lead to the bee's death. Love,
Wilde is saying, is a trap -- a web that first stifles and then kills.
It is also a commentary on the fickleness of men as evidenced in this poem. I'm reminded of the song from the musical "The King and I," in which the king proclaims that men are like bees that must go from flower to flower [women]. But never does a flower [a woman] go from bee to bee to bee. It's man's nature to roam and NOT to make a commitment.
reader's comment.
*
2007-04-26 00:54:56 · answer #5 · answered by ari-pup 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
I believe he saying that he married and when you do you give your all until that person passes. You will always obey these vows until everything is running smoothe. As in the saying I will love until the cow jumps over the moon, so until that happens then he will never stop loving her. But it has the flowers aren't as beautiful as when she was in his presence. So b/c he doesn't have her then life just seems unthinkable without the both of them life is nothing. He has no meaning to go on.
2007-04-26 00:38:51 · answer #6 · answered by Omayra C 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think it is a poem of lost love. The remembrance and description that once was and is no more.
2007-04-26 00:29:31 · answer #7 · answered by smile_girl 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
~It is about his homosexual affair with Byron Lynch, son of the Member of Parliament from Glouster. It almost landed him in jail.
2007-04-26 00:26:41 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋