The Kiss By Robert Graves.

By Jasmine LylesPeriod 5

RobertGraves

• Robert Graves specialized his writings on Classical Greece and Rome.• He left his wife and kids to stay in Majorca, to stay with an American

poet named Laura Riding. He was inspired by matriarchal societies and goddess cults.

• Graves says his intentions as a poet is to give his opinion as a diligent craftsman.

Graves-Robert Graves was also academically smart , enough to get a scholarship to St.Johns College.-He disliked many people and he thought even less of his teachers.

As you can see in the picture, Robert put a lot of thought into his poems.

The Kiss By Robert Graves:

The kiss is a Lyric Poem

The kiss is organized into three stanzas, and each stanza has eight lines.

Stanza one has a lot of Simile and Imagery. Stanza one also has Approximate Rhyme and Personification.

Stanza 2 and 3 have a Rhyme Scheme and Imagery.

A Lyric Poem

• The Kiss conveys the speakers emotions of having feelings for a girl and the girl soon dying.• A lyric poem is not meant to tell a story, but to tell emotions.“you must lie alone,Without hope, without life,Poor flesh, sad bone.”

-The speaker is expressing his feelings about losing a loved one and the reaction.

Are you shaken, are you stirred By a whisper of love,Spellbound to a word Does Time cease to move,Till her calm grey eye Expands to a skyAnd the clouds of her hair Like storms go by? Then the lips that you have kissed Turn to frost and fire,And a white-steaming mist Obscures desire:So back to their birth Fade water, air, earth,And the First Power moves Over void and dearth. Is that Love? no, but Death, A passion, a shout,The deep in-breath, The breath roaring out,And once that is flown, You must lie alone,Without hope, without life, Poor flesh, sad bone.

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Sounds Of poetryApproximate Rhyme- “are you stirredBy a whisper of love,Spellbound to a word”

The poet uses Approximate Rhyme to keep the beat of the poem steady and to continue the rhyme scheme, though the rhyme is not exact.

Rhyme scheme- The poet uses a Rhyme Scheme to put inferences on the describing words in the poem, the words describe traits or the appearance of the person that the speaker is referring to.

Then the lips that you have kissed Turn to frost and fire,And a white-steaming mist Obscures desire:So back to their birth Fade water, air, earth,And the First Power moves Over void and dearth.

Stanza 2 Imagery- Stanza two seems to have the most imagery. The poet includes much imagery in stanza 2 to show the impact love can have on a person once the loved one is not able to share it with them anymore.

Literary/Poetic Terms Used

Simile- “And the clouds of her hairLike storms go by”. The speaker compares the girl’s hair to clouds passing by, to say her hair flows in a soft motion. The speaker uses simile to show the passion for the girl and her meaning in the poem.

Imagery- The kiss has imagery in every line: “Till her calm grey eye Expands to the sky”. The poet uses imagery so that the person reading is able to picture the setting and what is going on in the poem.

Personification- “By a whisper of love,” the author talks about love as if it is human and is capable of whispering. The author includes this to show the possibilities of love.

Organization of the poem:

Stanza 1: Stanza one introduces the audience to the mysterious mood of the poem, by ending lines as a question. It describes the woman that the poem is talking about and makes her seem daring.

Stanza 2: Stanza two continues the rhyme scheme of the first stanza, using approximate rhyme, causing the poem to keep the rhythm and beat of the poem at the same pace.

Stanza 3: Stanza three expresses the effects that the woman dying had on the speaker and how he deals with it. Also it explains the theme of the poem in much more words.

MEANINGS:

Literal Meaning- Falling in love, you will have to deal with disappointments. Life is full of death.

Figurative Meaning- The kiss is not what excites you, it is the passion between the two people and thedesire of more, desire leads to disappointments.

Speakers Purpose:

In the poem, the speaker conveys many emotions and effects that losing a lover had on him. The purpose of this poem was to express feelings caused by the death of someone lost that was close to them.

Theme:Love is life. Life will be filled with death, and sadness that you may not be able to handle.

The Kiss may convey many themes/lessons to different audiences

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