Анализ литературных произведений GETTING OLDER и YEW TREE GUEST HOUSE на английском языке

                                   Анализ поэтических произведений.

GETTING OLDER

The first surprise: I like it.

Whatever happens now, some things

that used to terrify have not:

I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose

my only love. My three children

never had to run away from anyone.

Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent.

We all approach the edge of the same blackness

which for me is silent.Knowing as much sharpens

my delight in January freesia, hot coffee, winter sunlight.

So we say as we lie close on some gentle occasion:

every day won from such darkness is a celebration.

                                                ELAINE FEINSTEIN

YEW TREE GUEST HOUSE

The guest-house lounges

elderly ladies shrivel away

wearing bright beads and jumpers

to colour the waiting day

between breakfast and bed.

Grey widows whose beds and meals are made,

husbands tidied with the emptied cupboards,

live in mortgaged time

disguising inconsequence

with shavings of surface talk, letters

to nieces, stitches dropped in the quick-knit jacket,

picked up for makeweight meaning.

Weekdays are patterned by meals –

sole chance for speculation –

will it be cabbage or peas; boiled fish or fried?

Dead Sunday is dedicated to roast beef –

knives and forks are grips upon existence.

This diversion lengthens the journey;

and since Mrs Porter ceased to come downstairs,

ceased altogether,

the ladies at the Yew Tree Guest House

draw closer to the table.

                                          PHOEBE HESKETH

I think  authors  often raises the problem of the meaning of life in literature. This issue concerns many writers and poets from ancient times to present days.

Reading  the poem  I see that Elaine Feinstein reflects about  life of past years  in her poem «Getting older». She claims that her  life  is not in vain and she is not afraid of death, because she knows that it is inevitable: «We all approach the edge of the same blackness which for me  is silent».

On the contrary, she likes  getting older:  « The first surprise: I like it.»  Poetress enjoys every moment of  her life : «Knowing as much sharpens my delight in January freesia, hot coffee, winter sunlight.»

        The second poem «YEW TREE GUEST HOUSE» by Phoebe  Hethketh  opposes the first one by Elaine Feinstein. It tells us about boring everyday life, about irrational senseless waste of time  «…elderly ladies shrivel away wearing bright beads and jumpers to colour the waiting day between breakfast and bed», about people who  cannot appreciate  life and its moments « Dead Sunday is dedicated to roast beef –knives and forks are grips upon existence»,   while  in the first poem  life is perceived enthusiastically and we can understand  that it is given us to make  worthy and great deeds.

        These poems are different in style of poetry. The size of the first poem  is iamb, the second is amphibrach. Both poems are written using cross rhymes. Both poems also describe the human life, but we see that optimistic mood prevails in the first poem. The second one is written in a pessimistic tone.

        The poem « Getting older»  by Elaine Feinstein gave me a light experience.

Our life is beautiful and priceless. We must appreciate all its moments and enjoy them.