Loss can be defined as a means of losing someone or something, usually leaving an individual with a feeling of uncertainty. Elizabeth Bishop and Langston Hughes both published poetry during the same period. Although they are completely different people, they have both experienced enormous loss events in their lives. Both Bishop and Hughes conveyed their thoughts and feelings through poetry using art as a form of mourning. Bishop and Hughes combined their sadness with creativity. Specifically, the poems “One Art” (Elizabeth Bishop) and “Harlem” (Langston Hughes) demonstrate a nostalgia for times when times were supposed to be simpler. It signifies loss as non-catastrophe (a reference to “One Art”) and racial oppression (a reference to “Harlem”) implying the deterrence of dreams. Both of these poets address the theme of loss in their poems by reflecting examples or feelings of their own experiences. They use similar techniques to trick the reader into accepting this interpretation of what loss means and, therefore, force the individual to conform to it. To embrace Bishop and Langston's perception of loss is to recognize that loss is an inevitable crisis but one that can be overcome. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Loss is bittersweet. Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" denies any difference between losses by using an ironic tone in this nineteen-line villanelle poem. “One Art” is also partly autobiographical and reflects some of Bishop’s real-life losses. At the beginning of the poem it says: “The art of losing is not difficult to master; » (first line) comparing loss to an art that an individual will practice throughout their life. At the beginning of the poem, she describes losses in a humorous way, as most human beings do with small losses such as door keys. However, as the poem progresses, it evolves in a way that implies how time progresses in real life (your life begins with small losses and as you get older, those losses become more historical). Elizabeth Bishop experienced intense loss at a young age when her father died and then shortly after her mother was committed to a mental asylum. Comparing lines eight and nine "places, names and places you wanted to travel to." None of this will result in disaster. in lines thirteen and fourteen: “I have lost two cities, most charming. And, larger, certain kingdoms that I possessed, two rivers, a continent. expose how Bishop effortlessly implies his advice to the reader that no matter how great the loss, they are all the same, loss only fulfills an expectation and is not a disaster. Bishop uses many techniques such as inserting long vowels that subconsciously allow the reader to connect emotion to what Bishop is saying. By integrating a rhyme scheme into the poem, it achieves a continuous and peaceful tone. Bishop repeats the third line: "The art of losing is not difficult to master" and emphasizes that "losing is not a disaster" (line 3) to persuade the reader that often when an individual has lost something important, we are troubled and see it. like a disaster when in reality it's not, it's just life. “Harlem,” a free verse poem written by Langston Hughes, deals with the theme of loss. Hughes was a key literary figure during the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-American writersflourished. Hughes' poem "Harlem" was comparable to an anthem for African Americans at that time. Hughes used techniques in his literature that conveyed favorable and inadequate images of Harlem; he completed the genre of “blues” in his writings. Hughes, like Elizabeth Bishop, had his share of what he might call historic losses. He wanted his literature to express racial identification and freedom. Hughes was part of a revolution that established the way African Americans thought and spoke about themselves, particularly in Harlem. In the poem "Harlem", first line, "What happens to a dream deferred?" the word “Dream” is supposed to describe the American dream. Hughes wants the reader to think about the context in which this poem was written (in the 1950s). Even though African Americans were considered equal in the eyes of the law, they continued to be culturally racially oppressed by society. Their dreams were put on hold because, culturally, African Americans could not achieve everything a white man could achieve. The dreamers suffered heavy losses. “Raisin in the sun” (line three) creates images of darker-skinned individuals. Hughes, along with many others, was frustrated by the oppression. The technique of using descriptive words such as "festering" and "rotten meat" characterizes what individuals felt beneath their surface layers. Dictations such as "Crust over" or "Sag" described the way people typically reacted, masking what they really felt with a smile (crust) and giving in without asking for change (sag). The final line of Hughes' poem "Or Does It Explode" implies disaster resulting from this loss. After an accumulation of these historical losses among an individual or a collective, do people view this as something upsetting or do they simply see it as destiny? Is a dream deferred a loss that can be experienced? The theme of loss is highlighted in "One Art" and "Harlem". Both Elizabeth Bishop and Langston Hughes know that experience matters more when writing poetry. When writing in the wake of misfortune, the mind is allowed to go deeper, allowing the writer to use different techniques in concepts such as tone. Therefore authorizing them to encourage the reader to feel emotion. For Bishop and Hughes, these poems transformed their feelings and memories of loss into wonderful educational works of art. Both poems included metaphors and similes to compare the loss to a relevant idea, making these ideas more animated for the reader. The formality in the structure of these poems (even though one of the poems is a villanelle and the other is free verse) conveys a sense of wisdom but also of personal pain. The theme of loss is associated with memories of Bishops and Hughes which can also frequently be experienced by other people. For example, in the tenth line of "One Art", "I lost my mother's watch." And look!..” demonstrates a memory of Bishop's that stuck with her over time because it felt like a huge loss for her, the loss of the inheritance of a loved one. Despite this event, she advised herself in the following twelfth line: “The art of losing is not difficult to master. » Sending a message that this is nothing more than everything she lost, she had done this many times before. Hughes, on the other hand, in his poem "Harlem", illustrates that from his own experience during extreme periods of racial oppression and segregation, he saw individuals and collectives defer their dreams (potentially identifying his own dreams) and.