Essay of poetry THE FLOWER THAT SMILES TODAY By Percy Bysshe Shelley.pptx

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1. THE FLOWER THAT SMILES TODAY By Percy Bysshe Shelley Essay Poetry

2. THE FLOWER THAT SMILES TODAY By Percy Bysshe Shelley The flower that smiles today  Tomorrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies; What is this world's delight? Lightning, that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.— Virtue, how frail it is!-- Friendship, how rare!-- Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But these though they soon fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call.— Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou - and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.

3. Poetry is known as something that is just there to touch somebody’s heart, but poetry is more than that, it can also be view as a way to evoke meanings or a writing in which human language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose. “The flower that smiles today” is a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was one of the major English Romantic poets, recognized as being drastic in his poetry as well as his political and social views. Through this whole poem, it is possible to notice how the author uses poetry and within it, some literary devices, such as imagery, connotations and metaphors to share with his audience a deep thought on humankind. Three stanzas compose this poem and each one has seven verses, the rhyme scheme is ababccc, the first line rhymes with the third, the second one with the forth one and the three last ones together, the author uses a melancholy and little gloomy tone to present his point of view and his perception of humans, beauty and life.

4. In the first stanza, Shelley shows that nature and beauty are thing can go quickly, he made his first imagery and personification saying: “The flower that similes today // tomorrow dies”, the flower here is a human, he is comparing nature, life and beauty. Of course, beauty does not stay forever; it is temporal, like the presence of the flower on the earth, and a simile today becomes tomorrow dead, life past so far in front of our eyes. Then he says, “ All that we wish to stay //Tempts and then flies” , we wish beauty as humans, but if flies with the time, here there is a contrast between satay and flies and the author is making emphasis on their meaning, because they are opposite words like the life cycle one day born, one day death. Another important and relevant aspect found in this stanza is the question “What is this world's delight? In which the author is a little bit ironic and he gives to the world delight another meaning, in this case: absurd, why we want to have beauty in our lives if it is fleeting? To finish the stanza the author answers “Lightning, that mocks the night, // Brief even as bright.” in the last line there is an alliterations using the same kind of sounds at the beginning of the words Bri ef and Bri ght , emphasizing the idea of the briefness of the bright of the flower, it means the briefness of life.

5. In the second stanza, the author shows the nature of beauty of the flower and he develops completely the idea that he has in the first stanza; the flower and its beauty are the representation of the ideal of the human nature. Virtue, friendship and love are three important words there, because they are qualities of wise and sincere people (people with beauty), but those qualities are not easy to find, in the four first lines of the stanza the author presents them “Virtue, how frail it is! // Friendship, how rare! //Love, how it sells poor bliss //For proud despair!” Although they are absurd, he shows the absurdity using the words poor bills and proud despair to describe love, that is difficult to find real and that is one of the qualities with less duration in life if it is not careful treated, like the flower. Then he continues saying: “But these though they soon fall, // Survive their joy and all //Which ours we call”, a way to say that of course those qualities have and end, but they give to humans happiness and permit them survive. In the third and last stanza of this poem, Shelley uses repetition in four lines of the stanza: “ Whilst skies are blue and bright, // whilst flowers are gay, // whilst eyes that change ere night // Make glad the day; // whilst yet the calm hours creep”, showing a nature where happiness and perfection are law. Blue skies, gay flowers, a nature full of colors, with serenity, with the heaven near to the humanity touching the perfection of life, but those things changed in the fifth line of the stanza with the forth whilst; the calm is in movement, in a slow movement, calm is ending and then there is a surprise in the poem, “Dream thou - and from thy sleep // Then wake to weep”, It is time to quit the dream. The dream that was a process, dreaming while people is sleeping and then waking up, crying … the dream flies and never comes back.

6. Percy Bysshe Shelley has shared his way to see humankind; he chose an excellent group of words and literary devices to develop his ideas and to create in his audience a reflection about human behavior and life. Life is as a dream so it is difficult to find virtue, love and friendship and to make those qualities still alive, it is necessary to highlight the way he compares humans with a flower, flowers do not have a long life, they are full of beauty and color, but they are fleeting. Humans are worried about beauty and not about life, there the absurdity of feelings; humans are not focus in living they are focus in having things that are not going to last forever, the central point is not to have, the central point is to enjoy every possible moment.