Literary Analysis: Romanticism, Metrical Forms, and Poetic Themes

Rhyme II: Analysis and Interpretation

Historical Context

This rhyme, published in the Monthly Universal Museum journal (1886), is possibly based on the work of French writer Lamartine.

Metrical Structure

The verses are octosyllabic, with assonant rhyme in the free odd lines.

Central Theme

The poem serves to present a perceptive romantic perspective that reveals disorientation, with the poetic subject seemingly misplaced in the wrong century's development.

Symbolism: The Harp

The harp is used to express the idea of poetic creation. The poet, like the harp in poetry, has a mind that is asleep, just as music sleeps within the instrument's strings. The poem begins with a description of the harp, but the central issue of the stanza is placed at the end. Each element signifies a style of composition, perhaps reminiscent of Mayan art, and a parallel structure for the stanza, reflecting the self and its surroundings.

"Las Olas, Gigantes?": A Poetic Analysis

Central Theme

The theme explores the agony of the poet's expression and the desire to merge with nature, feeling a natural urge to disappear.

Metrical Structure

This poem is formed by 4 stanzas of 3 endecasyllable verses, constituting the main body, and a heptasyllable refrain verse. The rhyme is in assonant pairs, forming a free romance.

Internal Structure

The poem is divided into two main parts. The first part, comprising the first two stanzas, has an ascending tone. Here, the poet invokes nature, presented in a dynamic way, and the chorus appreciates this connection. In the second part, the poet explains the motive for the torn world in which he lives; the poetic 'I' begs nature to take him away.

"Las Golondrinas": Deeper Meaning

Metrical Structure

This poem is a series of 6 stanzas, formed by acute rhymes in odd pairs, leaving the even lines free.

Central Theme

The poem opposes a return to an idyllic nature, instead emphasizing the uniqueness of human experience, particularly the loving experience.

Internal Structure

The stanzas are grouped in pairs (two by two), initiated by anaphora in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th stanzas. The odd stanzas use the verb "volverán" (they will return), an action in the future that cyclically repeats. In subsequent pairs, the tense changes to past, signifying that the human sense is already irremediably lost.

Conclusion

The poem highlights the unrecoverable value of every moment. This way of treating time is typical of the Anti-Romantic spirit, for whom time was cyclical. Love is expressed, not through conventional signs, but accompanied by the unique, secret essence of the unrecoverable.