My literary analisys of the poem "Winter"

“Winter” is a poem written by Walter de la Mare.

By taking a look at its title, without reading the text below, I expect the poem to be about the cold season of winter and everything that comes along with it (such as low temperatures, snow and etc.). At the same time though, I reckon its context may also be about the cold feeling of loneliness and sadness that us humans feel, comparing these cold emotions to the breezing weather of the coldest season on our planet: winter.

The poem is made of 15 lines divided into three quintuplets each separated one from the other by punctuation (full stops).

The narrator talks about the low temperatures’ effect on the environment and the emotions that this conveys, with its cold winds blowing and its rayless sun.

The rhyme scheme used is pretty simple and repetitive, emphasizing the acts and the scenario of what and where these actions take place (for example: “snow”, “blow”, “bough” lines 1,2 and 3, these rhymes make you already understand where the story is developing and what is happening. Same thing for “dark” and “spark” in lines 11 and 12, “soon” and ”moon” in lines 13 and 15, where you get the imagination of how and when the story is ending).

The image of the story’s scenario is also spurred by the different alliterations that characterize and create a bond among the words quoted in the exaples before (for example the repetition of the letter “o” in the words “snow” and “blow” stimulate the image of a cold place).

During the reading, we encounter the scene of a robin now singing alone: this could be a metaphor for the cold feeling of loneliness mentioned in the beginning. This underlines the malinconic and cold tone of the entire extract.