My literary analysis of the poem “One Art”.

“One Art” is a poem written by Elisabeth Bishop.

Just considering the title, I expect the poem to be about one art in particular which stands out from the others for a reason. Also, “Art” to me means expressiveness, so the text might be about expressing yourself in a specific but effective way.

The layout shows that the composition consists of 19 lines arranged into 6 stanzas: 5 tercepts (that is 5 stanzas of 3 lines each) and an ending quatrain (1 stanza of 4 lines). There are no signs of dialogue, just narration, and there are some repetitions.

The speaking voice talks about how losing things isn’t difficult and how, in order for people to learn the art of losing, they must practice on losing smaller things so that losing bigger ones will not be so hard for them.

The idea of mastering the art of losing things is emphasized by the use of simple language and an ironic tone, who give rhythm to the extract. Also, the tone gets even lighter once the narrating voice starts to imply into the narration her/his own experiences, making whoever reads feel more personal with the speaker. The use of a iambic meter adds to the rhyming scheme, which makes all the information gained by the reader flow easier. By doing this, the speaking voice makes sure that the reader can get easily involved with whatever he/she is reading.

The repetition of the verb “to lose” (“loss”, ”losing”, “lost” and etc.) throughout the text emphasizes the message of the extract, which is dealing with losing stuff, opportunities and even people. This concept is also highlighted by the use of incremental repetitions in lines 1, 6, 12 and 18. Even the repetition of the noun “disaster” reminds the reader of all the times you think losing something or somebody turns out to be a big deal, a “disaster”. But, in reality, that’s not the truth.

The goal of who is speaking is to reassure you about the fact that losing isn’t difficult since everybody loses things during their lifetime, you just need to practice. And even when it feels like a disaster, it is not. You just have to practice with losing smaller things first to be better prepared when you will face losing something important to you.