Winter Coldness (Poetry Response #2)

Shaylia Smith

Ms. Locano

AP Lit -1

27 September 2016

Winter Coldness

"Winter" by William Shakespeare is a poem that tells about the cruel winter life around a sixteenth-century English country house. The poem expresses how bad the quality of winter was back then in that environment. It tells people has to deal with the harshness of winter, while not enjoying it. Which I like because even though the poem is about negative side of winter it's still beautiful. This poem uses a lot of imagery that makes the poem's audience be able to picture the scene in their head.

Shakespeare uses symbolism in this poem. The poem mentions an owl twice, and the owl is a symbol for wisdom and death. He’s also repeating this line in stanza 2, so he’s using the literary device repetition to express that this line is important. “Then nightly sings the staring owl,”(6 & 15). These lines are used to express the deathly quality  of the winter. This poem speaks about death in the symbolism of owls. Also, there are uses of onomatopoeia with the owls, which is also repeated in stanza 2. “Tu-who; / Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,” (7-8 & 16-17). Those lines represent the sounds of the owls. It’s what all the civilians are hearing in the cold winter nights. It all wraps into the poem being a scene in a play or movie, letting us envision the poem. Envisioning the poem is great because every time I read it I picture it in my head. Due to the details every time that I've read the poem the setting of what I envision has stayed the same.

Both stanza i the poem speak about the sickness of winter. This poem is not all happiness and sunshine, "winter" mentions things like red, raw noses and greasy cooks which is anything but good. "When all aloud the wind doth blow, / And coughing drowns the parson's saw, / And birds sit brooding in the snow, / And Marian's nose looks red and raw" (10-13). The lines talk about common colds but has an underlying meaning of tragedy. which I can relate to because even common cold can be a tragedy

"Winter" by William Shakespeare is a poem that embodies the unpleasant qualities of winter. This poem is about experience and the details n the poem help us to imaginatively experience it ourselves. I like this poem because even the most terrible thing can have an embodiment of beauty.