Introduction
Poetry plays a significant role in society and is essential for numerous people. For example, poets can highlight some social problems, while other artists can comment on personal issues, using figurative language. This description applies to Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird” and Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.”
Angelou had a rich life experience because she lived against the background of racial discrimination, survived rape, and became a famous poet and a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University (Bright Summaries 1). In turn, Bishop is considered among the best English-speaking lyric poets of the late 20th century, and she earned acknowledgment when she became Poetry Consultant for the Library of Congress (Post 2). These two authors wrote famous poems that have a few significant differences and similarities.
Differences
Subject Matter
Caged Bird
The two selected poems have a few essential discrepancies; the first refers to their subject matter. Angelou focuses on significant social problems in her work because the author comments on oppression, segregation, and discrimination (Ahmad and Sheikh 369). This topic is evident in the description of a caged bird since “his wings are clipped and / his feet are tied” (Angelou 1).
Simultaneously, Angelou stipulates that “the caged bird sings / with a fearful trill” (1). The literary work emerged in the era of the Women’s Liberation Movement that advocated for political, cultural, and intellectual equality for females (Polletta 1). That is why the poem’s leading message manifests the features of the presented movement.
One Art
On the contrary, Bishop’s “One Art” is considered a personalized topic because the poem is about loss, which is described as art. According to Donaldson, “One Art” is considered Bishop’s signature poem, which tells what she lost (148). The importance of the objects gradually increases, starting from door keys and people’s names to houses (Donaldson 149). Even though the poem is about personal issues, readers still find it exciting. Thus, the selected topics represent the most significant difference between the poems.
Form
Caged Bird
Furthermore, the poems’ form deserves attention when it is necessary to contrast them. On the one hand, “Caged Bird” is a free verse poem. This literary work does not have a strict rhyme scheme, while stanzas can have four, seven, and eight lines (Angelou). One should explain that these numbers are spontaneous and do not follow any rules.
One Art
On the other hand, the situation is different with Bishop’s “One Art.” Donaldson specifies that this poem is a villanelle, which is a specific verse form (148). Such a poem should consist of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain with some rhyming rules. All these requirements are present in “One Art,” and one should highlight that the first and third lines of the first stanza are alternately found in the other stanzas (Bishop). That is why it is impossible to ignore the different forms.
Tone
One Art
Finally, the two poems are contrasting because of their tone. In “One Art,” Bishop relied on a resigned and matter-of-fact tone. For example, the author used straightforward language to disclose what she meant: “I lost my mother’s watch,” “I lost two cities,” and “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” (Bishop).
Caged Bird
The tone is significantly different in “Caged Bird” because Angelou wanted to sound passionate and urgent, and she achieved it with the help of figurative language. Instances of this tone are evident in the following lines: “the free bird leaps / on the back of the wind” and “but a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams” (Angelou 1-2). The authors relied on significantly different language means to convey their thoughts.
Similarities
Metaphors
One Art
Even though the discrepancies above demonstrate that the poems are significantly different, they still have similar features. The first refers to the extensive use of metaphors to convey a particular message. The prevalence of a matter-of-fact tone does not denote that figurative language is absent in “One Art.” In particular, the author describes losing small and insignificant objects and builds a metaphor on them to explain that more important phenomena and people can be lost in the same manner. If a person loses their door keys, their house can also be lost, and Bishop shows it.
Caged Bird
In “Caged Bird,” the metaphor is more vivid and significant. As has been mentioned above, the poem comments on segregation, oppression, and racial discrimination. That is why the caged bird is used to personify all those people who cannot become fully-fledged members of society.
The author used a metaphor to show the problems African Americans faced in the USA in the late 20th century. The poem also talks about the free bird who thinks of “the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn / and he names the sky his own” (Angelou 1-2). Thus, this free bird personifies the privileged position of white people in society, and the contrast between the free and caged birds creates the metaphor that presents the poem’s leading message.
Imagery
One Art
Another similarity refers to the active use of vivid and sensory imagery. In “One Art,” Bishop describes keys, houses, and cities, and these images are perfectly understandable to the readers. The author seems to introduce them to let the audience develop a direct link between the poem and their lives, which can contribute to a better engagement with the literary work. In addition to that, this imagery can make the readers associate themselves with the poem’s narrator because it is a standard case to lose keys.
Caged Bird
As for “Caged Bird,” its image is more figurative and informative. Clipped wings and tied feet demonstrate that the caged bird is deprived of its opportunities. The information above has shown that the caged bird personifies African Americans who suffered from discrimination and segregation. That is why the use of these images is justified and explained by the necessity to support this thought and make it more understandable for readers.
Feminism
Caged Bird
One can state that the poems introduce a feminist perspective. Since “Caged Bird” comments on people who suffer from oppression and discrimination, women can be among these victims. Angelou shows that this state of affairs is not good; it subjects individuals to compromised and harmful living conditions.
One Art
In “One Art,” a feminist perspective is less vivid, but it is not reasonable to ignore it. It has been mentioned above that the literary work is the author’s signature poem, highlighting her personal experience. During her life, he witnessed the deaths of her father, mother, and lover (Post 10). That is why Bishop knew what it meant to lose somebody and had some experience in coping with this tragedy.
Themes
Finally, a significant similarity refers to the fact that the two authors focused on universal themes and offered useful lessons. On the one hand, Bishop comments on the art of losing, which is understandable for everyone. It is impossible to find a person who has not lost anything during their life. That is why readers can associate themselves with the narrator, which makes the poem more exciting for the audience. Thus, the poem teaches people that there is nothing wrong with losing objects and that knowing how to deal with this experience is necessary.
On the other hand, the themes of freedom and oppression are also close to numerous people. Depending on their life situation and position in society, readers can associate themselves with either a caged or a free bird. The poem can further make people analyze whether similar problems exist today and what can be done to address this issue.
Conclusion
The essay has presented a comprehensive analysis of “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. The two poems are exciting and have both differences and similarities. On the one hand, the literary works are different because the authors relied on contrasting tones and forms. Various subject matters further support the idea that the poems are discrepant.
On the other hand, the selected literary works have a few shared features. “Caged Bird” and “One Art” are similar because they extensively use metaphors, rely on vivid imagery, offer practical lessons, and comment on universal themes. Each poem is worth reading; it is exciting and comments on a significant theme.
Works Cited
Ahmad, Rabiya, and Aejaz Mohammed Sheikh. “Afro-American Feminism in Maya Angelou’s Poems: A Study of ˈCaged Birdˈ and ˈPhenomenal Womanˈ.” International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, vol. 7, no. 1, 2022, pp. 368-372.
Angelou, Maya. “Caged Bird.” Poetry Foundation. Web.
Bishop, Elizabeth. “One Art.” Poetry Foundation. Web.
Bright Summaries. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Book Analysis). Bright Summaries, 2019.
Donaldson, Scott. “Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop by Thomas Travisano.” The Hopkins Review, vol. 13, no. 1, 2020, pp. 145-150.
Polletta, Francesca. Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements. University of Chicago Press, 2019.
Post, Jonathan. Elizabeth Bishop: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2022.