In the poems for this analysis “A Barred Owl” and “The History Teacher” the two poets are illustrating the ways adults keep children innocent. The children in today's society are often shielded from the truth. This puts children in a diluted version of reality which helps to preserve their innocence and they remain ignorant to the world. These poets used several literary devices to illustrate their message to the readers of their poems. In his poem “A Barred Owl”, the poet Richard Wilbur uses personification, imagery, and irony in his poem to depict the narrator’s intentions of calming the fears of the child. In Billy Collins poem “The History Teacher”, he uses irony as well as symbolism and euphemisms to illustrate the softening of reality to his students. These literary devices or not grossly evident when reading the poems but after waiting for the words to “crystallize” I was able to understand what the poets were trying to tell the audience. …show more content…
The writer used rhyme, structured in couplets, to make the poem come off the tip of your tongue.
Richard Wilbur personifies the wind in the first two lines of his poem, “A Barred Owl” writing: “The warping night air having brought the boom/ of an owl’s voice into her darkened room” (1-2). The imagery is of the child sleeping peacefully while the owl is eating a rodent. It also illustrates how children are totally unaware of the dangers just outside their window. Another literary device that Wilbur uses in his poem is irony.
In,”A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur writes ""Who cooks for you?" and then "Who cooks for you?"". (6)
That passage is ironic because nobody cooks for the owl unlike the child. Even though the child should not be fearful of the Owl because humans are not prey of owls the child would be fearful of the owl. Thus again reminding the reader that “Ignorance is bliss”-Thomas