'To the Stonecutters' by Robinson Jeffers

Ricky Portier
May 22, 2011
The poem “To the Stonecutters” by Robinson Jeffers, the speaker of the poem addresses the stonecutters. He talks greatly of change and the passage of time, particularly with in particular, socio-political change ? Where is this idea coming from?, which he yearns for. It talks greatly about manual labor, and how workersthese workers have been defeated. Fragment: Moreover, the poems reflect on howhow change is apparent over time, yet how the products of labor have surpassed man and endured. In William Shakespeare’s poem “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”, the prevailing theme also appears to be that of the passage of time. However, the change that the speaker talks about is less physical about the physical decay of the body and more of the aging and death of youth and desires. How is the “aging of youth” “less physical”? Less physical than what? Unclear what this means. Like in the poem “To the Stonecutters” this poem addresses a particular person, in this case, a young man. An analysis of the diction, imagery, and sound reveals a somber tone that is prevalent in both poems, which lends to the shared theme of the passage of time.
The diction used by Jeffers reflects the somber mood of the poem, and thus adds to the indication of the passage of time. First of all, we can see how the poet’s choice use of sound impact the choices of words he put in the poem. Jeffers uses formal diction, his words are more extravagant and polysyllabic. Furthermore, the sounds of the words he chooses are specifically chosen to have a certain effect on the tone. Tthe words he uses have hard consonants that produce a firm and definite sound: “fighting…foredefeated…challengers of oblivion…square-limbed roman letters…”(762) these words are produce hard sounds which contribute to the morbid somber tone, which reflects the theme of death and change. The “hard sounds” of consonants is not a reflection of diction, but of sound. Please review term in textbook. Relevance to diction unclear:These themessounds ? imply that time had passed and created these changes that the speaker talks about in the poem. The use of the word ”fighting”(1) is significant in that it gives an image of a stonecutter attacking and working on a piece of marble, as opposed to if the author had said that the stone cutter was working on his masterpiece as an artist. The single use of the word contributes to the entire poem because it already put to mind images of battle, harsh and brutal, as opposed to a man simply working on his project. This idea is magnified by the use of the words “challengers of oblivion”(2) which he uses to refer to the stonecutters. With these words the stonecutters become almost rebellious. They become somewhat like soldiers going off to battle. When the author relates the stonecutters to poets, he uses the words “builds his monument”(6) to bridge a relation between the two. The use of the terms “build”(6) and “monument”(6) are both words that describe the work of the stonecutters. It implies labor and work, which is ironic because what poets produce are mental labor and have little to do with manually sculpting or creating something tangible, as the phrase suggests. Although the author uses long sentences in his poem, his ideas can be clearly identified because there are a lot of pauses. These are separated with the used of a lot of commas. Notice that a single sentence, such as the first sentence of the poem can be segregated into eight sections: “stone-cutters fighting time with marble/ you fore defeated challengers of oblivion/ eat cynical earnings/ knowing rock splits/ records fall down/ the square-limbed roman letters/ scale in the thaws/ wear in the rain”(1-5). This slows down the pace of the poem, which lends to the tone of a somber and morose reading. Unclear relevance to the topic of diction. This paragraph is confusing because it brings up multiple topics and initially starts out not even talking about diction, but about alliteration. It then ends discussing the use of pauses, which again, have nothing to do with diction. Remember, each paragraph should be focused on only ONE topic. Each body paragraph needs to explain how the particular examples of a poetic device contributes to the tone of the poem.
The first image we are introduced to in the poem “To the Stonecutters” is that of “the stonecutters fighting time with marble”(1). This image immediately introduces the reader to the setting of the poem, giving us an initial idea of what the poem will be about. It appeals to the reader’s sense of sight as well as sound, as one can picture a stonecutter, busy at work hammering or chiseling, working away with the marble. This image enables us to relate with main subject of the poem, the stonecutter, depicted as a working man. The poem is descriptive in short phrases that describe very precise things “scale in the thaws, wear in the rain”(5), yet their meanings are really more metaphorical. Majority of the images used in the poem of labor and work and not pleasant ones. They do not show depict people who enjoy their work and are passionate about what they do. Instead, the images create a picture of misery and toil. There is a sense of necessity and depression that is contributes to the somber tone of the poem. How does the imagery contribute to the tone of the poem? This idea needs to be firmly explained in each body paragraph.
Sound in the poem, can be seen with the avid use of alliteration. The poet is said to have built his “monument mockingly”(6). The greater use of...