City Metaphors in W.H.Auden's, T.S.Eliot's, P.Larkin's and D.Thomas Poems

To express the thoughts in a form of poem and to thread words like pearls in a string of pearls, one most probably will need writer’s experience or talent. “A poet uses figures of speech and creates images – imitations of life, words that evoke mental pictures and appeal to our senses of hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. The poet does not merely talk about things, he represents them. He makes us feel and see.” (5; pp. 4). Already Horace has pointed that “poetry should be like a speaking picture” (11; pp. 7). Consequently, the poet helps the reader to create his imaginary world and, of course, enrich his vocabulary. “Thinking in metaphors – and poetry is largely this – is a tool of intelligence” (5; pp. 6), thus the use of metaphors in poems or prose could be considered as a tendency to self - education. Furthermore, “not only does poetry give pleasure, but also it unifies our experience and enables us to see the meaning of things. Metaphor makes us search for a unity in different things” (5; pp. 7). It inspires us to unify unusual phenomena, for example, mourning with happiness or shadow with sound.
Speaking of metaphors, one should know that there are such types as sensory, extended and sustained metaphors (8). Sustained metaphors refer to the situation when metaphor consistently runs through the entire poem and is therefore easily identifiable. “The best way to show how a metaphor functions is to study the use of sustained metaphor. Sustained metaphors provide a depth and inner complexity to the poem” (7). We should also note that the form of metaphor is a simile. “Like the simile, it compares two objects but does not use like or as or than” (6). All above mentioned features give the poet freedom to vary them in poems and intensify the tint of the words.
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