Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"
    A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"
    A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"
    Ebook37 pages39 minutes

    A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 26, 2016
    ISBN9781535843348
    A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Dec 1, 2021

      The light from the full moon lent a silky, glacial sheen to the towering front of the cloud, which stretched off to the horizon in both directions. I stood transfixed as it made its way down the street toward me at a little over the town’s speed limi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hilton ALS

      Jun 15, 2018

      Hilton ALS
      29 min read

    • Article

      Empathy In Every Direction

      Jun 18, 2019

      Empathy In Every Direction
      9 min read

    • Article

      On the Morning After the Sixties

      Oct 1, 2019

      Joan Didion has been one of California’s most acute observers since the early 1960s; in such books as Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album, she lays bare both the aspirations and the hypocrisies of the state. This fall, Library of America

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Kevin Barry

      Dec 21, 2017

      The book I’ve read the most this year is Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño. I read a few pages from it every morning before I crawl across the floor to my desk. It’s Bolaño distilled. It’s a crime story, a death story, a sex story, a love story, but always i

      2 min read

    • Article

      Over the Brink of Disaster: The Millions Interviews Elisa Gabbert

      Aug 14, 2020

      The only way to get through time alive is to spend a lot of it pretending that everything’s fine. The post Over the Brink of Disaster: The Millions Interviews Elisa Gabbert appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      To The Limits

      Sep 17, 2021

      To The Limits
      4 min read

    • Article

      Bearing Witness Beyond Despair

      Dec 1, 2022

      Wong May’s reader needs to be ready to dream a little. Her poems unfold with the intensity, the abrupt shifts of focus, and the uncanny, enigmatic quality of our dreams, even when she is writing about ordinary sunlit experience. Take the poem titled

      2 min read

    • Article

      I Don’t Trust Images: The Millions Interviews Ottessa Moshfegh

      Dec 27, 2018

      My approach to writing was like a little volatile. Sort of like “fuck you," what drove a lot of my creativity—not all the time, but I can identify that. The post I Don’t Trust Images: The Millions Interviews Ottessa Moshfegh appeared first on The Mil

      11 min read

    • Article

      Edith Wharton Will Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Naming Characters

      Sep 30, 2019

      Her 1905 classic The House of Mirth offers a masterclass in the art of character naming, from heroine Lily Bart to the seriously laughable Mrs. Peniston. The post Edith Wharton Will Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Naming Characters appear

      6 min read

    • Article

      Let It Go

      Mar 17, 2020

      Let It Go
      4 min read

    • Article

      In Praise of Darkness

      Aug 15, 2018

      HEATHER LANIER is the author of the nonfiction book Teaching in the Terrordome as well as two poetry chapbooks. Her essays have appeared in Salon, the Sun, Fourth Genre, Brevity, and elsewhere, and her TED talk on the incomplete stories we tell ourse

      8 min read

    • Article

      Forging Intimacy

      May 4, 2018

      Forging Intimacy
      6 min read

    • Article

      Joan didion’s singular voice

      Apr 5, 2022

      Joan didion’s singular voice
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Louise Bogan's "Words for Departure" - Gale

      1

      Words for Departure

      Louise Bogan

      1923

      Introduction

      Louise Bogan's poem Words for Departure was published in her first book of poetry, Body of This Death (1923). In 1922, Bogan had spent six months in Vienna, immersing herself in her work and studying European poetry. When she returned from this period of study, she found a publisher, Robert M. McBride & Company of New York City and within months had published her first compilation of poems. The twenty-seven poems in this first collection of work often focus on romantic relationships and on sexual betrayal. This is true of Words for Departure, as well, which, while offering advice for a departing lover, also reveals the depth of pain suffered at a lover's betrayal.

      The poems in this first book reveal Bogan's study of classical lyrical poetry, with its emphasis on traditional themes. The author uses the classical lyrical motifs of love, time, nature, and rebirth in Words for Departure to suggest that all four of these themes are permanently interwoven when love is lost. Bogan studied the poetry of William Butler Yeats and was influenced by modern poetry, but she also adopted the ideas of English Renaissance poets such as John Donne, including some of the metaphysical poet's traditions.

      Words for Departure was written only a few years after Bogan's husband died but, because the marriage was not a happy one, it is difficult to identify his death as a source for this poem. While Bogan used her poetry to tell stories, the narrative is never obvious and the source of the image not easily defined. Instead the reader must work at deciphering the meaning.

      Many of the poems from Body of This Death were reprinted in Bogan's later books, though this is not true for Words for Departure, which is contained only in this first collection. Body of This Death has been out of print for many years and as of 2004 was difficult to find; however, Words for Departure can be found online at some poetry Websites.

      Author Biography

      Louise Bogan was born August 11, 1897, in Livermore Falls, Maine. During her early childhood, the family moved frequently, although Bogan's education was not neglected during these moves. In 1910 Bogan enrolled in Boston's Girls' Latin School, where she studied Latin, Greek, and French, in addition

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1