Comparing Conrad Aiken's Poem Bread And Music

Words: 408
Pages: 2

In Conrad Aiken’s “Bread and Music” the speaker is expressing how he feels “[n]ow that [he is] without [someone]” (line 3). The following literary elements will be analyzed to help further understand the theme of this poem ; imagery, word choice, tone, connotation, rhyme, and personification. The theme of the poem is a person living in the present day without his loved one, and reminiscing on the times when she was alive. The rhyme scheme of the poem is very easy to pick up on; the second and fourth line of each stanza rhyme. For example in the first stanza “bread” and “dead” rhyme so the rhyme scheme is A-B-C-B etc. (2-4). The speaker of the poem uses the word “beloved” so you would know that the person he’s talking about is special to them (7). At the beginning of this poem the speaker gives off a tone or attitude …show more content…
You can tell this by the way he choses to say “bread I broke with you” instead of just eating (2). The word choice here is very significant, because eating with someone doesn’t really mean you like the person. But the words “[breaking] bread . . . with you” gives off a vibe that they enjoyed the time the had together in fellowship with each other (2). Also the repetition of the “once” lets you know that it is no longer there, but it used to be (4,5,12). The speaker is mourning at the beginning of the poem , which you can tell this by the last sentence in the first stanza where he says “[everything] that was . . . beautiful is dead”(4). The speaker remembers her by “[the] things [she’s touched]” , even though they “do not remember [her]” the memory he has of her using those things will never be forgotten by him(7). After line 8 of the poem there