Figurative Language In Richard Wilbur's The Juggler

In Richard Wilbur’s poem, “The Juggler”, a show is being elaborately and extensively described. The poetic elements working to do this, the imagery, the figurative language, and the tone combined all work to reveal the narrator’s longing and yearn for escapism from the restrictions of an earthly life. In a broad and general sense, the things that are juggled can represent the narrator in a figurative sense. A ball, for example, will not leave the ground unless picked and then it “will, but less and less". ” The ball’s tendency to return to its natural state serves to represent the confines of the narrator’s reality. The “sky blue juggler” represents something opposite from the earth, opposite from confinement, the sky. The way he teaches the narrator “the ways of lightness” and creates “a small heaven” in contrast to “the world’s weight” plainly communicates the desires of escapism through the element of wonder and vision of freedom. The imagery used in these wondrous moments only further elaborates the narrator’s reluctance towards reality. Considering that they’re representing the things being juggled that “cling to their courses”, it’s clear that this state of other-worldliness is something they have no desire to depart from. Additionally, the juggler has to “reel that heaven” in as if it’s a fish …show more content…
When the juggler is described as “who has won over the world’s weight” and someone who “shakes our gravity up… with a gesture sure and noble” he is depicted as a hero in the narrator’s point of view with such positive connotations. He embodies their desire to escape. With the contrast of the description of reality as “the dust”, “the daily dark”, and the image of “the earth [falling]” it’s only further proven that the narrator has no desire to be there and longs to escape from it as the balls in the hands of the

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Figurative Language In Richard Wilbur's The Juggler

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