Essay Questions

What form does this poem take and why?

"Absence" is an example of a dramatic monologue. This term refers to literature that takes the reader inside the mind of a single character as they are speaking alone. The opening line of the poem has the speaker addressing an unknown person as "we" and from that point forward it becomes obvious the poem is structured as a one-way dialogue with this mysteriously absent person. Another term for one-way dialogue is a monologue. Ultimately, the reader is cast in the role of this other person. The speaker's dialogue takes place entirely within her (or his) mind. Eventually, the speaker begins addressing the missing half as "you." This pronoun seems to be directed at the reader. That is clearly not the case but is a common component of the dramatic monologue.

Why are the birds singing in the trees personified as being thoughtless?

The speaker has returned to a place that once brought happy memories. This happiness stemmed from the happy moments spent there in the past with the other person. Upon returning for the first since last they met, nothing has changed about the place except the circumstances of the relationship. Whether as a result of death or a romantic break-up, the speaker is now alone. Though nothing has changed about the setting, what was once a place of happy memories now has become a place of sadness. The speaker is sad now, but the birds still go singing as they always have. The song remains the same, but the emotions have transformed that sound into a mockery of the speaker's sadness. The birds are not just themselves personified but come to symbolically personify the way that the rest of the world continues on without giving a thought to the changes in individual human lives.

How is the rhyme scheme integral to the content of this poem?

"Absence" features a very simple but rigid rhyme scheme: ABABA CDCDC EFEFE. The poem is a dramatic monologue in which the speaker is overwhelmed by changes that have occurred in her personal life within an external world that seems not to have changed at all. The rigid structure of the rhyme scheme serves to subtly intensify this sense of unchanging order around the speaker. The predictability of the pattern of rhymes stands in starkly ironic contrast to the interior chaos of pain and misery experienced by the speaker's loss.