Mahmoud Darwish: Poems Literary Elements

The poem “No More No Less” is told from the perspective of the major character, a woman who describes herself through the poem.

The poems have no form and meter because they are composed using free verse.

At the end of the poem “Psalm Three” the narrator describes how his lips became covered with hone which attracted a large swarm of flies. The flies hurt the narrator and makes him want to have never covered his lips with honey. The flies are used in this context as a metaphor for the words one person may utter in order to attract the attention or the admiration of other people. Still, as the narrator implies, these people are far from being true friends and will only end up hurting they people they became attracted to.

We find an alliteration in the poem “Psalm Three” in the lines “On the day when my words/ were stones/ I was a friend to streams.”

We find an ironic element in the poem “In Her Absence I Created Her Image” where the narrator describes the ways in which he was hurt by the woman he loved. Despite the pain she caused him, the narrator continued to search the woman in an attempt to try and win her back, actions which brought him even more pain.

The poem “No More No Less” is a meditative poem”.

The action in the poem “Who Am I, Without Exile?” takes place in the past in Egypt.

The tone used in the poem “In Her Absence I Created Her Image” is a remorseful one.

The protagonist in the poem “In Her Absence I Created Her Image” is the narrator and the antagonist is his lover who left him.

The major conflict in “Who Am I, Without Exile?” is between the narrator’s desire to remain in Egypt and the need to return to him home country.

The poem “In Her Absence I Created Her Image” reaches its climax when the narrator realizes everything he saw was just a dream.

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In the beginning of “I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater” the narrator claims he is held hostage after he saw a play. This is however an understatement as he later admits no one forces him to remain in the theater but rather he fells compelled to remain there because of the director.

In the poem “No More No Less”, the narrator refuses to accept being seen as only a woman, capable of doing only feminine actions. Instead, the character claims she has a bit of masculinity inside as well and she should be seen as a whole. The allusion made here is that women are sometimes seen as weaker when compared to men and because of this, many women feel the need to prove their masculinity in order to be taken seriously.

The term “land” is used in the poem “To Our Land” as a general term to make reference to the feelings of devotion and patriotism one may experience when thinking about their country.

We have a personification in the poem “The Cypress Broke” in the line “The cypress broke like a minaret, and slept on the road”.

We find a hyperbole in the poem “In Jerusalem” in the line “I walk from one epoch to another without a memory to guide me.”

The line “my new song would say” in “If I were Another” contains an onomatopoeia.