elizabeth bishop one art analysis essay

By Elizabeth Bishop

‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop reveals the extent to which people will deny the possibility of grief as a way of coping with inevitable loss, comparing it to an art form that can be easily mastered.

Elizabeth Bishop

Nationality: American

She won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for her collection Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring.

Key Poem Information

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Central Message: Loss is an immutable fact of life that we try to distance or numb ourselves to.

Themes: Disappointment , Love , Relationships

Speaker: An individual well acquainted with loss.

Emotions Evoked: Grief , Missing Someone , Pain

Poetic Form: Villanelle

Time Period: 20th Century

‘One Art’ is a famous villanelle by American poet Elizabeth Bishop about coping with the inevitability of loss. The form’s cyclical repetitions accentuate the mounting tension weighing on the speaker as they attempt to anesthetize themselves from all grief or longing. To this end, they approach it as an art form that must be mastered, feigning pride and nonchalance over their talent for losing. The poem’s parenthetical asides serve as an inner voice that urges them to maintain a safe distance from the truth: that each new, unavoidable loss is as burdensome as the last.

Explore One Art

2 Literary Devices
4 Detailed Analysis

‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop illustrates the desperate denial of grief and pain that follows a devastating loss.

‘One Art’ begins with the speaker claiming that mastery of loss is an easy thing to acquire, as life is filled with things destined to be lost. They interpret this as proof that such separations are “no disaster.” We are advised to try losing something each day, be they door keys or a wasted hour. One should then accelerate their practice: lose places, names, and future travel plans, as no catastrophe will follow.

The speaker confesses their laundry list of losses: there was their “mother’s watch,” “three loved houses,” as well as entire cities and continents. Yet all of these are held up as being as inconsequential to the last. They were missed but the speaker reiterates it led to no disaster. They then address an unknown individual, someone dear, whom they have either lost or fear losing. Unable to lie, the speaker reverts to their consoling refrain that one can amass loss without tragedy .

Literary Devices

‘One Art’ contains examples of the following literary devices:

Metaphor : “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” (1) is a line that repeats throughout the poem, appearing as an extended metaphor that compares individual loss to an art form or creative skill. Bishop’s speaker attains mastery of it by embracing it as opposed to fighting or grieving when something is lost. In doing so, they hope to absolve themselves of the pain.
Symbolism : In the line, “I lost my mother’s watch” (10), the speaker references the loss of an item that once belonged to their mother. But it might also be interpreted as the loss of her as a parent and caretaker — implying that her mother can no longer watch over her. In this way, the watch symbolizes a loss of time with the ones we love.
Visual Imagery : Bishop uses imagery to depict the immensity of some of the things the speaker has lost, including “two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, / some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent” (13-14). The sweeping beauty of these locales contradicts their forced lack of concern or sadness for their memory.

‘One Art’ revolves around the speaker’s attempts to numb themselves to an immutable fact of life: all things end, nothing is truly eternal. No one knows this better than the speaker (or Bishop for that matter) as the list of things they’ve lost seems only to grow. Despite their attempts to convince the reader and themselves, it is clear that they’re struggling to accept the reality that most of what we take for granted or cherish is fleeting.

With each new loss, the tension grows as the speaker’s tone of casual indifference persists. The repeated mantra that “loss is no disaster” starts to resemble less a confidently given statement of fact and more a desperately upheld belief. One clung to as an alternative to acknowledging a secret fear, which is uncovered in the final stanza when Bishop alters the form of the villanelle to accommodate a glimpse behind the speaker’s artfully crafted facade.

Contemplating the loss of someone they love — “Even losing you” — is too much to consider, and their inner voice — “(Write it!)” — pushes them to cope with this future loss in the same manner they’ve approached previous ones. However, it’s now evident to the reader that doing so is far more difficult a task than the speaker is letting on.

Detailed Analysis

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; (…) to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

In the first stanza, Bishop sets out her intentions. She seems to affirm that loss is part of the human condition: we lose both significant and insignificant things constantly and should thus accept this as a natural part of life, and even master this practice to remove any sensation of disaster we may take from it. These two points will be repeated throughout ‘One Art’ to emphasize them.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster (…) The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

In the second stanza, she invites the reader in by naming two extremely common things to lose: keys and time. The enjambment between the first and second lines causes us to pause and contemplate how ridiculous is this ‘fluster’ that occurs when we lose our keys. She eases us slowly into her idea: the universality of these two occurrences allows us to relate and thus agree that indeed, this is not too hard to master and is certainly not a disaster.

Stanza Three

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: (…) to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

The emotional tension begins to subtly build in the third stanza as Bishop incites us to further our practice, broadening the scope of our loss. Here, the things we lose are more related to thought and memory: people, places, and plans that, with time, naturally escape our heads and no longer form part of our lives. This is harder for the reader to accept and the familiar affirmation that this will not bring disaster becomes less comforting. House keys and an hour here and there seem commonplace and natural and to consciously lose these things to aid our mastering of losing does not seem too difficult. Places, names, and plans require a larger effort and a degree of emotional distancing that the second stanza did not call for.

Stanza Four

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or (…) The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

There is a subtle change from the third to the fourth stanza, a perfect split in keeping with the poem’s rigid structure. Almost imperceptibly, the speaker switches from addressing the reader to drawing on her own experience. It is here that Bishop begins to undermine her meticulous structural details and carefully impassive tone. “I lost my mother’s watch”, she states an admission that seems to come from nowhere. However, the casual tone is disappearing; the inexplicable mention of this personal aspect of the speaker’s life has upped the emotional stakes. As the stanza continues, it becomes clear that this is a further attempt to demonstrate the universality of loss. The picture becomes bigger and the distance larger. The exclamation: “And look!” betrays yet more emotion, despite its apparent offhand tone. Now Bishop tells us to look at our losses on a bigger scale: the houses we lived in – not so disastrous except for the use of the word “loved” here. Indeed, these were just places we lived in, but we nonetheless also valued them.

Stanza Five

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, (…) I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

The first-person speaker continues in the fifth stanza as the poet attempts to further distance herself from loss. She is stepping further and further back and the picture she is painting reaches a higher geographical level: to cities and continents. Nevertheless, this is undermined by a wistful tone: the cities she lost were “lovely ones” and, although she maintains that their loss was not a disaster, she does admit that she misses them. Faced with this unusual outlook, the reader is forced to ask at this point: if the loss of a continent is no disaster, what would thus constitute one?

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture (…) though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

The fifth stanza leads us to a brief look at the structure of ‘One Art’ . The villanelle allows for a break in its pattern of tercets and tight rhyme , giving away to one quatrain with a repeated rhyme. Just as the structure cracks, so does the poetic voice . The final stanza opens with a dash, which could perhaps be seen as an attempt at a casual tone but serves to slow the poem down here, allowing for yet more emotion to permeate the final words. The reader is forced to consider this “you”, and we see how the poem has taken a journey: starting with the little objects, going through thought and memory, to houses, places, and continents forming one huge picture until at the end, zooming in on and pinpointing this “you”. A “you” with, as we infer from the parentheses, a personality , a memorable tone of voice, and gestures. A person lost; an irreplaceable entity.

Here, however, instead of simply demonstrating the pain of losing this person, what Bishop is doing is showing us how we can try to deal with this. Through the practice of loss: recognizing the little things we lose every day and looking at the bigger picture of life and all the things we lose that are, objectively, not disastrous, we can help ourselves to get through the pain of losing the most significant things. In ‘One Art’ , the poet allows us to take notice of the natural process of loss that permeates our life on an everyday basis, and in this way prevent us from losing ourselves in the process.

If we read only the first and last stanzas of ‘One Art’ we would perhaps find it unfeeling and indifferent. Nevertheless, the poem as a whole reads more like a sympathetic list of advice. Just as the act of losing is a natural part of life, so are the feelings of regret and sadness that accompany it, reflected in the hints of emotion carried by the poetic voice. Just as we find we can relate to losing our keys and our former houses, as we find empathy in the description of the loss of a loved one. This idea has its ultimate echo in the parenthesis in the final line: “ Write it!” Bishop tells us, demonstrating how, by writing her own experience of loss, she finds catharsis and an opportunity to share this experience and thus perhaps help others to avoid disaster.

At eight months old, Elizabeth Bishop lost her father. She later lost her mother when she succumbed to mental illness. Later in life, a lover of hers died by suicide. Therefore, we may see this poem as in part autobiographical. In it, the poet presents a list of things we may lose in life, increasing in importance, until the final culmination in the loss of a loved one.

Despite the speaker ’s insistent and repeated claims that losing isn’t hard to overcome or endure, their belief that all forms of loss are inconsequential is hyperbolic and ironic . According to them, nothing lost is ever a disaster, a maxim disproved by their contemplation in the final stanza of losing someone they love. If it is no great matter, why do little memories persist and why do they command themselves to “ Write it!”

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Gilmour, Lara. "One Art by Elizabeth Bishop". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/elizabeth-bishop/one-art/ . Accessed 8 June 2024.

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One Art Summary & Analysis by Elizabeth Bishop

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
Poetic Devices
Vocabulary & References
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
Line-by-Line Explanations

“One Art” was written by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. The poem is a villanelle , a traditional form that involves a fixed number of lines and stanzas and an intricate pattern of repetition and rhyme. Through this form, the poem explores loss as an inevitable part of life. The speaker considers what it means to experience loss over and over again, and whether it is truly possible to “master” the experience of loss and grief. “One Art” was included in Bishop’s final collection of poetry, Geography III , which was published in 1976.

Read the full text of “One Art”

LitCharts

The Full Text of “One Art”

“one art” summary, “one art” themes.

The Inevitability and Pain of Loss

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “one art”.

The art of ... hard to master;

so many things ... ... is no disaster.

Lose something every ... ... hard to master.

Then practice losing ... ... will bring disaster.

Lines 10-12

I lost my ... ... hard to master.

Lines 13-15

I lost two ... ... wasn’t a disaster.

Lines 16-17

—Even losing you ... ... shan’t have lied.

Lines 17-19

It’s evident ... ... it!) like disaster.

“One Art” Symbols

Line 10: “I lost my mother’s watch.”

“One Art” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Line 1: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master;”
Line 6: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”
Line 12: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”
Line 18: “the art of losing’s not too hard to master”
Line 3: “to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
Line 9: “to travel. None of these will bring disaster.”
Line 15: “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.”
Lines 18-19: “the art of losing’s not too hard to master / though it may look like ( / Write / it!) like disaster.”
Line 1: “losing”
Line 3: “lost,” “ loss”
Line 4: “Lose”
Line 5: “lost”
Line 6: “losing”
Line 7: “losing,” “losing”
Line 10: “lost”
Line 11: “loved”
Line 12: “losing”
Line 13: “lost,” “lovely”
Line 16: “losing”
Line 17: “love”
Line 18: “losing’s”

End-Stopped Line

Line 1: “master;”
Line 3: “disaster.”
Line 5: “spent.”
Line 6: “master.”
Line 7: “faster:”
Line 9: “disaster.”
Line 11: “went.”
Line 12: “master.”
Line 13: “vaster,”
Line 14: “continent.”
Line 15: “disaster.”
Line 19: “disaster.”
Lines 2-3: “intent / to”
Lines 4-5: “fluster / of”
Lines 8-9: “meant / to”
Lines 10-11: “or / next-to-last”
Lines 16-17: “gesture / I”
Lines 17-18: “evident / the”
Lines 18-19: “master / though”
Line 5: “lost door keys, the hour badly spent.”
Line 7: “losing farther, losing faster:”
Line 14: “some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.”
Lines 16-17: “(the joking voice, a gesture / I love)”

Alliteration

Line 1: “losing,” “master”
Line 2: “many”
Line 3: “lost,” “loss”
Line 7: “losing,” “farther,” “losing,” “faster”
Line 10: “lost,” “watch,” “look,” “last”
Line 11: “last,” “loved,” “went.”
Line 14: “realms,” “rivers”
Line 16: “losing,” “joking,” “gesture”
Line 17: “love,” “lied”
Line 19: “look,” “like,” “like”
Line 1: “art,” “losing,” “isn’t,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
Line 2: “so,” “many,” “seem,” “filled,” “intent”
Line 3: “lost,” “loss,” “disaster.”
Line 4: “Lose,” “something,” “day,” “Accept,” “fluster”
Line 5: “lost,” “door,” “badly,” “spent”
Line 6: “art,” “losing,” “isn’t,” “hard,” “master”
Line 7: “practice,” “losing,” “farther,” “losing,” “faster”
Line 8: “places”
Line 9: “to,” “travel,” “will,” “disaster.”
Line 10: “lost,” “my,” “mother’s,” “look,” “last”
Line 11: “last,” “loved,” “went”
Line 12: “art,” “losing,” “isn’t,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
Line 13: “lost,” “two,” “cities,” “lovely,” “vaster”
Line 14: “realms,” “owned,” “two,” “continent”
Line 15: “it,” “wasn’t,” “disaster.”
Line 16: “losing,” “joking,” “ gesture”
Line 17: “love,” “lied,” “It’s,” “evident”
Line 18: “art,” “losing’s,” “not,” “too,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
Line 19: “it,” “look,” “like,” “Write,” “it,” “like,” “disaster.”
Line 1: “art,” “hard,” “master”
Line 2: “things,” “filled,” “with,” “intent”
Line 3: “disaster”
Line 7: “practice,” “faster”
Line 8: “places,” “names”
Line 10: “lost,” “watch,” “last, or”
Line 11: “last”
Line 12: “art,” “hard,” “master.”
Line 13: “cities,” “vaster,”
Line 14: “rivers,” “continent”
Line 15: “miss ,” “it,” “disaster.”
Line 18: “art,” “losing’s,” “too,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
Line 19: “like,” “Write,” “like,” “disaster.”

“One Art” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

(Location in poem: Line 1: “master;”; Line 6: “master.”; Line 12: “master.”; Line 18: “master”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “One Art”

Rhyme scheme, “one art” speaker, “one art” setting, literary and historical context of “one art”, more “one art” resources, external resources.

The Bishop Archives at Vassar College — Elizabeth Bishop attended Vassar College and her papers are now stored in Vassar’s Special Collections. Visit the Vassar Archives & Special Collections website to learn more about Bishop’s papers stored at the library.

Audio of “One Art” in Reaching for the Moon — A 2013 Brazilian film, Reaching for the Moon, explores Bishop’s life in Brazil and her relationship with the architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Although the movie misinterprets the poem “One Art” as about Bishop’s relationship with Soares—the poem was, in fact, about Bishop’s last partner, Alice Methfessel—the movie includes a recitation of the poem by the actress Miranda Otto, who played Bishop. In the scene, Bishop reads the poem to her friend Robert Lowell.

Biography of Elizabeth Bishop — Learn more about the poet's life and work.

The Drafts of “One Art” — Read more about Bishop’s writing process and how “One Art” changed over the course of 17 drafts in this essay at Modern American Poetry.

"Elizabeth Bishop's Art of Losing" — Read this article from The New Yorker to learn more about Bishop’s life, including the circumstances that gave rise to the poem “One Art.”

LitCharts on Other Poems by Elizabeth Bishop

Crusoe in England

Filling Station

First Death in Nova Scotia

The Man-Moth

The Mountain

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

A Short Analysis of Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘One Art’ is a poem by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79), first published in the New Yorker in 1976 and included in her collection Geography III the following year. The poem, which is one of the most famous examples of the villanelle form, is titled ‘One Art’ because the poem is about Bishop’s attempts to make loss and poetry into one unified ‘art’: to ‘master’ what she calls the ‘art of losing’.

You can read ‘One Art’ here ; below, we offer an analysis of Bishop’s poem.

‘One Art’ : summary

Elizabeth Bishop begins ‘One Art’ by asserting that it is easy to deal with loss. So many things in life seem to be designed to be lost, that losing them should not be viewed as a disaster.

Next, she entreats us to try to lose something every day if we can. It might be lost front-door keys (an item commonly lost or mislaid) or lost time (an hour wasted doing something unproductive). After all, it isn’t difficult to master this idea of losing things.

Once we have learnt to lose these small, insignificant things, we should set our sights higher, or rather ‘farther, faster’: we should forget the names of things, or forget places we have been, or places we intended to visit on our travels. Forgetting any of this, she assures us, will not bring about disaster.

Bishop then proffers a personal example: she lost her mother’s watch, and then the last-but-one of the three houses she has lived in. This, too, was easy: after all, it isn’t hard to ‘master’ this ‘art’ of losing things.

Now the losses get even bigger: two cities, which the poet had presumably left behind. These were beautiful cities she was fond of. She even ‘lost’ two rivers and a whole continent, leaving them all behind. Although she misses them, it wasn’t so terrible to lose them. It certainly wasn’t a disaster.

In the poem’s final quatrain, Bishop turns to address an unidentified ‘you’: she tells this addressee that even losing them, with their endearing jokey voice (a gesture the poet loves), can be lost, the poet can admit without having lied.

She then concludes by reaffirming her earlier statement that it isn’t ‘too hard’ to ‘master’ the ‘art’ of losing things which we hold dear in our lives, although it may look like disaster.

‘One Art’ : analysis

‘One Art’ is a subtle poem whose force derives in part from the ambiguity of the word ‘hard’, which appears in the first of the poem’s two refrains. In the context of the poem, ‘hard’ can mean both ‘difficult to achieve’ and ‘difficult to cope with emotionally’.

Clearly, the former is true but the poem – with its litany of dearly-held things the poet has lost, including a loved one in that final stanza – invites us to question how true the second is. It may be ‘easy’ to lose loved ones – indeed, it’s sadly inevitable that the people we love will die – but it isn’t easy in the other sense: that is, it isn’t easy to get over that loss.

‘Losing’, too, clearly carries several different meanings in ‘One Art’: losing one’s keys isn’t the same as ‘losing’ a continent (parting with it or leaving it behind when one moves to another continent), for instance. Even ‘master’ is carrying two subtly distinct meanings: both ‘achieving’ and ‘overcoming’. One masters the violin, while one has to master one’s fears. These two types of ‘mastering’ are not exactly equivalent.

It is partly because of these fine differences in meaning that ‘One Art’ succeeds where many villanelles can fall prey to deathly flatness: as William Empson once observed, the difficulty with writing a villanelle is to stop it from dying as it goes on.

The various meanings of the words ‘hard’ and ‘master’ mean that each time this refrain is repeated throughout the poem, it takes on a slightly different meaning, becoming both more apt and more ironic: apt because we come to realise how many things we must ‘lose’ in the course of a life, but ironic because we realise that, contrary to what the poem appeared to be saying, it is a disaster to lose many of these things.

‘One Art’ comes to have the air of someone whose shoulders are shaking with sobs even as they wipe tears from their eyes and reassure us that they’re not crying.

‘One Art’ is an example of a villanelle . As its name suggests, the villanelle is a French verse form, yet this French form took its name from an Italian one: the word derives from villanella , a form of Italian part-song which originated in Naples in the sixteenth century. The villanelle comprises nineteen lines made up of five tercets (three-line stanzas) and a concluding quatrain.

As the Oxford English Dictionary summarises it, ‘The first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated alternately in the succeeding stanzas as a refrain, and form a final couplet in the quatrain.’

In addition to the restrictive pressure of these recurring refrains, the rhyme scheme of the villanelle is also tight: aba aba aba aba aba abaa . Bishop innovates slightly with these restrictions, employing pararhyme or half-rhyme (‘fluster’, ‘gesture’) in a couple of the lines, while her frequent use of enjambment or run-on lines prevents the individual lines of ‘One Art’ from becoming too self-contained.

After all, the poem is about how all of these various forms of loss can be unified into ‘one art’. (Contrast Bishop’s villanelle with one by William Empson, ‘ Missing Dates ’, which utilises mostly end-stopped lines.)

In addition to these modifications to the villanelle form, Bishop doesn’t repeat the second of her two refrains in full throughout the poem: only the final word, ‘disaster’, and the general sentiment expressed in the line remain constant throughout. But the repetition or near-repetition of the two refrains serves a very particular purpose in ‘One Art’.

In some villanelles – Sylvia Plath’s early poems using this form spring to mind, as do Empson’s poems – the repetition carries the force of mental paralysis and deadlock: the poet finds themselves returning to the same narrow obsessions again and again. But in ‘One Art’, it is more of an unravelling of a fragile belief than it is the hardening of an inevitability.

That is to say, Bishop begins in a casual yet sure and certain enough manner: it isn’t hard to master the art of loss, after all, so what’s all the fuss about? The poem seems to shrug.

But as the villanelle develops and those refrains recur, we start to suspect that the poet is kidding herself: as she’s trying to convince herself of this axiomatic truth, all of the evidence is leading her away from it.

The subtle shift from the initial ‘losing isn’t hard’ into that closing ‘losing’s not too hard ’ (ah, so it is hard, after all) reveals the fissure that has opened up in the speaker’s thinking.

That final ‘ Write it!’, desperately italicised and enclosed within parentheses for emphasis and isolation, seems to admit, finally, that all writing comes from loss, and from trying to work through that loss. Writing is consolation, and for consolation to happen, something must, after all that, have been lost.

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Literary Ladies Guide

An archive dedicated to classic women authors and their work, the poetry of loss: an analysis of “one art” by elizabeth bishop, by jess mendes | on may 28, 2021 | updated february 29, 2024 | comments (0).

Elizabeth Bishop 1934 Vassar yearbook portrait

Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle “One Art” was one of the first poems I read and analyzed at a college level. It’s also one of my favorites. Here is an analysis of “One Art” that can be interpreted from the perspective of wherever the reader is in their own life.

We’ve all, in our unique ways, experienced loss. Countless poems attempt to capture the nature of loss. Elizabeth Bishop was a detail-oriented writer, and the particularity of “One Art” makes the experience of reading it all the more sensitive and meaningful. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind poem.

“One Art” intimately captures the feeling of loss for the reader. Although the poem is mostly autobiographical, it simultaneously acts as a mirror, forcing the reader to reflect on their own losses. This is perhaps why “One Art” is so valuable and memorable. Its relatability makes it difficult to forget.

Elizabeth Bishop experienced loss at an early age. Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother was institutionalized when she was just five years old. Later in her life, Elizabeth lost her partner to suicide. Intense loss followed her through life.

. . . . . . . . . .

Learn more about Elizabeth Bishop . . . . . . . . .

In “One Art,” Bishop attempts to reject the severity of loss. The poem begins with her intentionally flimsy argument: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” Throughout the poem she speaks directly to the reader; as if to say, “Look, if I can lose, you can lose just as well.”

After reading the first stanza, the reader might begin to search through their own life, finding their own “you” to place within Bishop’s words.

From there, we see a buildup of losses, each arguably worse than the last. Bishop begins the poem with losing common, tangible objects, like house keys. She then urges the reader to lose the intangible; like memories and names. Throughout the poem she tries to remind the reader that “their loss is no disaster.” It becomes increasingly difficult to convince even herself of that towards the end.

Bishop then urges the reader to practice “losing farther, losing faster.” Almost creating a snowball effect of loss within the poem, in the next few stanzas she begins losing bigger things; her mother’s watch, the cities she lived and loved.

The final stanza is intentionally flustered. Bishop eventually describes the hardest loss, that of a loved one, seeming to speak directly to them.

. . . . . . . . .

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop wasn’t a particularly prolific writer. Finishing only around a hundred poems in her lifetime, she was quite particular, and her poems were calculated. Her poignant nature reveals something about her intentions within “One Art” — the pieces that appear discomposed are wholly deliberate. She was trying to appear unpolished.

In the last line of the poem, she repeats the word “like” twice. This wasn’t an accident, but rather, an attempt to physically reveal her dissonance within the poem. She is trying to tell the reader, “the art of losing is hard to master.”

I see this poem in my own life, through my own losses. As I write this, I’m sitting in my empty college apartment, actively practicing the art of losing. It’s universally relatable. Elizabeth Bishop simply stated what we all feel. We all want to master the art of losing, even though it never gets easier. She knew this; we all do. That’s what makes the poem so easy to cherish.

See also: 8 Iconic Poems by Elizabeth Bishop . . . . . . . . . .

More information and sources

19 Lines That Turn Anguish into Art
Poetry Foundation
A Conversation with Elizabeth Bishop
Alone with Elizabeth Bishop
It’s Always a Good Time to Revisit the Brilliance of Elizabeth Bishop

Visit and research

Elizabeth Bishop House and Society of Nova Scotia
The Elizabeth Bishop Papers at Vassar College

Contributed by Jess Mendes, a 2021 graduate of SUNY-New Paltz with a major in Digital Media Management, and a minor in Creative Writing.

Categories: Literary Analyses

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

“One Art” is written by one of the pioneer American poets, Elizabeth Bishop. It was first published in the magazine, The New Yorker in 1976, and later included in Bishop’s final collection, Geography III (1976). This poem is considered one of the most brilliant villanelles ever written in the English language. According to critics, it is an autobiographical expression of Bishop. Bishop wrote this poem during the time she was separated from her partner, Alice Methfessel, four years before her death.

Bishop, in a highly descriptive manner, presents microscopic details of all the things she lost, making it a poem about loss. The poetic voice claims to lose is like “art” that can be practiced or won over, something that can be dazzlingly “mastered,” but that is exactly where the irony of the poem lies. The bold claims she makes as she professes the art of loss are only a meek attempt to understand and internalize her own losses and how to deal with them.

Read the full poem “One Art” below:

“One Art” is often referred to as Bishop’s autobiographical poem and one of her most famous works. Through this poem, she takes readers on a journey of the losses that she has to endure throughout her life. The poem starts with a bold exclamation that losing is an art that is not hard to master. In fact, it is the intention of certain things to be lost and that is no disaster. Losing is an everyday act, similar to losing a key or wasting some hours. It is not a thing to fret over. One should practice losing and practice it as much as one can. It is not just limited to external physical or abstract objects but losses are also very intrinsic in nature.

One can certainly forget names, places, and memories, and this too is not a disaster. As the poem moves forward, the first-person voice is introduced. This poetic voice claims that she has lost her mother’s watch and three houses until now. She goes on to talk about losing ginormous things like cities, realms, rivers, and even a continent. This allegorical description of the losses paints a poignant picture of her sufferings. The enormity with which she depicts her losses is almost hyperbolic. From this point onwards as the poem builds up, there is but one loss that she speaks of, and it is the loss of this “you.” Yet ironically, she still claims that losses are not hard to master and neither are they catastrophic.

Structure & Form

Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” is a villanelle, a fixed verse form with origins in French baroque. A Villanelle has nineteen lines made up of five tercets (three-line stanzas) and concluded by a quatrain (four-line stanza). There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes in this form. Bishop does not closely adhere to the fixed villanelle form. She improvises the refrains but keeps the tercet-quatrain structure intact. In the first three tercets, she uses the third-person, objective point of view. The rest follows the semi-personal, first-person perspective.

Rhyme Scheme

The rhyme pattern employed in “One Art” is ABA, making the rhyme in the first and third lines repeat in an alternate pattern in every stanza. Bishop does not employ fixed rhymes, rather she uses several half-rhymes or slant rhymes. For instance, the words “or” and “master” rhyme imperfectly in the fourth tercet. Besides, there is a mosaic rhyme between “last, or” and “master.”

Meter & Scansion

“One Art” uses iambic pentameter, a metric form denoting five iambs in a poetic line. Ten syllables made up of five pairs of repeating unstressed (short) and stressed (long) syllables comprise this metrical scheme. The scansion of the poem gives a clear understanding of how this meter is used.

The art / of lo /-sing is /-n’t hard / to mas /-ter; so ma /-ny things / seem filled / with the / in- tent to be / lost that / their loss / is no / di- sas /-ter. – Lose some /-thing eve /-ry day ./ Ac- cept / the flus /-ter of lost / door keys ,/ the hour / bad -ly/ spent . The art / of lo /-sing is /-n’t hard / to mas /-ter. – Then prac /-tice lo /-sing far /-ther, lo /-sing fas /-ter: pla -ces,/ and names ,/ and where / it was / you meant to tra /-vel. None / of these / will bring / di- sas /-ter. – I lost / my mo /-ther’s watch ./ And look !/ my last ,/ or next /-to- last ,/ of three / loved hou /-ses went . The art / of lo /-sing is /-n’t hard / to mas /-ter. – I lost / two ci /-ties, love /-ly ones ./ And, vas /-ter, some realms / I owned ,/ two ri /-vers, a / con- ti /-nent. I miss / them, but / it was /-n’t a / di- sas /-ter. – — E -ven/ lo -sing/ you (the/ jo -king/ voice , a/ ges -ture I love )/ I shan’t / have lied ./ It’s e /-vi- dent the art / of lo /-sing’s not / too hard / to mas /-ter though it / may look / like ( Write / it!) like / di- sas /-ter.

The poem begins with an eleven-syllable line, thus having a feminine ending (a line ending with an unstressed syllable). It is followed by a perfect decasyllabic line with the unstressed-stressed, iambic rhythm. The lines ending with the syllable “-ter” are feminine, creating an unrestricted flow to the next line. Besides, some occasional use of trochees marks the shifts in the speaker’s chain of thoughts, such as in the ending of line 5 and the opening of the last quatrain (line 16).

Literary Devices & Figurative Language

Symbolism is a poetic technique in which marks, signs, or words are used to represent abstract ideas, qualities, or associations. The meaning of symbolic words differs from their actual literal meaning. There are a few notable symbols in “One Art”:

The lost “mother’s watch” represents the difficult relationship that Bishop had with her mother whom she lost at a young age, because of her being institutionalized and then her death.
The loss of “names” and “places” also represents a sense of isolation and a loss of identity she might have felt.
Lastly, the loss of “three loved houses” represents her childhood that was spent moving from one place to another leading her to have felt uprooted every time. The use of symbolism features the psychologically complex mind of Bishop.

The predominant irony that is followed throughout “One Art” is that the speaker, in a very didactic and instructive tone, is trying to tell readers that loss is like an “art” and that it can be “mastered” through practice. But as the poem progresses, it turns out that it is to her own self that she is trying to explain the fact as she tries to reassure herself that loss is no “disaster” after all. The poem then becomes a type of lesson imparted by a master or an artist, who has most evidently witnessed a lot of losses throughout her life and has abundant experience. But as the poem breaks in the parathesis—( Write it!)—the readers are introduced to the ironic self of the speaker that preaches the inevitability of losses and has an indifference towards them, but still struggles to accept their pervasiveness.

The speaker in “One Art” portrays all her losses to be of equal magnitude and tries to create an indifference towards each one of them. She simplifies life, but ironically life can never be that simple, a fact remains in the undertone of the poem as she enlists all the things that she has lost. Such complex and ambiguous emotions are included through a tightly restrained form, suggesting irony to be the core of the poem.

Imagery is the use of figurative or descriptive language to create a picture or image in readers’ minds. Stanza three makes use of a number of images, like “cities,” “realms,” “rivers,” and “continents.” These images help readers to imagine something enormous, which is a representation of all that she has lost. The extent of her loss can only be compared to the images present in the poem.

Alliteration & Assonance

Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of closely placed words. It occurs in “ m aster;/ so m any,” “ f arther, losing f aster,” “ m y m other’s,” “ l ook! my l ast,” etc. Assonance is the repetition of the vowel sounds in neighboring words, such as in “los i ng i sn’t,” “l o st my mother’s w a tch,” etc. These devices add to the momentum of the poem. It seems to bring to the surface that there is just so much that the speaker has lost that she is exasperated, but the restraining structure keeps her from falling apart.

A metaphor is a poetic device in which a word or phrase may denote one object or an idea when taken literally but is used to denote something else, suggesting an association or comparison. The predominant metaphor that is present throughout the poem is an analogy formed between losing as a form of “art.” This suggests that coping with loss becomes an emotional skill that can be mastered through practice. Something that is only suffused to be felt is commodified into a skill. This makes “One Art” a metaphoric verse.

Refrains are lines that are repeated several times in a poem. There are two refrains in “One Art,” and one of them is entirely repeated: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” Bishop is inconsistent about the second refrain, and instead of using it in exact words, she only repeats the words “disaster” at the end of each refrain. The last stanza includes both the refrains.

The repetition of these lines is important. They represent the obsession of the speaker with defeating loss, mastering it, and not feeling rejected. She tries to make sense of the absence that she felt through a retrospective repletion. It acts as intrusive thought occurring when following a course of action. The refrain and rhymes also provide a kind of speed and force to the poem, which in turn has a rather large impact on readers.

The first line of the third tercet contains a repetition of the word “losing,” denoting a sense of urgency or rush. This also hints at the extent of human loss. There is an ironic repetition of the word “last” in the fourth tercet. Furthermore, in the next tercet, Bishop repeats “two” to denote the number of “cities” and “rivers” she lost touch with.

Line-by-Line Analysis & Explanation

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

The first line or the first refrain remains unchanged and is repeated throughout “One Art.” It ends with a semicolon, indicating a kind of pause. This was a deliberate choice made by the poet which instills a sense of confidence in the tone, leaving no room for uncertainties. The claim that is being made here is that losing is an art that is not difficult to “master.” The second line is accompanied by an enjambment at the word “intent,” which introduces a jerk in the initial confidence of the poetic persona. This suggests that it is the “intent” of certain things to be lost. It is as if they want to be lost (a use of personification), yet it is no “disaster.” The second refrain ends with the word “disaster” each time. Bishop took certain liberties in changing the initial wording of this refrain.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

The first line of the second stanza sounds like a command. It states that losing something is an everyday activity. The speaker tells readers to practice it through her tone. The brevity and abruptness of the sentence suggest that she has no patience in clarifying the details. Those who have already experienced the disconcert of losing door keys or an hour spent unproductively can relate to her.

The two examples exhibited are essentially different: the “key” is a physical object and the wasted “hour” is an abstract one. But the suggestion remains that they are both small and unimportant things hence losing them is not so substantial. In the last line, she restates that the art of losing should not be too hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

The third stanza starts with yet another command. The speaker makes an attempt to inform readers about the specifics of this art and how it is to be done: “losing farther” and “losing faster.” The repetition of “losing” implies a sense of rush that the poem takes forth. This suggests a sense of urgency as the speaker further enlists her losses. The loss of keys or an hour is inconsiderable compared to the things mentioned here.

From line eight onwards, the speaker illustrates the losses that affect the mind. These are not tangible. She talks about losing “names” and “places,” meaning the loss of memories. In the ninth line, she reassures readers that even losing such things as those memories and consequently the emotions will not “bring disaster.” It will not be such a grand matter.

Lines 10-12

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

The first line of this tercet indicates a sudden shift to the first-person, personal voice from the third-person perspective. Up until now, the poetic voice seems to be an instructive one, making commands and giving instructions, but the shift in the point of view denotes that the poet is now addressing herself rather than the readers. She uses her own voice to hint at her own losses, like losing her “mother’s watch” a symbol of a loose mother-daughter relationship. Then she makes an exclamation, “And look!”, in an attempt to attract readers’ attention to her losing “three loved houses.” Yet again after detailing these threads of losses, she uses the first refrain that the art of losing is not that hard to learn. The objectivity the poetic persona tries to maintain hitherto sounds somewhat emotional.

Lines 13-15

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

The fifth tercet begins with a statement about the immensity of the things that she has lost. It is greater and far more complicated than losing her “mother’s watch” or the “houses.” She has lost two “cities” that that too “lovely” ones. There is a sense of warning when she says “And, vaster,” because her losses just do not end here. They go beyond her owned realms, rivers, and even a continent. Of course, it is practically impossible to lose such things so such losses represent an emotional loss perhaps, one that is more indicative of the overall sentiment. In fact, the enormous nature of the losses makes it seem almost hyperbolic.

The last lines suggest a split in the chain of thoughts, a perfect ricocheting between indifference and sadness. She expresses her grief when she says “I miss them,” but almost immediately the comma divides the sentence creating a split in her thoughts as she claims her second refrain again, “but it wasn’t a disaster.” One half of her mind wants to grieve while the other half wants to deny it.

Lines 16-19

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like ( Write it!) like disaster.

The very first line of the last quatrain starts with emdash, which alludes to a pause that the speaker is taking before speaking further. After the first five tercets, there is a build-up in the intensity of the losses she had to chew. The emdash allows her a breather before she comes to a kind of certainty about what she has to say. The final loss that she lists is this “you” to whom she addresses with a parenthesis. She declares what she misses the most about this person are their “joking voice” and their “gestures.” The parenthesis allows her to retrospect. She reminisces on this important and the only addressee of “One Art.”

In the next line, she goes on to reaffirm her initial claim about how easy it is to lose and that fact is not a lie. It is most “evident.” The poem ends on the note of a repetition of both the refrains; first the declaration that a loss is not that hard to “master” and then a reassurance that a loss is not a “disaster.” However, the other parenthesis before she finally ends the poem creates a chasm in the final line. She, with a commanding tone, exclaims to herself, “ Write it!”, as if she is urging herself to finish the sentence. This acts as a reference to her conflict and the denial of her own feelings. In fact, it denotes that the only person she was instructing throughout the poem was herself all along.

Loss and Survival

Loss as a theme of “One Art” is the one that is stated most explicitly throughout. It also becomes the central idea of the poem. This piece brings out the pervasive nature of loss, and that it is implicit, almost always inevitable. Bishop elucidates this theme with the various illustrations of losses that occur in people’s lives in general along with the illustrations from her personal life. She claims to lose to be an “art” that can be mastered. The apparent strategy is to actually practice losing more and more to be good at it.

As readers progress towards the end of the poem, what comes to light is that the only way in which losses can be half defeated is through their acknowledgment and acceptance. This is illustrated when Bishop forces a kind of acceptance of her losses when she exclaims—( Write it!)—as if she finally believes that she has been in denial. She is finally coming to terms with it. In this way, the art of losing implicitly becomes the art of survival.

Learn and Practice

There is a reinforcement of the act of practicing and learning in “One Art.” Bishop’s emphasis on the fact that losing is an “art” that can be mastered makes it something that can be learned through deliberate practice. Learning to lose is somewhat a positive take in the otherwise remorseful poem. The instructive voice in the first half of the poem is like that of an expert imparting a lesson to their pupils. As the narrative voice shifts from the third person to the first, readers witness the didactic voice of the poet was after all directed towards her own self. This proves to be an objective approach that the poet applies to her situation in order to make sense of it. Thus, the intricate act of teaching and learning is felt almost as strongly as the act of losing, making learning an important theme and aspect of the poem.

Latent Sadness, Retrospection, and Nostalgia

Through “One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop looks at her life in a retrospective manner. She writes of the many losses that she had to endure in her lifetime. She enlists them within a tautly structured framework of a villanelle so as to not allow her emotions to influence her judgment. Thus, she tries to make sense of them although this objective approach only acts as a veneer to her real emotions. In the ending, she breaks the strong frame with emdash and parentheses revealing all that she has denied admitting. Her sadness, although latent, finds its way back to her through a nostalgic reminiscence of her past:

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. – —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied.

Tone & Mood

What is most apparent about “One Art” is that it presents two kinds of tones: an explicit and an implicit undertone. Both of these tones prove impactful for the readers to understand the psychologically complex idea of loss. The seemingly indifferent or casual tone hides the actual chaos that the speaker tries to deny. BIshop uses a strict poetic form to structure her thoughts in order to check her own emotions, making them not spill out and create a lachrymose mess. However, the minute inevitable nuances give away her real intentions. Her emotions bring to the surface the chaotic and complex nature of her mind.

“One Art” chooses its primary subject matter of “loss.” She enlists all that she has lost and connects with the reader through subjective and objective representations of the losses. The schemes applied by Bishop set a kind of happy-go-lucky mood in the poem. She has a steadfast attachment to the idea of winning over her losses, but their acknowledgment and acceptance are rather difficult. This evokes a pitiful and sad mood in readers. Overall, the mood of the poem remains regretful until the end.

Historical Context

“One Art” acts as an elegy to all the losses that Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) witnessed throughout her life. She first lost her father when she was not even a year old and then saw her mother grieve until she was clinically insane and had to be institutionalized. Bishop eventually ended up losing her mother too in her early twenties. She kept relocating as a child and could not call any particular place her home for too long a time.

Bishop had an exceptional love for traveling and through a fellowship, she received from Bryn Mawr College in 1951, she moved to South America on a boat. She was to finally stop in Brazil for a stay of two weeks but she ended up staying fifteen years. There she met Lota de Macedo Soares and stayed with her until Soares committed suicide in 1967.

Bishop then moved back to Massachusetts, where she took up teaching at Harvard University. In 1971, she met Alice Methfessel, who helped and took care of her in her last years. Both of them traveled together. Their relationship was on its high for five years until Bishop’s behavior and alcoholism got in the way of their relationship. In the spring of 1975, Methfessel got married leaving Bishop alone. Bishop made a will for her inheritance in the name of Methfessel.

Bishop’s life was weighed down by losses and “One Art” is an embodiment of the fact, depicting her life in an autobiographical manner. It took her just two weeks to compose this poem after writing seventeen drafts. The poem was first published in The New Yorker on 26 April 1976. Later the same year, it was included in her poetry collection, Geography III , one of her most positively critiqued works. For this collection, Bishop received the Neustadt International Prize making her the first American and the first woman to receive this accolade. She also won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977.

Questions and Answers

In “One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop portrays the universality of loss, making it both perpetual and pervasive. This occurrence is common to all—an experience familiar to both the poet and the audience. The poet not only objectively tries to accept and acknowledge her losses but also educates readers of its inevitability. She claims that there is but one art that anyone must practice and it is to learn to lose. The title of the poem becomes relevant as she makes it abundantly clear that the only important lesson that one should inculcate is the art of losing, establishing its supremacy over everything, making it one art. Another reason for stating the relevance of the title is in the framework of the poem itself. There is a momentum that is built throughout adding to the intensity and importance of the losses that Bishop enlists. After all the survivable losses that she mentions including the loss of the hyperbolic “realms” and “continents” there is but one loss that cracks her core. It is the loss of the only addressee of the poem, this “you.” When everything is lost there is only one that stands out, it is that one loss, under the cover of the structure, that is hard to accept. Hence, again rendering the title relevant.

“One Art” is an autobiographical account of the losses poet Elizabeth Bishop had to suffer throughout her life. As she enlists her losses, they also increase in intensity and importance, but the restrictive fixed form of a villanelle helps her in keeping her own emotions from spilling. This objective approach used by Bishop in “One Art” acts as a medium that helps her make sense of her life after all that had been lost with the purpose of not falling into the emotional trap. In the end, she clearly forces herself to move past this “you.” So, the logical approach and the objectivity in her understanding of loss as an “art” even when losing the addressee, which was almost like a “disaster,” help Bishop survive it. Thus, “One Art” becomes a medium through which she not only meditates on her losses but also learns to accept them.

The central message of “One Art” is to educate the readers on the fact that life is essentially about losing and moving on. Like any art, a loss can be “mastered.” Elizabeth Bishop, through her poetic persona, imparts this message in her autobiographical account of the losses that she had to suffer. She shows how one must practice losing and how one must lose more and more to be good at it. There is a reassuring message that whatever it is we lose, it is certainly no “disaster.” What also becomes an implicit message is not only mastering these losses but also accepting them. It is only towards the end of the poem that the speaker somewhat comes to terms with her losses. She has to force herself to accept the bitter reality. So, the central acknowledgment of the poem is not to simply master the art of losing but to survive it as well.

Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle “One Art” is essentially about losses and how pervasive and unpreventable they are. The poem is also much more than that as it talks about losing as an “art” that can be “mastered” through practice, incorporating a didactic feature to it. The very first line, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master,” is paradoxical that is carried through the narrative. On the one hand, Bishop believes that one should learn not to pay extra attention to the losses that occur in life, but on the other hand, she suggests readers practice losing. This intention creates a contradiction that is only consolidated through various personal accounts in the poem. “One Art” also takes readers through the autobiographical depiction of Bishop’s life and all that she lost with time, ranging from mere everyday objects like “keys” or “names and places” to more important things like her “mother’s watch” and “loved houses,” and then to vast, hyperbolic ideas like “cities,” “realms,” “rivers,” and even a “continent.” All of this culminates in the most important thing that she lost, her loved one addressed as “you.” Though it was hard to lose these things, they are after all not a “disaster.” This adds an air of regret to an ironic backdrop, leading readers to sympathize with Bishop.

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop brings to light two essential ideas: the first one is that losing is an “art” and the second one is accepting losses objectively. The essential emphasis is on the act of losing as an “art,” which makes it a kind of skill that can be “mastered” with practice. Bishop seems to be bringing all her losses on one single plane. For her, losing everyday objects like “keys” is equivalent to losing the most valuable person in her life, the addressee of the poem, “you.” Bishop lost so much throughout her life that losing further was not any harder than the preceding ones. Hence, this commodification of loss as an act that can be learned is crucial with respect to the poem. Another important dimension that Bishop gives the poem is in contrast with the first idea: the act of acceptance. This is where readers can see her acting objectively. The art of losing then becomes the art of survival.

“One Art” is an autobiographical poem that Elizabeth Bishop wrote as she approached the end of her life. This poem is part of her last book of poetry, Geography III (1976). “One Art” is one of the last poems by Bishop and stands symbolic of the fact that it is an account of certain significant losses that she had to witness. It is written in a tightly structured poetic form called villanelle, which gives her a certain kind of aloofness helping her in understanding her own life.

Similar Poems about Loss

“ Easter ” by Jill Alexander Essbaum — This poem is about a speaker who tries to cope with her past losses during Easter.
“ Splendour in the Grass ” by William Wordsworth — This philosophical poem part of Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode imparts the lesson of moving on with the learnings from one’s past.
“ Love in a Life ” by Robert Browning — In this poem, a speaker tries to find the presence of his beloved in their room.
“ I wish I could remember that first day ” by Christina Rossetti — This nostalgic poem is about one speaker’s regrets about her past choices.

Useful Resources

Watch Reaching for the Moon (2013) — This inspirational Brazilian movie is based on Elizabeth Bishop’s relationship with Lota de Macedo Soares.
Check Out The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 — This essential collection of Bishop’s poetry includes all her published poems, previously unpublished works, and translations.
A Reading of “One Art” — Listen to Hrishikesh Hirway reading Bishop’s poem.
Drafts of “One Art” — Explore all the drafts of this poem, starting from the first two-line draft “How to Lose Things” to the final “One Art.”
Documentary on Elizabeth Bishop — Have a peek into Bishop’s personal life.
About Elizabeth Bishop — Learn more about her life and works.

Analysis of Poem 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop

Author: Andrew Spacey

A close reading of 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop

Gerardo Weckesser | Canva

'One Art' Elizabeth Bishop Analysis

Elizabeth Bishop's poem 'One Art' is in the form of a villanelle, a traditional, repetitive kind of poem of nineteen lines. In it, she meditates on the art of losing, building up a small catalogue of losses which includes house keys and a mother's watch, before climaxing in the loss of houses, land and a loved one.

It is a part-autobiographical poem and mirrors the actual losses Elizabeth Bishop experienced during her lifetime.

Her father, for instance, died when she was a baby, and her mother suffered a nervous breakdown some years later. The young poet had to live with her relatives and never saw her mother again. In her mature years, she lost her partner to suicide.

'One Art' carefully, if casually, records these events, beginning innocently enough with an ironic play on 'the art' before moving on to more serious losses. It culminates in the personal loss of a loved one and the admission that, yes, this may look like a disaster.

A poem about lost things

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

'One Art'

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like ( Write it!) like disaster.

Overview of the Poem

'One Art' is a villanelle, that is, it consists of five tercets rhyming aba and a quatrain of abaa . Traditionally the villanelle is in iambic pentameter, each line having five stresses or beats and an average of ten syllables.

So the first line scans:

The art / of los / ing is / n't hard / to mast er;

with notable unstressed endings to most lines. The second line of each stanza solidifies the whole with full end rhyme.

The opening line is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth tercets. The third line of the initial tercet is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth tercets. The opening line and the third line together become the refrain which is repeated in the last two lines of the quatrain.

Elizabeth Bishop slightly modified the lines but minor changes are allowed within the basic villanelle. The idea is to create a sort of dance of words, repeating certain lines whilst building up variations on a theme, all within the tight-knit form.

Note the use of enjambment , carrying the sense of a line on into the next without punctuation, which occurs in the first four stanzas, bringing a smooth if considered energy into the poem.

The fifth stanza is different. It has punctuation, a comma and two periods (end stops), causing the reader to pause as if the speaker is hesitant.

The last stanza is fully enjambed, each line flowing into the next, despite the unexpected use of parentheses.

Wellington House: Britain's WW1 Propaganda Bureau

Further analysis of 'one art'.

This is a crafted poem with simple language and mostly full end rhymes such as master/disaster, fluster/master, last or/master, gesture/master/disaster. There is the occasional half-rhyme.

As you read through, note the almost conversational, tongue-in-cheek tone, with some irony to spice it up. It's as if the poet initially is reminding herself of just what it means to lose something; it's no big deal we're told, certainly not a disaster?

First Stanza

The speaker chooses to turn the idea of loss into an art form and tries to convince the reader (and herself) that certain things inherently want to be lost and that, when they do get lost, it's nothing to cry about because it was bound to happen in the first place. This is a fateful approach, gracefully accepted by the speaker.

Second Stanza

Following on in a logical fashion, if fate dictates and things want to get lost, then why not lose something on a daily basis? Seems a tad wacky, an offbeat statement. Who wants to lose a thing and then not get emotional about it? Each and every day?

The speaker is suggesting that things, keys, and even time equate to the same thing - they're capable of being lost, absent from your life for no other reason other than they are. Some people are better at it than others. The absent-minded perhaps? Those individuals who are in some way fated, who have a talent for losing things.

So far, so impersonal. Emotion is being held in as the poem builds; the reader is being reminded that losing control within the poem's tight form is not possible - but you are allowed to get in a fluster (agitated, confused).

Third Stanza

Now the reader is being told to consciously lose something, to practice the art. Irony sets in, as does the idea that the mind is a central focus here, for what we're told to lose is abstract - places and names, perhaps on a personal map. Time is being squeezed too as life gets busier and our minds become full and stretched. But in the end, we can handle the losses, no problem.

Fourth Stanza

Again, the emphasis is on time, specifically family time, with the mother's watch being lost, surely symbolic of a profound personal experience for the poet. And note that the speaker is in the here and now when the words And look! appear in the first line, telling the reader that three loved houses went. Went where? We're not sure, we only know they were definitely lost, never having been called home.

Fifth Stanza

The build-up continues. Emotional tension is still not apparent as the reader is now confronted with the speaker's loss of not only the cities where they used to live but the whole continent. This seems drastic. To go from a set of house keys to a whopping continent is absurd - how much more can the speaker endure? Disaster still hasn't happened, but she does miss what she had and possibly took for granted.

Sixth Stanza

The opening dash in the final stanza gives it the feel of almost an afterthought. And the use of adverbs, even and too in connection with a loved one, reveals something quite painfully rational. The personal gives way to the impersonal, the form dictating, despite the last attempt (Write it!) to avoid admission.

In conclusion, there is always the possibility of disaster when we lose something but life teaches us that more often than not, we come out of certain precarious situations with a smile, a cool detachment, the benefit of hindsight.

The poet infers we might become masters of the art of losing and in so doing, find ourselves?

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Poem Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Analysis: “One Art”

“One Art” is a villanelle , meaning the poem is a closed form with set rules. Though adhering to most traditional villanelle guidelines, Bishop takes liberty with the form’s refrain at the end. Villanelles contain stanzas comprised of tercets (three-line stanzas) and a finishing quatrain (four-line stanza). There is also a strict rhyme scheme and there are repeating lines (refrains). The tercets, for instance, use an aba rhyming pattern, while the quatrain implements an abaa rhyming pattern (review the Literary Devices section for a comprehensive explanation with examples).

Bishop strikes a humorous tone early in the poem by mentioning losing items as insignificant: “so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster” (Lines 2-3). With these opening lines, Bishop places the fault on the items themselves and their “intent” in the disappearing. She bolsters her flippant tone with rhyme; “One Art” has a singsong quality juxtaposed with the serious nature of the poem’s subject.

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The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother ’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice , a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Meanings of One Art

Meanings of stanza -1.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Meanings of Stanza -2

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Meanings of Stanza -3

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

Meanings of Stanza -4

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Meanings of Stanza -5

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

Meanings of Stanza -6

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Summary of One Art

Analysis of literary devices in one art.

“I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.”

“so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”

Analysis of Poetic Devices in “One Art”

Quotes to be used.

“I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”

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Literary Analysis of One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Categories: Elizabeth Bishop Literary Criticism One Art

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Published: Aug 6, 2021

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by Elizabeth Bishop

One art the villanelle.

The villanelle is a type of formal poem—that is to say, a structure according to which elements such as poetic rhyme scheme, meter, and length are arranged. The villanelle has French roots, and the term at first referred to folk songs or to poems geared towards discussing pastoral topics. Scholars disagree regarding when the villanelle as a form, rather than a mere descriptive word for pastoral poetry, was standardized. Some believe that its current form was fixed as early as the sixteenth century, when Jean Passerat's poem "Villanelle" laid the groundwork for all future versions of the form. Others believe that it was not standardized until hundreds of years later in the nineteenth century. Today, as a popular form in English, the villanelle is no longer primarily used to discuss any given topic. Instead, writers from Dylan Thomas to Sylvia Plath to Elizabeth Bishop have made use of the form's restrictions in order to express a variety of ideas.

Though individual poets may choose to experiment with the form, making modifications as they see fit, the form calls for a nineteen-line poem composed of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (four-line stanza). The first and third lines of the poem become refrains, repeated throughout. The first line is used as the closing line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line becomes the closing line of the third and fifth. Both refrains, one after the other, close out the final quatrain and the poem as a whole. Traditionally, the villanelle follows an ABA rhyme scheme, in which the first and third line of every tercet rhyme, while the middle line in every tercet also rhymes. The final quatrain's rhyme scheme is ABAA: since not one but both refrains are repeated at the end of the poem, the final "A" rhyme is repeated twice. While villanelles don't necessarily have a given meter (poetic pattern of stress), it's common for villanelles written in English to use iambic pentameter. This is a meter in which every line contains five iambs (two-syllable phrases with the stress on the second syllable).

Elizabeth Bishop's " One Art " is among the most famous villanelles in English, but the form's immense popularity with English-speaking poets, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, means that some of the most widely anthologized and well-known poems today are written in this form. Sylvia Plath's " Mad Girl's Love Song " is a villanelle, as is Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." More recently, contemporary poets like Michael Luis Medrano have taken on the form. The themes of these poems are diverse, as are the innovations and adaptations various poets have brought to the villanelle. Some embrace a looser rhyme scheme. Others, including Elizabeth Bishop in "One Art," choose to inject minor alterations into their refrains rather than repeat them verbatim. Still, repetition is seen as the defining characteristic of the form, and some form of repeated refrain grounds every villanelle.

Depending on a poet's tone, content, and themes, the basic villanelle form can affect the reader's experience in a variety of ways. Its repetitious, musical qualities were used, especially in its earlier European iterations, to portray the rustic and the pastoral. Yet other poets have spotted other potential in the villanelle. Bishop, one might argue, uses the form in "One Art" to portray the back-and-forth of an internal conflict or argument. Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song" portrays a speaker questioning her own sanity, and in this poem, the villanelle's repeating, entangled refrains evoke the frustrating circularity of the speaker's psychological state. Meanwhile, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" makes use of the form to display its speaker's recurring, futile attempt to appeal to a dying loved one. By contrast, the incessant refrain in Medrano's "Villanelle," while also addressing death, emphasizes death's finality.

As with many poetic forms—including the sonnet, the sestina, and the haiku— the villanelle offers its practitioners a kind of freedom within its strictures. Poets have used the form as a prompt and a challenge, both making use of its rules and rebelling against those rules as it suits their artistic goals. As Philip K. Jason writes of the form, "the pattern, in itself, means nothing. Rather, it promises many things that poets who are sensitive to form can seize upon."

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One Art Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for One Art is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for One Art

One Art study guide contains a biography of Elizabeth Bishop, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About One Art
One Art Summary
Character List

Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” Poem Analysis

Poets and writers use numerous literary devices, ways of building rhyme, and rhythm to convey the message of their compositions to readers. Elizabeth Bishop is also one of these authors as her poetry is filled with various elements to create form and context for sharing her personal experience and ideas. This paper will analyze the poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop to demonstrate the appropriateness of using all of the author’s literary techniques to convey the message.

The poem “One Art” is a personal story of the author, which can be familiar to many people. Bishop talks about the belongings and people she has lost in her life, from the small items in early childhood to important things like home and loved ones. In real life, Bishop experienced the death of her mother and father, a commitment to a mental facility, and constant relocation that deprived her of a home, which is reflected in her poem.

For this reason, the protagonist in the verse is the author himself, and her antagonist is the loss that she repeatedly overcome. At the same time, five short verses fully reveal the plot of the story. The rising action manifested in listing losses from small to significant. The climax describes the narrator’s loss of a loved one, which is the most painful for her (Bishop line 17). However, the following lines indicate that she has coped with feelings, which is the falling action. Thus, the author reveals her experience and forms a story that the reader can understand without even knowing the details of her life.

Moreover, the poem’s form is one of the features that allows the author to convey emotions to the reader. The poem consists of four verses of three lines and the final verse of four lines, while it has all two rhymes repeated through the text. These lines are meaningfully divided into three parts, each of which speaks of losses of varying degrees. In the first part, Bishop talks about small things that are easy to replace, in the second about more significant material values, and in the third about a loved person.

This structure is characteristic of the villanelle form of poetry, which is most often used to convey strong emotions as it has repetition that emphasizes the problem. Bishop most often repeats the phrase “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” in the first, sixth, twelfth, and eighteenth lines. Simultaneously, the repetition of the words “is not a disaster” that follows this phrase emphasizes that loss is a painful experience each time, but it can be overcome. Therefore, this form of verse is an accurate way to amplify the message and convey emotion to the readers.

Moreover, Bishop uses several other literary devices to enhance the message of the poem. Firstly, although the verse is written in the first person, it sounds like the author’s desire to provide support to readers but not only share experiences with them. This feature is expressed by such impersonal appeals as “lose” and “practice,” as well as the pronoun “you,” which in this verse creates the feeling that the author is speaking directly to the reader (Bishop lines 3, 7). In addition, the strong emphasis is on the bracketed phrase on the last line “(Write this!)” (Bishop line 19). This phrase sounds like a piece of advice that readers must remember to avoid the feeling of doom and hopelessness that the author faced when perceiving loss as a disaster.

Furthermore, Bishop uses images that are understandable and close to the reader to convey the rising action and convey the growing pain of loss. The author begins with the loss of keys or an hour of time, which is an only unpleasant trifle for everyone. Bishop moves on to more personal and sensitive issues such as places, names, cities, and countries that once mattered in a person’s life (line 7). Losing valuable material or sentimental things is more sensitive for most people, so Bishop puts them to the next level. Consequently, readers can easily match the narrator’s experience with their own and, at the climax, feel the emotions that the author has put into it. Thus, such features of the plot construction and almost imperceptible details allow Bishop to fill her poem with meaning and feelings that are deep but understandable to readers.

In conclusion, the analysis of “One Art” poem by Elizabeth Bishop demonstrates that the author skillfully uses literary techniques to convey the message of the verse. The main feature is the villanelle form of poetry, which allows the author to emphasize the problem using repetition and three parts of building a story like an essay. In addition, Bishop uses familiar images and phrases for readers that make them feel the described experience as if it was their own. Thus, although Bishop brings her personal struggle to this poem, a reader can understand and feel its message even without knowing the details of the author’s biography.

Bishop, Elizabeth. “ One Art. ” Web.

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Elizabeth Bishop was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts and grew up there and in Nova Scotia. Her father died before she was a year old and her mother suffered seriously from mental illness; she was committed to an institution when Bishop was five. Raised...

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I am in need of music that would f… Over my fretful, feeling fingertip… Over my bitter—tainted, trembling… With melody, deep, clear, and liqu… Oh, for the healing swaying, old a…

We must admire her perfect aim, this huntress of the winter air whose level weapon needs no sight, if it were not that everywhere her game is sure, her shot is righ…

Love’s the boy stood on the burnin… trying to recite `The boy stood on the burning deck.' Love’s the son stood stammering elocution while the poor ship in flames went…

At low tide like this how sheer th… White, crumbling ribs of marl prot… and the boats are dry, the pilings… Absorbing, rather than being absor… the water in the bight doesn’t wet…

Days that cannot bring you near or will not, Distance trying to appear something more obstinate, argue argue argue with me

The tumult in the heart keeps asking questions. And then it stops and undertakes t… in the same tone of voice. No one could tell the difference.

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight.

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One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
Summary. 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop illustrates the desperate denial of grief and pain that follows a devastating loss. 'One Art' begins with the speaker claiming that mastery of loss is an easy thing to acquire, as life is filled with things destined to be lost. They interpret this as proof that such separations are "no disaster.".
One Art Poem Summary and Analysis
Learn More. "One Art" was written by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. The poem is a villanelle, a traditional form that involves a fixed number of lines and stanzas and an intricate pattern of repetition and rhyme. Through this form, the poem explores loss as an inevitable part of life. The speaker considers what it means to experience ...
A Short Analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art'
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'One Art' is a poem by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79), first published in the New Yorker in 1976 and included in her collection Geography III the following year. The poem, which is one of the most famous examples of the villanelle form, is titled 'One Art' because the poem is about Bishop's attempts to make loss and poetry ...
The Poetry of Loss: An Analysis of "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop
Learn more about Elizabeth Bishop. . . . . . . . . . In "One Art," Bishop attempts to reject the severity of loss. The poem begins with her intentionally flimsy argument: "The art of losing isn't hard to master.". Throughout the poem she speaks directly to the reader; as if to say, "Look, if I can lose, you can lose just as well.".
"One Art" Elizabeth Bishop: Summary
Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" is a poignant poem that delves into the theme of loss and the subsequent process of acceptance. Through the use of powerful imagery and a unique structure, Bishop crafts a deeply moving piece that resonates with readers on a universal level. This essay will provide a comprehensive summary and analysis of "One Art ...
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop Summary, Analysis, & Themes
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. "One Art" is written by one of the pioneer American poets, Elizabeth Bishop. It was first published in the magazine, The New Yorker in 1976, and later included in Bishop's final collection, Geography III (1976). This poem is considered one of the most brilliant villanelles ever written in the English language.
One Art Analysis
Analysis. Last Updated September 6, 2023. Elizabeth Bishop's 1976 poem "One Art" is a villanelle—indeed, one of the most famous villanelles of the twentieth century, surpassed only, perhaps, by ...
Analysis of Poem 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop
Analysis of Poem 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop. Elizabeth Bishop's poem 'One Art' is in the form of a villanelle, a traditional, repetitive kind of poem of nineteen lines. In it, she meditates on the art of losing, building up a small catalogue of losses which includes house keys and a mother's watch, before climaxing in the loss of houses ...
One Art Themes
Discussion of themes and motifs in Elizabeth Bishop's One Art. eNotes critical analyses help you gain a deeper understanding of One Art so you can excel on your essay or test.
One Art Poem Analysis
Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
One Art Analysis
Popularity of "One Art": Written by Elizabeth Bishop, a famous American poet, and short story writer, "One Art" is a marvelous piece about losing and forgetting important. It was first published in 1976. The poem is about exercising the art of losing to catch up with a healthy pace of life. It also reminds us to cope with the losses we face in life no matter how big or small they are.
Elizabeth Bishop's Poem One Art: Accepting Loss
The poem "One Art," by Elizabeth Bishop portrays the hidden feelings of an individual who has lost several things that have been significant to her; however, she overcomes the obstacles, and learns to move on. The poem consists of six stanzas with three lines in each stanza. It begins with confidence and determines people to let go and move on.
One Art Summary
Introduction. "One Art" is a villanelle (a nineteen-line poem comprising five tercets and a quatrain) written by Elizabeth Bishop and first published in 1976. Frequently included in collections of ...
One Art Summary
One Art study guide contains a biography of Elizabeth Bishop, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. More books than SparkNotes.
Literary Analysis of One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
The author, Elizabeth Bishop, wrote a poem titled "One Art" which took place 1927, in Boston. In the story, the main character, Elizabeth Bishop, talks about and describes the feeling of losing things. In this poem Bishop talked about what she has lost and how losing those things made her feel. The author tried to catch the reader's ...
'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop: Analysis Essay
Elizabeth Bishop's poem 'One Art' is a poignant exploration of loss and the art of mastering it. Through her precise and controlled language, Bishop captures the universal experience of losing and the subsequent attempts to cope with the inevitable. This literary analysis essay will delve into the key themes and literary devices employed by ...
One Art The Villanelle
One Art study guide contains a biography of Elizabeth Bishop, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. More books than SparkNotes.
Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" Poem Analysis
In conclusion, the analysis of "One Art" poem by Elizabeth Bishop demonstrates that the author skillfully uses literary techniques to convey the message of the verse. The main feature is the villanelle form of poetry, which allows the author to emphasize the problem using repetition and three parts of building a story like an essay.
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
By Elizabeth Bishop. The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent. to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster. of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or. next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture.
Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" Poem Analysis
📄 Essay Description: This paper analyzes the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop to demonstrate the appropriateness of using all of the author's literary tec...
An Analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"
The poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop uses simple and elegant verse as a poetic device to help it achieve its purpose and to convey its theme. Bishop's poem is about the way in which people feel about losing things within their lives and how this can affect them. Bishop's argument, through her poem, is that in order for people to learn ...

By Elizabeth Bishop

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One Art Summary & Analysis by Elizabeth Bishop

The Full Text of “One Art”

The Inevitability and Pain of Loss

Lines 10-12

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Lines 16-17

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“One Art” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

End-Stopped Line

Alliteration

“One Art” Vocabulary

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “One Art”

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Literary Ladies Guide

Categories: Literary Analyses

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Structure & Form

Rhyme Scheme

Meter & Scansion

Literary Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration & Assonance

Line-by-Line Analysis & Explanation

Lines 10-12

Lines 13-15

Lines 16-19

Loss and Survival

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Tone & Mood

Historical Context

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Analysis of Poem 'One Art' by Elizabeth Bishop

'One Art' Elizabeth Bishop Analysis

'One Art'

Overview of the Poem

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First Stanza

Second Stanza

Third Stanza

Fourth Stanza

Fifth Stanza

Sixth Stanza

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Poem Analysis

Analysis: “One Art”

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Meanings of One Art

Meanings of Stanza -2