Poems from e j pratts the titanic essay

Pratt dismisses his father’s presence, his own presence, and the announcement of death. In their place, the poet stresses the passage of time. The first stanza of the poem portrays the sea’s unending effort to “trace” features into a cliff.

The poem has a regular rhyme scheme and meter. The poem explores the theme of human evolution based on the apparent distance involving the Java man ("homo erectus") and contemporary man, or "Geneva man" (referring to the cosmopolitan and urbane city of Geneva in Switzerland).

The poetry of E. J. Pratt falls into three categories: the shorter lyrics, the documentary-like narratives, and the extravaganzas. The division in form, however, does not suggest a division in outlook. Pratt is almost always concerned with the clash between the human, as individual or group, and the amoral strength and power of the natural world.

Pratt did not preach or lecture his readers, nor did he argue with them; rather, he showed his readers the paradoxes and ironies that result when a morally sensitive being inhabits an essentially amoral world. The theme is examined most easily in Pratt’s lyrics. The short poems are often elusive and complex, rich in meaning and powerful in impact.