Analysis of One Art

In the Villanelle poem One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, the author goes to great lengths to convince herself and us that losing things is really not such a problem, and that this can be easily overcome of one only practices this as an “art”.  In the final analysis, however, it becomes clear that the loss of some things, such as dear friends or lovers, are in fact disasters, and Bishop uses the unique form of the villanelle  coupled with examples of increasing value to make her point in a subtle way.

            The form of the villanelle means that the final paragraph uses a pattern of rhyme of ABAA, which in this case means the words gesture, master and disaster reinforce one another.  More importantly, the use of the words master and disaster are repeated from the five tercets that precede the final stanza, which creates a very strong impact when the poem is read.  The concept that Bishop wants to get across is that we must master this disaster of loss, and each of the tercets reinforce this idea even though the things that are lost become increasingly precious.

            The language that Bishop has chosen also helps to create irony between the first 15 lines and the final 4 lines of the poem.  As the poem begins, the focus seems to be on items of no consequence like door keys or perhaps a wasted hour surfing the web.  As the poem progresses, however, we feel that the items that are being lost are increasing in value, and by the last tercet, Bishop even refers to the odd loss of “some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent”. In the closing stanza, however, Bishop finally admits that no matter how hard she tries to convince herself that losing her friend (or lover) is no big deal, that simply isn’t the case. This is demonstrated in the final lines where she writes that "the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster".  In this line, the word “too” now precedes “hard to master” for the first time for extra effect, and Bishop even insert the words “Write it” into the poem as though that’s the only way to convince herself of her argument.

            Elizabeth Bishop does a wonderful job initially of trying to convince us that losing things is really not a disaster, but through the use of this unique poetic form and reinforcement in the end she convinces us of just the opposite – at least for some very special people.