Poetry can transcend time, space and definition, but throughout history one of nature's marvels has been made an important part of many authors' poetic focal points. Roses have traditionally been represented as symbols of love, eternity and life. Yet, despite this fact some authors use the rose to associate different connotations. Hilda Doolittle's, "Sea Rose" and Dorothy Parker's "One Perfect Rose" both concentrate on the rose to emphasize the issue of romanticism through which the rose is marked as a misinterpreted artificial symbol.Hilda Doolittle, known as H.
D, was considered as one of the ground breaking founders of the imagist movement. Her style and use of the rose helped convey her ability to attach additional allegorical meaning and interpretation to her poetry. While Parker, an American critic and satirical poet, is remembered as much for her flashy verbal exchanges and malicious wit, her ability to disenchant stories and sketches to reveal her underlying pessimism. The contrasting nature of both poems shows two unique ways to convey the image of a rose. Dorothy Parker's ability to use tone, specific diction and subtle poetic devices transmits a much clearer image than H.
D's overuse of adjectives and lack of conceptualization.The use of tone can be considered to be crucial when depicting concrete and vivid imagery. The "Sea Rose" conveys a vague tone of cacophony which shows H.D's proclivity to lack detailed ideas or focus.
On the other hand, Dorothy Parker's ability to communicate her beliefs through her story like interpretation creates a more observable use of pessimism. While both women adhere to the imagist movement both had similar ideals but very different styles. Through the use of harsh sounding words H.D illustrates a tattered rose thrown out to sea, where the poem's tone is filled with emotions of somberness.
The diction within "Sea Rose" unites the piece to emit the overall tone of isolation of a lonely battered sea rose encrusted with fine grains of sand.Diction plays an important role in the development of effective and vivid imagery. Parker's ability to diversify poetic devices allows her imagery to be enhanced by diction and not over dependent on any one poetic tool. In contrast, H.D's work in the "Sea Rose" overuses descriptive diction.
H.D often allows herself to avoid emotional attachment to the poem by using words that only describe the rose and not any particular human feeling on the topic of love. This brief poem and its carefully picked verse lines strung together with adjective-fashioned diction becomes very simplistic and one dimensional. A great example of H.D's descriptive use comes in stanza one,
