Comparison of "One Art" and "Because I Liked You Better"

Comparison of One Art and Because I liked you Better
In the poems “One Art” and “Because I Liked You Better” , both poets Elizabeth Bishop and A.E. Housman express a strong sense of rejected love and great emotion. The poems share many commonalities in the sense that both of them deal with poets attempting to convince themselves that what they are feeling can be put away emotionally, but after both shifts, it becomes obvious that the strong emotions which both Houseman and Bishop are feeling cannot be tuned down. These emotions are expressed mostly through the shift and choice of diction in the poems. The beginning stanzas of both “One Art” and “Because I liked You Better” provide the first sense of strong undeniable love. Housman begins the poem in a very curt and dry manner. He claims that he “promise to throw the thought away” and he uses the past tense in “liked” as an attempt to deny any current feelings he may have toward whomever the poem is written for. Bishop does the same thing, she begins with a largely broad term by claiming “their loss is no disaster”. She continues this illusion that she is not in a disaster by going through a list of things that she has lost and claiming that they have caused no disaster. Both of these poems begin with an attempt to deny the emotions they feel, an attempt to deny the strong emotions they feel. The concept of denying and running from strong emotions is further pursued in the following stanzas of both poems. Housman claims “We parted, stiff and dry” and Bishop lays the same claim saying “I lost two cities” alluding to moving or leaving somewhere. Though intentions aren’t fully stated, it becomes clear to the reader that the fact that both of the authors attempt to escape these people, or at least put distance between them, means the emotions aren’t gone. A friendship cannot grow in the place of a relationship until all of the roots of love are gone. Clearly, when we see the authors distancing themselves from