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T. S. Eliot

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What poetic devices does Eliot use in "Whispers of Immortality"?

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T.S. Eliot's "Whispers of Immortality" employs several poetic devices. It uses allusions to John Webster and John Donne, metaphors comparing Grishkin to a "Brazilian jaguar" and death to "the fever of the bone," and vivid imagery such as the "skull beneath the skin." Additionally, personification is used with "daffodil bulbs" and Grishkin's "friendly" bust.

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The poem employs several allusions: references to other people, places, texts, events, and so on. The speaker refers to John Webster and John Donne, both writers who pondered death in their works and lives.

The speaker also refers to a Russian woman called Grishkin, who was evidently known for her sexual liberty. She is compared, via metaphor (a comparison of two unalike things where one is said to be the other) to a "Brazilian jaguar" that chases a marmoset, another metaphor, perhaps relating to a potential lover. Another metaphor is used to describe death at the end of the first section as "the fever of the bone"; death is the figurative disease that we will all die of someday.

There are many images in the poem as well, mostly visual, such as the "skull beneath the skin" of the living and the "lipless grin" of the dead beneath the earth. There are also visual images of Grishkin's Russian eye, which "Is underlined for emphasis" (with makeup, I assume), and another describing the "scampering marmoset" she figuratively chases. There is even one olfactory image created by the description of her more than "feline smell," implying her sexual prowess and animal magnetism.

"Daffodil bulbs" are personified, given the human quality of being able to stare from sockets of buried skulls. Grishkin's bust is also personified as "friendly," as it must welcome those who see her "Uncorseted."

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