The problem of self-discovery and creativity in the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop

The article deals with the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, her imagery, technique and n poetical diction. It shows how through her descriptive precision, formal control, understatement and smallness of detail which are characteristic to her poems her poetry is inwardly connected to the largest issues of modern American and European poetry. Bishop`s choice of a villanelle - a poetic form implying repetition is not accidental. It expresses the idea of unity between the inevitability of loss, up to the loss of life itself, with the comprehension of the moral and spiritual essence of life due to estimation of each loss. The title of the poem in its polysemy manifests the multiple meanings of the poetic text providing its semantic richness through the convergence of the particular and the universal. The internal tension of the poem reaches its peak in the last stanza in which the rhyme “master - disaster” repeated throughout the poem is dramatically resolved by the imperative - “Write it!” thus linking the theme of loss with the theme of creativity as the opportunity to gain the meaning and value of life and art.