The Poem “Life” by José Hierro. Stylistic Metric Analysis

Abstract

José Hierro’s poem “Vida” closes Cuaderno de Nueva York, the last collection of poems by the Santander poet. The metric peculiarity of this sonnet resides, on the one hand, in the use of identical rhymes (the words “everything” and “nothing”) and, on the other hand, in the management of the different possibilities offered by the hendecasyllabic rhythm and the phonic symbolism. Likewise, the use of verbs and verb tenses, together with rhyme and rhythm, allows configuring a whole lyrical framework that turns the poem into a rhetorically effective text.