One Art: Symbols | SparkNotes

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Mastery

The idea of mastery is central to one of the poem’s two refrains. This refrain—“The art of losing isn’t hard to master”—appears in lines 1, 6, and 12, then again in a slightly altered form in line 18: “the art of losing’s not too hard to master.” The focus on mastery throughout “One Art” can be understood symbolically, as a sign of the speaker’s desire to be in control of their emotions. Clearly, the speaker has experienced several significant losses in their life. Each one of those losses has caused them grief. However, the loss of the anonymous “you” addressed in the final stanza seems particularly significant. As such, the speaker may feel like the mounting grief is too much to for them to handle. Arguably, then, it’s precisely because they feel overwhelmed by their grief that they repeatedly fantasize about the possibility of turning loss into an art and mastering it. Through such mastery, the speaker might never have to suffer the pain of grief ever again. Mastery therefore offers a powerfully symbolic fantasy of self-control in the face of loss.

Disaster

The symbolic weight of the word “master” is matched by the key word in the poem’s second refrain: “disaster.” Just as the speaker’s emphasis on mastery symbolizes a desire to control their emotional response to loss, their emphasis on disaster symbolizes a fear that the pain of loss may destroy them. Throughout the poem, the speaker insists that they’ve experienced many kinds of losses, and none of those experiences have been disastrous. However, the whole poem leads up to the final stanza, where the speaker reveals how they’re preparing for the most significant loss of their life: the loss of the anonymous “you” whom they clearly cherish. With the poem’s end in mind, the overall logic of the poem could be paraphrased as follows: “Since all the other losses I’ve suffered haven’t been a complete disaster, then this one won’t be either.” Yet as the poem reaches its conclusion, it becomes clear to the reader that the speaker is no longer so sure that “loss is no disaster” (line 3). Indeed, in the final line, the speaker admits that their recent loss “may look like (Write it!) like disaster” (line 19).