"Didn't you know? It's been in all the papers, / to solve this problem, how they deal with beggars? / They take and throw them in the tidal rivers." (Lines 13 - 15)
Initially, I viewed this poem as completely literal. Bishop is merely describing the wanderings of a stray dog. She is also warning that dog about what could happen to her while she runs throughout the streets. Although this seems the most logical interpretation, and it will probably end up being the true interpretation, I cannot shake the thought that the dog is only a symbol for a hobo or bum who walks the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The lines I quoted above are what turned my thoughts away from the image of a dog and to the image of a human. This was mostly caused by the word "beggar." Of course, dogs can be beggars, but I envision humans as beggars first. After that initial thought that the dog was a symbol for a battered human, I began to see other words that could be symbols. The "rabies" may just be a symbol for how we react to a homeless person; we immediately assume they are dirty. The "nursing mother" is just that: a nursing mother. There is also a possibility that this "dog" has minimal clothing, which put literal meaning to the word "naked." Or, she could be naked of the necessities in life: a home, food, and safety.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Spring - Ah, the Innocence
"The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush / The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush" (lines 6-7)
This was my favorite poem to read because it was the simplest to understand. Spring is beautiful. The end. I just summarized the entire poem into three words. However, no poem deserves to be limited like that. I completely capped it's potential with those three words, and I blocked out the beauty that is poetry. Of course the author wanted to leave his reader with the message that spring is beautiful, but he wanted to use as many colorful words and scenes as possible because that is his passion and reason for writing: to embellish ordinary scenes such as this account of spring and make them magical.
My quoted lines are my favorite because they give an image of sheer and utter beauty. These pear trees are in full bloom, and they are practically touching the sky from the speaker's point of view. This image is the only definite way of embodying the beautiful mental image I have right now. Bravo Hopkins.
This was my favorite poem to read because it was the simplest to understand. Spring is beautiful. The end. I just summarized the entire poem into three words. However, no poem deserves to be limited like that. I completely capped it's potential with those three words, and I blocked out the beauty that is poetry. Of course the author wanted to leave his reader with the message that spring is beautiful, but he wanted to use as many colorful words and scenes as possible because that is his passion and reason for writing: to embellish ordinary scenes such as this account of spring and make them magical.
My quoted lines are my favorite because they give an image of sheer and utter beauty. These pear trees are in full bloom, and they are practically touching the sky from the speaker's point of view. This image is the only definite way of embodying the beautiful mental image I have right now. Bravo Hopkins.
Those Winter Sundays Upon Further Review
"What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?" (lines 13-14)
My initial reaction to this poem was that it was an ode to the speaker's father that transitioned to a description of the speaker's disdain for his father. I thought it became disdainful because of phrases like "Speaking indifferently to him? (line 10). To me, this speaker was an ungrateful brat, and despite the fact that "No one ever thanked [his father]" (line 5), this selfish little snob was not going to even give formal credit to his hard-working father. However, after my second and third time reading this poem, I realized I was completely off-base. This kid isn't a brat after all! It is an ode to his father! What the author is trying to impress upon his reader is easy to relate to because we have all been ungrateful. We have all known the awful feeling of regretting our silence when we should have been thanking someone. The speaker had a father who did everything from "make banked fires blaze" to "polish[ing] [his] good shoes." He was, it seems, a wonder-Dad who never got enough recognition, so this is the speaker's heartfelt attempt at true thankfulness.
My initial reaction to this poem was that it was an ode to the speaker's father that transitioned to a description of the speaker's disdain for his father. I thought it became disdainful because of phrases like "Speaking indifferently to him? (line 10). To me, this speaker was an ungrateful brat, and despite the fact that "No one ever thanked [his father]" (line 5), this selfish little snob was not going to even give formal credit to his hard-working father. However, after my second and third time reading this poem, I realized I was completely off-base. This kid isn't a brat after all! It is an ode to his father! What the author is trying to impress upon his reader is easy to relate to because we have all been ungrateful. We have all known the awful feeling of regretting our silence when we should have been thanking someone. The speaker had a father who did everything from "make banked fires blaze" to "polish[ing] [his] good shoes." He was, it seems, a wonder-Dad who never got enough recognition, so this is the speaker's heartfelt attempt at true thankfulness.
I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain - Sound to Sense (Question 16)
"And then I heard them lift a box / And creak across my Soul" (lines 9-10)
The sounds in this poem are easily defined, and they add to the overall dreary effect that the author is striving for. Emily Dickinson cited consistent and one-dimensional sounds of "treading" and sounds "like a Drum" while also referencing sounds like a "creak" that add a a creepy, funeral-like sense to the poem. Although the sounds in this poem add dimension to the story Dickinson is trying to relate to her reader, the most powerful sounds are not sounds at all. The second line, "And Mourners to and fro," is not a clearly defined sound, but I can still hear it. Most of Dickinson's readers will be of a mature age, and they will have all most likely attended a funeral or showing at some point in their life. They all know that absence of sound that accompanies such a social situation. It is not polite to be loud, so instead of a steady beating of voices, there is a rumble of passing mourners. They do not cause much noise, but they are followed by that sound of restless movement. Dickinson's poem successfully embodies that sound that is, in fact, not a sound.
The sounds in this poem are easily defined, and they add to the overall dreary effect that the author is striving for. Emily Dickinson cited consistent and one-dimensional sounds of "treading" and sounds "like a Drum" while also referencing sounds like a "creak" that add a a creepy, funeral-like sense to the poem. Although the sounds in this poem add dimension to the story Dickinson is trying to relate to her reader, the most powerful sounds are not sounds at all. The second line, "And Mourners to and fro," is not a clearly defined sound, but I can still hear it. Most of Dickinson's readers will be of a mature age, and they will have all most likely attended a funeral or showing at some point in their life. They all know that absence of sound that accompanies such a social situation. It is not polite to be loud, so instead of a steady beating of voices, there is a rumble of passing mourners. They do not cause much noise, but they are followed by that sound of restless movement. Dickinson's poem successfully embodies that sound that is, in fact, not a sound.
The Panther - Diction (Question 9)
"As he paces in in cramped circles, over and over, / ...is like a ritual dance..." (lines 5 and 7)
Stephen Mitchell chose his words precisely, but a significant amount of them have a methodical connotation attached to them. In the first line, he uses the word "constantly" which almost directly transposes into the word methodical. The first stanza left me with a sense containment. The "thousand bars" practically hold me in too as they do this panther that could represent an actual panther or a prisoner on death row. Mitchell moves on to include even more words that exude an air of a roundabout life. This panther "paces," "circles," and "is like a ritual dance." Each one of these words or phrases refers to a constant movement. As everyone knows, pacing is a consistent walking motion that ends up being like a circle, which Mitchell references next. This circle embodies the never-ending track that this panther's life now travels "over and over." The author adds in the reference to a ritual dance as another successful attempt at forcing an image of continual movement into the reader's mind, and it leaves me with a picture of a wheel in my mind.
I can only envision this powerful water wheel like the one pictured below just churning along. Of course, the poem ends with what I suspect is the death of the prisoner that this panther represents, but that does not detract from the image of continuous movement. If anything, it adds to the movement because now the panther has moved on to a different state of being.
Stephen Mitchell chose his words precisely, but a significant amount of them have a methodical connotation attached to them. In the first line, he uses the word "constantly" which almost directly transposes into the word methodical. The first stanza left me with a sense containment. The "thousand bars" practically hold me in too as they do this panther that could represent an actual panther or a prisoner on death row. Mitchell moves on to include even more words that exude an air of a roundabout life. This panther "paces," "circles," and "is like a ritual dance." Each one of these words or phrases refers to a constant movement. As everyone knows, pacing is a consistent walking motion that ends up being like a circle, which Mitchell references next. This circle embodies the never-ending track that this panther's life now travels "over and over." The author adds in the reference to a ritual dance as another successful attempt at forcing an image of continual movement into the reader's mind, and it leaves me with a picture of a wheel in my mind.
I can only envision this powerful water wheel like the one pictured below just churning along. Of course, the poem ends with what I suspect is the death of the prisoner that this panther represents, but that does not detract from the image of continuous movement. If anything, it adds to the movement because now the panther has moved on to a different state of being.
The Convergence of the Twain - Tone (Question 8)
"And as the smart ship grew / In stature, grace, and hue, / In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too." (lines 22-24)
This line most effectively captures the tone of the poem because it embodies the sense of awe and wonder that saturates the the first two lines of most of the stanzas. It is also simultaneously addressing the premonition that is emanating from the line "The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything" through the end of the poem. "The Convergence of the Twain" is formatted so that each stanza includes a bit of awe and a bit of pretense about the future. In the line I quoted above, the ship is praised as being one of stellar quality and unmatched power with words such as "smart" and "stature, grace, and hue." However, these middle three words also address the iceberg. It is just as strong and stealthy, but it wins out in the end. The juxtaposition of these two brute forces is not only a literary triumph, but it is also the transitional point in the poem when Hardy moves away from a tone of awe into one of foreboding premonition.
This line most effectively captures the tone of the poem because it embodies the sense of awe and wonder that saturates the the first two lines of most of the stanzas. It is also simultaneously addressing the premonition that is emanating from the line "The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything" through the end of the poem. "The Convergence of the Twain" is formatted so that each stanza includes a bit of awe and a bit of pretense about the future. In the line I quoted above, the ship is praised as being one of stellar quality and unmatched power with words such as "smart" and "stature, grace, and hue." However, these middle three words also address the iceberg. It is just as strong and stealthy, but it wins out in the end. The juxtaposition of these two brute forces is not only a literary triumph, but it is also the transitional point in the poem when Hardy moves away from a tone of awe into one of foreboding premonition.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Perrine - The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry
"No poet, however, likes to be caught in the predicament of having to explain his own poems"
I must say, I agree 100% with the above sentence. The word "poetry" immediately evokes a sense of mystery in a reader and the thrill of being allowed to interpret to the ends of the earth. However, to me, a 17-year-old with limited poetic experience, poetry presents a challenge. Good poetry always seem to be ridiculously ambiguous, and as much as I enjoy figuring things out for myself, it gets tiring after a while. When Perrine said, "for any given poem there are correct and incorrect readings," my heart sank. I always previously viewed poetry as a chance to broaden the horizons of my imagination, but now it is almost a scientific process as Perrine also says. Science has never been my favorite subject, but english is, and reading that the two are paralleled in poetry is not the most inviting thing.
The presence of the word "proof" in the title of this article is an easy analogy for me to relate to. As much as I did not enjoy proofs in Geometry, I understood them. I loved that they spelled out math in x amount of steps, and I rejoiced in knowing beyond a doubt that I had reached the correct conclusion. With poetry, I can only hope for the same thing, and Perrine practically guarantees that for me when he proclaimed that the best interpretation of poetry is the most logical. Or, in other words, the most practical. I can handle practical. Perrine is obviously a scientific man as well as a literary analyst because an unscientific man could never develop a process so straightforward and easy to follow. Poets are notorious for their free-spirited witticisms, but Perrine is rather foolproof. As tedious as his approach to poetry is, I must admit that I a thankful for it because it has already helped me and I haven't even begun to fully understand these poems I am reading.
I must say, I agree 100% with the above sentence. The word "poetry" immediately evokes a sense of mystery in a reader and the thrill of being allowed to interpret to the ends of the earth. However, to me, a 17-year-old with limited poetic experience, poetry presents a challenge. Good poetry always seem to be ridiculously ambiguous, and as much as I enjoy figuring things out for myself, it gets tiring after a while. When Perrine said, "for any given poem there are correct and incorrect readings," my heart sank. I always previously viewed poetry as a chance to broaden the horizons of my imagination, but now it is almost a scientific process as Perrine also says. Science has never been my favorite subject, but english is, and reading that the two are paralleled in poetry is not the most inviting thing.
The presence of the word "proof" in the title of this article is an easy analogy for me to relate to. As much as I did not enjoy proofs in Geometry, I understood them. I loved that they spelled out math in x amount of steps, and I rejoiced in knowing beyond a doubt that I had reached the correct conclusion. With poetry, I can only hope for the same thing, and Perrine practically guarantees that for me when he proclaimed that the best interpretation of poetry is the most logical. Or, in other words, the most practical. I can handle practical. Perrine is obviously a scientific man as well as a literary analyst because an unscientific man could never develop a process so straightforward and easy to follow. Poets are notorious for their free-spirited witticisms, but Perrine is rather foolproof. As tedious as his approach to poetry is, I must admit that I a thankful for it because it has already helped me and I haven't even begun to fully understand these poems I am reading.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)