Monday, February 27, 2012

blog numero whatever "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"


                Eliot has a very subtle tone in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by creating imagery of the characters and scene in the poem.  It is also seems to be for those who can really appreciate the very essence of the poem like the very cultured or intellectual.  For instance, the very beginning of the poem does not start on line one but before it.  The excerpt from the Dante's Inferno is aimed at an audience that is able to read latin and is cultured in the arts.  All that aside, Eliot shows his first imagery of the city by letting the audience know about what type of city it is from stanza one through three.  The yellow fog like a cat helps create the notion that it slips around the city very subtly by creeping through the cracks of doors tracking anywhere it can.  It also is a definitive detail about the city.  Since it is yellow it means that the city is an industrial city that burns a lot of coal. This city is bound by the seashore according to line seven that mentions oyster-shells, which is an aphrodisiac, which also lets the reader know more about the city. 
                Prufrock himself is a very peculiar man as Eliot describes him to be a frail, pail, and nervous individual.  He is plagued by the passionate idea of acquiring something that he cannot attain.  He questions himself multiple times throughout the poem on whether or not he is good enough or worthy to go after a trophy he thinks is mystical.  This prize is a higher class of female that is like no other he has been around and they attract him because of their uniqueness.  

Thursday, February 23, 2012

blog 9


                "Who's Who" by W.H. Auden ordains the notion of someone or a man committed to becoming a great figure of impeccable accomplishments in order to receive acceptance from his father or father-like figure.  It is a homage to human kind's perseverance as well as its humility because of its display and tone within the poem.  It honors human perseverance by detailing the great actions that a man has done like climbing a mountain, discovering a seas and lands, and becoming a man through trial and error.  However, all of these accomplishments are done in the respect of proving himself to another figure in his life.  This other figure is someone else but most likely a father figure that has gained the attention of this young person.  This father figure is the motivation and drive that the man uses to achieve his goals in order to prove his worthiness to another who does little to better himself or the world.  This poem is about family and how everyone has a drive in order to protect a loved one and would go to great lengths to do it.  

Monday, February 20, 2012

Blog ocho "The Creation"


                The bio about James Weldon Johnson describes him as a man who liked to instill qualities of the sermons he had heard in childhood.  In "The Creation" he does this by making the whole poem seem as if it is told from a child's point of view.  He creates a childlike theme by describing the process of creation as a  five year old would tell it.  It is very nostalgic to me in its overall context because the poem has a mellow tone of "God" being the childlike figure in the poem.  Johnson gives the creator childish features like in stanza one, "I'm lonely - Ill make me a world," and "And god rolled the light around in his hands/Until he made the sun/And God said: That's good (15, 16, 25)."  These are things that something a little kid would say and do when he is playing outside.  Johnson does this throughout the poem and makes the creation of the earth, moon, and stars seem to be a kid having fun in a sandbox.  The only real question is if Johnson makes out the existence of man and mankind's faith of Christianity to be some kind of joke or feeble false reality or does Johnson take the creator of life and reality and describes God from his own point of view?

Monday, February 13, 2012

Blog numero siete "Southern Night"


D.H. Lawrence had a very unique collection of poems that I found intriguing to read and others emotionally close to the poet.  "Southern Nights" had an eerie feel to it  like the type of discription of a horror movie and  with an emotional connection between words.  In stanza three, line two it states, "Bitter-stinging white world that bore us," gives a concrete and ambiguous way in describing light.  It is concrete because it is boring through the eyes and becoming a piercing light.  However, he loosely refers to it as the white world that illuminates our surroundings.  I enjoyed his description of the autumn moon and how it is this orbiting object that not only brings a sense of foulness to the air but also an idea of a whole new world to perceive.  With the rising of the blood colored moon comes with it a creep atmosphere to linger until the end of the poem. I also liked how Lawrence draws the readers with use of anphoras, ploces, and other devices.  

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Blog numero seis "Why Do You Feel Differently"

Have you ever had an misunderstanding with someone and both of you did not know what the other was talking about? Well Gertrude Stein's "Why Do You Feel Differently" is a description of that type of situation.  To me, the poem itself seems to be either a miscommunication between an internal thought or between two actual subjects.  One point of view could be the "nice wives" stated in the poem but ultimately it is still about some sort of confusion.  The underlying fact is that to fully understand someone or something questions must be asked.  The repetition in the poem serves as a point in this fact because to truly understand something one must regurgitate it until it is embedded in the mind.  The style of using the same words in a different manner also complements the idea that as individuals we interpret each situation differently.  This difference in thought is an idea that causes the confusion and misunderstandings that we have among each other, but it is what makes the individual unique.  If everyone had the same pattern of thought then the world would lose the meaning of creativity.  

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Blog numero Cuatro "Dead Man's Dump"

Dead man's dump caught my attention in being an ode to those unfortunate souls lost in the midst of war and must await until the battle resides for their fellow comrades to retrieve them.  What makes this poem unique is the flow and combination of words that create a very visual picture of a battle ridden with death.  Rosenberg intuitively creates the sense of emotions and anxiety of battle by using a combination of words such as, "A fear may choke in our veins/ And the startled blood may stop," which is an illustrious way in making one experience how a soldier felt in that type of situation.  He also paints a picture of the battle by describing the scenes and moments as, "the air is loud with death/ the dark air spurts with fire." These two verses create a sensation by describing the smell and visualization of the battle he is in.  He not only crafts a picture of war but takes into account that a battle is still taking place in that point in time and puts the reader into the boots of a soldier.  He states, "His shook shoulders slipped their load/ But when they bent to look again/ the drowning soul was sunk too deep," which depicts the life of a fellow soldier being snuffed out.  Rosenberg's style is almost angelic at times by being what Sasoon says as, "Biblical and Prophetic quality," when he bluntly unfolds to the reader surreal images using sharp and bold words.