If There Are Spirits Emily Dickinson Analysis
The story she is now “telling” about her life involves a kind of dissembling, or hiding under false appearances, which may be characteristic of all art. In this poem, as in others, Jennings seems to be guided by Emily Dickenson’s dictum “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” The contradiction between the statements made in the opening tercet and the ideas suggested in the rest of the poem opens the poem up to a number of probable readings. As a result of this disjunction, the poem can be read as an enactment or performance of the speaker’s mind in the process of fabricating a coherent argument to justify something she cannot really understand. The rationalization starts with the calculations, the enumerations, and the self-justifying comparisons …show more content…
The first stanza considers the implications of the fanciful hypothesis of the opening lines: “If there are spirits, then they breathe in birds/ Tossed by the winds, agile in the frost.”The second stanza reiterates the familiar notion of the symbiotic relationship between humankind and nature. By the third stanza it is clear that Jennings is not apostrophizing the birds nor she is using the bird imagery as symbol merely to evoke representative responses about creativity. Jennings is concerned in the ways in which poems produce meanings, with the use of birds as symbols and with poets who use these symbols in order to approximate reality and communicate with others. The “birds,” “angels,” and “Greek Nymphs” are traditional symbols representing transcendent power: “And thought it is a fancy to/ Speculate, it’s thus we like to speak” (438) The pronoun “we” refers to the community of poets who “like to speak” in a particular way, using various figurative constructions and poetic devices. The conception of poetry suggested by this formalist statement may be reductive, but it is presented as a viable way of explaining how poets have traditionally attained a level of generality. The poets know that poetic comparisons and substitutions “are approximations but they touch / As near as men can through the boundaries/Rounding our senses’
Mark Doty Tide Of Voices Why Poetry Matters Now Ethos
609 Words | 3 PagesIn any given speech, or piece of literature for that matter, there is a certain amount of pathos, logos, and ethos used by the author, a technique that people like to call the “Rhetorical Triangle”. In the thought provoking speech: “Tide of Voices: Why Poetry Matters Now”, the speaker spectacularly uses these tactics to prove the validity, importance, and beauty of poetry. Mark Doty, the author, is a recognized American poet, who was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. This accomplishment on its own establishes ethos, a form of trust and credibility. Obviously, a poet defending poetry is as expected as a mathematician defending mathematics, but still, the reliability and status is there.
Lan Cao's Excerpt From Monkey Bridge
458 Words | 2 PagesBoth of these uses of figurative language and the imagery that they consist of help to paint the picture of Cao’s love of english. The tone of this passage also contributes to that. By using words such as “poetry”, “perfection”, and “astonishing” the excerpt appears light hearted and
From This Hill By Tony Hoagland Summary
793 Words | 4 PagesA paradox, or self contradictory statement, is the perfect way for the speaker to express his predicament. He does not “ deserve pleasure”, but he also “does not deserve pain” explains the speaker’s feelings of guilt and remorse for his immense fortune, while the working class can barely get by. In parallel lines in his poem, the speaker uses the words “failed” and “successful.” He uses these words so close together to demonstrate the failure he and civilization throughout history has faced in order to be
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Emily Dickinson's The Declaration Of Sentiments And Resolutions
396 Words | 2 PagesElizabeth Stanton states in “The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions Seneca Falls Conference” that, “ [mankind] closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself ”.Traditional values had taught society that the roles of men and women were different, giving men the upper hand in jobs, and education, making women subordinate to men. For instance, Emily Dickinson’s “ anonymity was due in large part to difficulties she would have experienced in trying to overcome prevailing attitudes about women’s proper place”. Dickinson could not reach her dream because her society at the time rejected the women who did not go with the norm of society. However today Dickinson is know as one of America’s
Compare And Contrast Audubon And Annie Dillard
649 Words | 3 PagesUnlike Audubon, she began her piece with the sight of the birds. We know nothing about where she was and where they were going. The piece was strictly about the sight of the birds and what it did to her. Nearly all her metaphors seemed like something could relate to from their memories: “a loosened skein [of yarn],” “shook rugs”, etc. She doesn’t seem to know much about the science of the birds or the significance of how they were flying or where they were flying to, “Each individual bird bobbed and… for no known reason except that that’s how starlings
Ambiguity In To Autumn And La Belle Dame Sanns Merci
1170 Words | 5 PagesBesides the author and the reader, there is the ‘I’ of the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the ‘you’ or ‘thou’ of the alleged addressee of dramatic monologues, supplications and epistles. Empson said that: „The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry”(Surdulescu, Stefanescu, 30). The ambiguous intellectual attitude deconstructs both the heroic commitement to a cause in tragedy and the didactic confinement to a class in comedy; its unstable allegiance permits Keats’s exemplary poet (the „camelion poet”, more of an ideal projection than a description of Keats actual practice) to derive equal delight conceiving a lago or an Imogen. This perplexing situation is achieved through a histrionic strategy of „showing how”, rather than „telling about it” (Stefanescu, 173 ).
Artistic Expression In Wisława Szymborska's Poetry
1356 Words | 6 PagesIn the poems, Szymborska’s stance towards objective artistic judgement is that it is absurd and comical, due to the imprecise and subjective nature of poetry.
Seclusion In Emily Dickinson's Poetry
969 Words | 4 PagesDickinson also incorporates her fixation on seclusion through the syntax in her poetry. An example of this is whenever she places a dash in her poems, which is her signature mark in poetry. An example of this is when she writes, “And sweetest- in the Gale- is heard-And sore must be the storm-” (Vendler 118). This line from the poem is interpreted to mean that a person should hold onto hope especially when life is hard, which is shown when the Gale starts to blow.
Wordsworth's Poems: The Dynamics Of Language In Poetry
1646 Words | 7 PagesTherefore, it is this poetic thought that drives the poet’s mind and whilst people walk in the crowds indifferently, the various fragrances, and the expressions on people’s faces call out to the poet to think, and all this then is transformed into poetic creativity. 3. B. 1.3: Poetry as Social Message Poetry has been used for millennia as a means for transmitting historical and cultural information. Poets throughout history have also waged war on social ills and crimes against humanity through their verse. Poets have taken their knowledge, and at times personal experience, of this dark practice and turned it into a spotlight to shine the truth on this blot on the soul of humanity.
Psychoanalytic Analysis Of The Raven
1414 Words | 6 PagesLet’s start by looking at the protagonist of the poem who illustrates a lot of psychoanalytical issues in his ordeal with the raven. From the start of the poem to the end, the reader can recognize and identify many defenses. Some of them include selective memory, selective deception, selective perception, denial and displacement especially towards the end. The most significant issue presented in the poem is the fear of being abandoned. Let me delve deeper into the subject.
Caged Bird Analysis Essay
700 Words | 3 PagesLines one through seven define the free bird as one that “floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays” (Angelou) this is a representation of freedom and joy. The second and third stanza lines, eight through fourteen defines the caged bird that “stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage” (Angelou) where these words reference isolation and despair compared to the freedom in stanza one. These lines create a visual response of the bird’s environments. The third stanza is repeated at the end of the poem for prominence as it reflects the two birds are so different.
Al-Qassim Eram Analysis
1292 Words | 6 PagesThis poem shows a dramatic scene where the Palestinian people are the hero that symbolizes the birds that refer to peace, harmlessness, purity, and freedom. They are very generous people till the Israelis had come. The poet describes them as the people who got lost and the killers who destroy everything beautiful in life. 29 In another poem," Antigone," the poet uses Greek mythology of king "Oedipus."30
Analysis Of Emily Dickinson's Attitude Towards Death
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