Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
There are three basic seas in this poem. The significance of each one is important to the meaning of the work. The first place is the English Channel. When the speaker is standing at Dover Beach and looking out, he is able to see the English Channel. He sees a beautiful sight at first, but then listens and can hear only depressing and almost scary sounds. The "eternal note of sadness" (Arnold) is not only heard by him though, he says that Sophocles heard it long ago. This means that the sound is timeless and has gone on for a long time now. The Sea of Faith is dwindling and it is actually very depressing. It is not only his faith though, it's the faith of the entire world. People are losing faith and the speaker's call to action is not to go back and return to faith and try to strengthen it. He looks to his love and says "ah, love, let us be true to one another!" (Arnold). The world is not what it seems and there really is nothing good for people to have faith in. His call to action is to rely on one another to get through the tough times because people are losing faith and they need to struggle and fight through life together.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Potpourri Blog Post #3
Sorting Laundry by Elisavietta Ritchie
THEME: the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work
The theme of this poem is that the more one thinks about a situation and picks away at every single little detail, the more the situation is blown out of proportion. The theme is revealed through the structure of the poem. I noticed a sort of progression with the poem as I read it. The first stanza showed me that I was reading about someone folding laundry, but it was what that person wast thinking about as she folded that was what the poem was about. The articles of laundry that she is pulling out and folding all have significance to the kind of relationship that the speaker has with her significant other. They have had a healthy, long relationship with light, color, and fun involved. They aren't perfect, but they still stay strong and get by. Most importantly, the articles get smaller and smaller as each one is pulled out and folded. The speaker is getting smaller and smaller into the details of what she is thinking about as she is folding. This helps lead to the shift in lines 39 to 42. The speaker is thinking and pulls out a "broken necklace of good gold you brought from Kuwait, the strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover...." (Ritchie). The tone shift goes to a sort of panic in the speaker. She starts to think about what would happen if her significant other were to leave her and how she wouldn't be able to deal or cope emotionally with the loss. This progression shows what happens when (I'm sure everyone has done this because I know I have) we freak out about something that is going perfectly fine and we are happy with things. We look at the small things and pick away until it is literally the worse possible situation and, in reality, we are just over-reacting.
THEME: the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work
The theme of this poem is that the more one thinks about a situation and picks away at every single little detail, the more the situation is blown out of proportion. The theme is revealed through the structure of the poem. I noticed a sort of progression with the poem as I read it. The first stanza showed me that I was reading about someone folding laundry, but it was what that person wast thinking about as she folded that was what the poem was about. The articles of laundry that she is pulling out and folding all have significance to the kind of relationship that the speaker has with her significant other. They have had a healthy, long relationship with light, color, and fun involved. They aren't perfect, but they still stay strong and get by. Most importantly, the articles get smaller and smaller as each one is pulled out and folded. The speaker is getting smaller and smaller into the details of what she is thinking about as she is folding. This helps lead to the shift in lines 39 to 42. The speaker is thinking and pulls out a "broken necklace of good gold you brought from Kuwait, the strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover...." (Ritchie). The tone shift goes to a sort of panic in the speaker. She starts to think about what would happen if her significant other were to leave her and how she wouldn't be able to deal or cope emotionally with the loss. This progression shows what happens when (I'm sure everyone has done this because I know I have) we freak out about something that is going perfectly fine and we are happy with things. We look at the small things and pick away until it is literally the worse possible situation and, in reality, we are just over-reacting.
Potpourri Blog Post #2
I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed by Emily Dickinson
EXTENDED METAPHOR: is a metaphor that is developed over the course of multiple lines, details, paragraphs, etc.
I enjoyed this poem a lot and actually understood it. The whole poem is an extended metaphor. I saw the main message as the speaker getting drunk on nature. They simply cannot get enough of it and want to drink in all the good beauty that God has put on this planet for us to enjoy. There are many images in the poem that help to describe this sense of intoxication the speaker feels when outside. Right of the bat, the reader can tell that this is not a literal poem and the speaker is not actually getting drunk. It starts out, "I taste a liquor never brewed--" (Dickinson). This shows that the whole poem is about something that is not actually a liquor because it has not actually physically been brewed. Then the speaker goes on to describe the fact that their glass is full of clouds (Pearl) and that not any vat anywhere could brew such an alcohol. Another image is the foxglove turning away the bees and the butterflies renouncing their drams. So, even when the actual nature is done drinking everything in, the speaker "shall but drink the more!" (Dickinson).
EXTENDED METAPHOR: is a metaphor that is developed over the course of multiple lines, details, paragraphs, etc.
I enjoyed this poem a lot and actually understood it. The whole poem is an extended metaphor. I saw the main message as the speaker getting drunk on nature. They simply cannot get enough of it and want to drink in all the good beauty that God has put on this planet for us to enjoy. There are many images in the poem that help to describe this sense of intoxication the speaker feels when outside. Right of the bat, the reader can tell that this is not a literal poem and the speaker is not actually getting drunk. It starts out, "I taste a liquor never brewed--" (Dickinson). This shows that the whole poem is about something that is not actually a liquor because it has not actually physically been brewed. Then the speaker goes on to describe the fact that their glass is full of clouds (Pearl) and that not any vat anywhere could brew such an alcohol. Another image is the foxglove turning away the bees and the butterflies renouncing their drams. So, even when the actual nature is done drinking everything in, the speaker "shall but drink the more!" (Dickinson).
Potpourri Blog Post #1
The Convergence of the Twain by Thomas Hardy
At first, I did not understand this poem very much, but after discussion and further analysis, I liked the poem a lot because there was more meaning in it than I had first thought. I believe that the overall message of the poem was that God, or fate, or some other supernatural power was punishing the human vanity that The Titanic embodied. The structure of the poem emphasizes this because the first two lines of every stanza have to do with the lavishness of the ship while it is above the ground. In lines 10 and 11, the "Jewels in joy designed To ravish the sensuous mind" (Hardy) the glamorous side of the ship is described. But in the third line, those jewels and glory now "Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind" (Hardy). The third line is the longest and has to do with the life of the ship below the sea. This was the maiden voyage of The Titanic. It had not been around for very long before it was destroyed, so it's life above the sea was much shorter than it's eternal life under the sea. The poem is about the convergence of the two things--the iceberg and the titanic. The iceberg was put in place because of the human vanity that was exemplified in the ship. They came together because of fate and because that kind of vanity is not supposed to be present in our world today.
At first, I did not understand this poem very much, but after discussion and further analysis, I liked the poem a lot because there was more meaning in it than I had first thought. I believe that the overall message of the poem was that God, or fate, or some other supernatural power was punishing the human vanity that The Titanic embodied. The structure of the poem emphasizes this because the first two lines of every stanza have to do with the lavishness of the ship while it is above the ground. In lines 10 and 11, the "Jewels in joy designed To ravish the sensuous mind" (Hardy) the glamorous side of the ship is described. But in the third line, those jewels and glory now "Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind" (Hardy). The third line is the longest and has to do with the life of the ship below the sea. This was the maiden voyage of The Titanic. It had not been around for very long before it was destroyed, so it's life above the sea was much shorter than it's eternal life under the sea. The poem is about the convergence of the two things--the iceberg and the titanic. The iceberg was put in place because of the human vanity that was exemplified in the ship. They came together because of fate and because that kind of vanity is not supposed to be present in our world today.
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