Modernism

Idiom

"An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own"

Analysis of e.e. cummings next to of course god america i

"Next to of course god america i" is an irony-ridden satire of patriotism, specifically American patriotism. The poem is a quote from a first-person speaker, perhaps a veteran or politician. By utilizing frequent enjambment and an overall lack of punctuation, the quote is rushed, giving an impression of overflowing sentiment. The view of patriotism and war is treated with initial genuine love, but the tone quickly shifts to sarcasm. Cummings depicts this noncommittal love in lines 1 and 2: "i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth." The speaker then goes on to display disinterest by mashing together two patriotic songs in lines 3 and 4: "can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go." The speaker supposedly speaks of loving his country but goes on to express that love in an uncaring and ironic way (Docherty). He also invokes the cliché, meaningless buzz-words of politicians looking for patriotic empathy (Docherty). The man's frustration is emphasized in lines 7 and 8 as he censors himself by saying, "by gory by jingo by gee by gosh by gum." He is criticizing the nature of war as "thy sons" went off to fight and innocently gave their lives (7). In a simile, Cummings depicts them as "heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter" (10-11). He ends his speech with a rhetorical question that places emphasis on the verbal irony of "the voice of liberty" to cement the satire of patriotism and its actual effects (12). By ending the poem with a bit of inverted syntax in "And drank rapidly," Cummings punctually ends his satire with another rushed action that gives the impression that the speaker is quickly glazing over the point he has just made (Docherty).

Oxymoron

A figure of speech which combines incongruous and apparently contradictory words and meanings for a special effect.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech, by which a speaker or writer suddenly stops in his discourse, and turns to address pointedly some person or thing, either present or absent.

Eponym

A person after which a discovery is to be named

Allegory

A story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation

The Lovers of the Poor Brooks

A tasteful turn as lately they have left, Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars Must presently restore them. When they're done With dullards and distortions of this fistic Patience of the poor and put-upon. They've never seen such a make-do-ness as Newspaper rugs before! In this, this "flat," Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered. . . .) Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon. Here is a scene for you. The Ladies look, In horror, behind a substantial citizeness Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart. Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door. All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft- Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt.

H.D. Helen

All Greece hates the still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives where she stands, and the white hands.

H.D. Helen

All Greece reviles the wan face when she smiles, hating it deeper still when it grows wan and white, remembering past enchantments and past ills.

Wallace Stevens 13 ways of looking at a Blackbird

Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.

Paradox

An apparently self-contradictory (even absurd) statement which, on closer inspection, is found to contain a truth reconciling the conflicting opposites.

Richard Wilbur The Writer

And retreated, not to affright it; And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door, We watched the sleek, wild, dark And iridescent creature Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

T. S. Eliot Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"— If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all." No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and Till human voices wake us, we drown

Richard Wilbur The Writer

And wait then, humped and bloody, For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits Rose when, suddenly sure, It lifted off from a chair-back, Beating a smooth course for the right window And clearing the sill of the world. It is always a matter, my darling, Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish What I wished you before, but harder.

The Lovers of the Poor Brooks

Anew and dearly in the innocence With which they baffle nature. Who are full, Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit, Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise. To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill. To be a random hitching-post or plush. To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem. Their guild is giving money to the poor.

Wallace Stevens 13 ways of looking at a Blackbird

At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply. XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds. XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying. XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.

Langhston Hughes, i too

Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

Colloquialism

C-A form of speech or phrase proper to, or characteristic of, ordinary conversation; a colloquial expression.

Paula Gunn Allen Grandmother

From beyond time, beyond oak trees and bright clear water flow, she was given the work of weaving the strands into creation, and the gift of having created, to disappear. After her, the women and the men, weave blankets into tales of life memories of light and ladders, infinity-eyes, and rain. After her I sit on my laddered rain-bearing rug and mend the tear with string.

Paula Gunn Allen Grandmother Analysis

Grandmother by Paula Gunn Allen reflects the inevitable act of aging and death. In the first paragraph the grandmother's hair is described as a grey hair departing into the dark timeless atmosphere. This could reflect the fact that time is happening faster than the grandmother can imagine. In the second paragraph, Allen implicitly talks about death in a way that is very visually appealing. As she "extruded [the] shining wire," symbolizes the grandmother's death as slowly dimming the light from her (5-6). By describing death using symbols and imagery, Allen portrays to the readers that death doesn't always have to be terrifying and can be peaceful and slow instead. In the next paragraph, Allen talks about how prominent the role of a grandmother was in Native American culture. Allen talks about how the grandmother had made a string of memories while she was leaving, but as she was dying all these memories slipped away in a second. Allen uses a metaphor in the phrase "weaving the strands," which compares the memories that consist of our life to what happens to these memories when we die (11). In Allen's last paragraph, Allen talks about the grandmother's next generation "weaving" new memories of life into their brain. Also these new generations are making new memories to fill their heart from the loss of this grandmother. Grandmother is a beautiful poem connecting generations and emphasizing the role of family in Native American culture. At the end, the speaker or possibly Allen is sprawled out on her rug and mending the tear with a string. This symbolizes the fact that the reader is trying to mend her heart from the loss of her grandmother. I believe this poem had multiple themes varying from family to death. I think Allen is trying to show that the death is inevitable, but to truly overcome a death in the family is to make more memories. Lastly, Allen portrays death in a very delicate and abstract way. Allen takes a very sensitive topic and turns into a modern work of poetry that is realistic and relatable.

H.D. Helen

Greece sees unmoved, God's daughter, born of love, the beauty of cool feet and slenderest of knees, could indeed love the maid, if only she were laid, white ash amid funeral cypress

Jean Toomer Portrait in Georgia

Hair—braided chestnut, coiled like a lyncher's rope, Eyes—fagots, <-metonym for death by burning Lips—old scars, or the first red blisters Breath—the last sweet scent of cane, And her slim body, white as the ash of black flesh after flame.

Wallace Stevens 13 ways of looking at a Blackbird

I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.

Anecdote of the Jar Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air.

Wallace Stevens 13 ways of looking at a Blackbird

I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.

Gwendolyn Brooks A Song in the Front Yard

I've stayed in the front yard all my life. I want a peek at the back Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows. A girl gets sick of a rose. I want to go in the back yard now And maybe down the alley, To where the charity children play. I want a good time today.

Analysis of Langston Hughes I too

I, Too is an extended metaphor of sorts that explains what it is like to be "the darker brother", darker in reference to skin color and being a African American in the mid-1940s. This poem was written in 1945, 5-10 years before the start of the Civil Rights Era. Throughout the poem, the unnamed speaker describes occurrences that allude to both slavery and segregation in America at the time which the poem was written. Though despite all of the hardships referenced in this poem, Hughes manages to still be hopefully that there will come a day when "they'll see how beautiful I am". The speaker of the poem is unnamed, but is assumed to be a manifestation of the African American population. Thus, the first line "I, too, sing America", a reference to Walt Whitman's "I hear America singing", is meant to state that African Americans are just as much a part of America as anyone else. It then goes on to say that "I am the darker brother/ They send me to eat in the kitchen..." During the time when slavery was legal, it was common for slaves to be sent to eat in the kitchen and to be kept away from their masters. Also, in the 1940s it was not uncommon for diners and restaurants to be racially segregated or to not serve black people. However instead of getting upset and lashing out at this injustice, the speaker just laughs and eats so that they may "grow strong". In the next stanza, the speaker dreams a a future, a "tomorrow" where no one would think nor dare to ask him to eat in the kitchen. Together, more than just dine together equally and peacefully, people will be able to live together peacefully without blatant inequalities. In the fourth stanza, the speaker envisions a future where not only are they recognized as equals, but as beautiful. Those who once oppressed them will "be ashamed". In the final stanza, Hughes states "I, too, am America." no longer needing to go about saying it in an exclusively more subtle, metaphorical terms.

Langhston Hughes, i too

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.

Analysis of A Song in the Front Yard

In A Song in the Front Yard, Brooks writes from the point of view of a child who lives a sheltered life, stuck in her "front yard." In the first stanza, the child says she wants a "peek at the back" (2). The front yard is maintained and made presentable for people to see, while the back yard is "rough and untended" (3). She is bored with her groomed, sheltered life and wishes to experience a more dangerous, exciting life. In the second stanza, the child talks about the "charity children" (7) who play in the alley. These children are the poor children who don't have their own place to play. The child wants to play with the children, even though her mother forbids it. In the third stanza, the child talks about the "wonderful things" (9) the other children do. From her front yard, she can see all of the "wonderful fun" (10) the other children are having; she wants to join them. Her mother says that the children are a bad influence and "sneers" at them (11). The child then describes her mother's warnings about the "charity children". Her mother says Johnnie Mae "will grow up to be a bad woman" (14). She is trying to scare the child so she won't associate with those children (Mandela). Her mother's warnings only feed and heighten the girl's desire to leave her "front yard." In the fourth stanza, the child says that she wants to be a "bad woman" (18). She wants to "wear the brave stockings of night-black lace and strut down the streets with paint on [her] face" (18-19). These lines show that the child is not completely naive; she knows what being a "bad woman" entails (Mandela). This suggests that the child is actually not as sheltered as the mother believes she is (Mandela). This last stanza shows that the mother's restrictions are making things worse for the child (Mandela). The girl wants to become what the mother is trying to protect her from.

Analysis of In Cold Storm Light Leslie Marmon Silko

In Cold Storm Light is a poem describing the scenery on top of a canyon in the Southwest, where Leslie Marmon Silko was born and raised. Silko uses multiple types of imagery in this poem to better illustrate the scene for the reader. In the first three lines of the poem, visual imagery is used in the description of the "sandrock canyon rim" (2-3). Tactile, olfactory, and auditory imagery is used in her description of the wind (4-7), in which she uses three different senses to describe. This mixture of senses is an example of synesthesia, which was used to help the reader understand Silko's love of nature, and the area in which she grew up. Silko uses a metaphor when she compares the heavy snowfall to running elk (12-13), which aids in depicting the ferocity of the storm. This poem has no rhyme scheme. However, Silko provides rhythm by using tabs, which emphasizes specific words and lines. The tabs also portray an image of a storm rolling in over an ocean. This unique structure of poetry is a primary example of modernism. This poem is a celebration of the beauty of nature, its landscapes, and creatures which are expressed more thoroughly through the literary devices that are used (mentioned above). Silko writes about elk, a native animal, to promote her Native American heritage (Nelson). Elk are associated with love in many tribes, which Silko demonstrates by portraying these animals as mystical, awe-inspiring creatures that are connected to nature. Silko chooses to write about the beauty of nature as a way to emphasize her native culture, which was very important to her because of her passion for defending Native American rights.

Leslie Marmon Silko In Cold Storm Light

In cold storm light I watch the sandrock canyon rim. The wind is wet with the smell of piñon. The wind is cold with the sound of juniper. And then out of the thick ice sky running swiftly pounding swirling above the treetops The snow elk come,

Analysis of H.D. Helen

In her poem "Helen," Doolittle defies the conventional interpretations of Helen in mythology by asserting that the reverence of her image by the Greeks is conditional and superficial((H.D.) Hilda Doolittle). This can be deduced when the poem states that Greece "hates" and "reviles" her. However, this harsh condemnation fluctuates throughout the three stanzas of the poem. The hatred reaches its climax when she smiles, and its lowest point when "all Greece" concedes that it could love her if she "were laid, white ash among funereal cypresses." In essence, Greece loves Helen as a symbol rather than as a person((H.D.) Hilda Doolittle). Thus, the more she tries to showcase her individuality, the more intense their hatred of her grows. The message in this poem takes on a deeper meaning when placed in its historical context. The poem is an extended metaphor comparing Greece's treatment of Helen to the treatment of women in Doolittle's predominantly patriarchal society((H.D.) Hilda Doolittle). The message Doolittle conveys is that men of the time could love and respect women as long as they were benign and submissive((H.D.) Hilda Doolittle). The idea of the extended metaphor is supported by the fact that Doolittle avoids specific details and instead opts for generalities such as her "white face," "lustre of olives," and "white hands," which were all fairly common feminine traits of the era((H.D.) Hilda Doolittle). Doolittle's imagist style also lends itself to metaphors because it provides a vignette that is set apart from any narrative or storyline. Thus, "Helen" provides a new take on mytholog

Richard Wilbur The Writer

In her room at the prow of the house Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, My daughter is writing a story. I pause in the stairwell, hearing From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Analysis of In Just e.e. cummings

In this poem, E.E. Cummings invokes a youthful, playful feeling. When it was originally written, it was included in a group of poems entitled Chansons Innocentes, an allusion to the romantic poet William Blake's Songs of Innocence (Labriola 40). The entire poem puts an emphasis on "mud and water, growth and vitality, sexuality and propagation" (Labriola 40). Like Blake, Cummings celebrates harmless naivety and new life. Cummings illustrates the vitality of children through playful games in line 6, "and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies," and line 14, "and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope" (Mills 435). Additionally, Cummings utilizes multiple repetitions. The first is of "spring" and "in spring" in lines 2, 9, and 16. Spring has a connotation of new life and rebirth, going along with the theme of youth and life. Cummings also brings up a "balloonman" multiple times: "the little lame balloonman," "the queer old balloonman," and "the goat-footed balloonMan" (4, 11, 20). This balloonman is a mythological allusion to the Greek god Pan, the goat-man spirit linked with the wilderness and reknowned for his slightly meddlesome and lecherous nature (Labriola 41). The structure of the poem itself paces the activities of the children as quick and jovial, while the repeated "whistles far and wee" of the balloon man are spaced apart, providing a nonchalant mood (5, 12, 22). As the final balloonman puts an emphasis on the "Man," the end of the poem turns the mood into one of coming-of-age, calling to mind the inspiring growth that comes with rebirth (21).

Gertrude Stein Susie Asado

Instead of foregrounding the denotation of words, she often writes by associating their sounds. Stein's poetry is influenced by cubism and especially the paintings of Picasso and Matisse. She often writes poems similar to the way that these artists use paint by trying to represent an object abstractly and in many different ways simultaneously. In "Susie Asado," Stein creates a portrait (one might compare it to the tradition of the portrait in painting). Susie Asado was a flamenco dancer and Stein captures the essence of her dancing in words. For example, the first line evokes the sound of Asado's rustling dress and punctuated tapping as she dances. By reading the poem aloud, one can really hear the flamenco that the poem conjures up. There is a great deal of pleasure to be had in reading the poem as the sound and expression of Susie Asado's dance. It teaches us something about how language means. Often, we only pay attention to the definitions of words, but Stein draws our attention to other ways that words evoke experience and convey meaning. Because of Stein's eclectic approach to language, some conclude that the poem doesn't make any sense or that it can only be understood as sound. But this may be an oversimplification. We recognize—and Stein of course did too—that words always have denotations and so they always mean or suggest meaning. Looking more closely at the poem—and this is the cubist part—we see patterns, allusions, and puns that allow us another way to read the poem. For example, "a told tray sure," along with "silver seller," makes "tea" into an extended metaphor. With its connotations of propriety and manners, the image of taking tea stands in stark contrast to the passion of the dance. "A told tray sure" also gives the sense of holding a tray steady, which captures the balanced and controlled way that Asado dances. The phrase is also a pun. It is "a told treasure" and Stein is telling the treasure of Susie Asado's dance. In French, and Stein lived in Paris and spoke French, it is "a told très sure." That is, "it is told of course!" This makes the words emphatic. Stein's words are as passionate as the dancer they describe. It is not so much these meanings themselves but the way the poem accrues meaning that is important to notice. Like many of the best cubist paintings, the poem rewards rereading and patient attention. I think this is probably the poem's greatest pleasure and its greatest significance.

Anecdote of the Jar Wallace Stevens

It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Verbal Irony and Sarcasm

Language device, in spoken form, which the real meaning is concealed or contradicted by the literal meanings of the words; arises from a sophisticated or resigned awareness of contrast between what is and what ought to be and expresses a controlled pathos without sentimentality. It is a form of indirection that avoids overt praise or censure.

T. S. Eliot Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats

Leslie Marmon Silko In Cold Storm Light

Moving, moving white song storm wind in the branches And when the elk have passed behind them a crystal train of snowflakes strands of mist tangled in rocks and leaves

Wallace Stevens 13 ways of looking at a Blackbird

O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you? VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know. IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.

T. S. Eliot, "Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me,

Paula Gunn Allen Grandmother

Out of her own body she pushed silver thread, light, air and carried it carefully on the dark, flying where nothing moved. Out of her body she extruded shining wire, life, and wove the light on the void.

Conceit

Parallel

Susie Asado Gertrude Stein

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea. Susie Asado. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea. Susie Asado. Susie Asado which is a told tray sure. A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers. When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller. This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly. These are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy. Incy is short for incubus. A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must. Drink pups. Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink has pins. It shows a nail. What is a nail. A nail is unison. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

Wallace Stevens 13 ways of looking at a Blackbird

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird

Analysis of Anecdote of the Jar Wallace Stevens

The poem begins by telling us of an incident in the past. Once he kept a big and beautiful jar upon an untidy hill in Tennessee. It was a beautiful round jar, reminding one of the Grecian urns of Keats. We are asked to imagine a kind of enormous hand placing a round jar on a hill. The jar is an art object made by a human being, whereas the hill on which it is placed is natural. This contrast becomes more striking as the poem develops. The persona of the poem tells us that the man made jar caused the wilderness to surround the hill, or that the hill looked more untidy in contrast to the jar. In the second quatrain, the "slovenly" and wild nature rises up to the artistic jar, which we now understand as a symbol of the human imagination. But rather than overtake the jar, as we might expect natural brush would in reality, the jar/imagination tames or controls the wilderness. Perhaps Stevens is arguing briefly here that the imagination, culture and art might be more powerful than any natural reality. But the poem abruptly takes a turn in its form, and another turn in content follows. The jar domineers "everywhere". This is a striking expression of the power of the imagination over reality. But we are soon to see the other side of the reality. In the third stanza, the poem takes the other turn, in its content. Here, the persona shifts from the lofty images that described the majestic jar (or imagination) to a different description using words like "gray" and "bare object", which cannot give birth and re-create the fertile lushness like that of the "slovenly wilderness" described in the first stanza. It is beautiful, but ultimately does not have the power of creation of the nature/ reality represented by the wilderness. The poet is demonstrating the acceptance of the limits of imagination in reality. Steven's central concern in his poetry is the treatment of the "problem" of reality versus imagination. "Anecdote of the Jar" is an example that expresses an acceptance of the limits of the imagination; this is also Stevens's theory of poetry. The jar, as a symbol of the imagination, is not fertile, and it cannot recycle itself or reproduce, though it may, in imagination, be richer than the nature. Both have their uniqueness, and yet we feel that the poet is more or less on the side of the nature's diverse, creative and limitless powers of creation. The confident persona, who seems to have egoistically placed a jar to challenge the nature, realizes at last that his art is not capable of what the nature is

Dramatic Irony

When the audience understands the implication and meaning of a situation on stage, or what is being said, but the characters do not.

Richard Wilbur The Writer

The whole house seems to be thinking, And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor Of strokes, and again is silent. I remember the dazed starling Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago; How we stole in, lifted a sash

The Lovers of the Poor Brooks

The worthy poor. The very very worthy And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy? perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim Nor—passionate. In truth, what they could wish Is—something less than derelict or dull. Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze! God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold! The noxious needy ones whose battle's bald Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down. But it's all so bad! and entirely too much for them. The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans, Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains, The old smoke, heavy diapers, and, they're told, Something called chitterlings. The darkness. Drawn Darkness, or dirty light. The soil that stirs. The soil that looks the soil of centuries. And for that matter the general oldness. Old Wood. Old marble. Old tile. Old old old. Not homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe. Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic, There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no Unkillable infirmity of such

The Lovers of the Poor Brooks

Their League is allotting largesse to the Lost. But to put their clean, their pretty money, to put Their money collected from delicate rose-fingers Tipped with their hundred flawless rose-nails seems . . . They own Spode, Lowestoft, candelabra, Mantels, and hostess gowns, and sunburst clocks, Turtle soup, Chippendale, red satin "hangings," Aubussons and Hattie Carnegie. They Winter In Palm Beach; cross the Water in June; attend, When suitable, the nice Art Institute; Buy the right books in the best bindings; saunter On Michigan, Easter mornings, in sun or wind. Oh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre With fissures everywhere! Why, what are bringings Of loathe-love largesse? What shall peril hungers So old old, what shall flatter the desolate?

Gwendolyn Brooks A Song in the Front Yard

They do some wonderful things. They have some wonderful fun. My mother sneers, but I say it's fine How they don't have to go in at quarter to nine. My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae Will grow up to be a bad woman. That George'll be taken to Jail soon or late (On account of last winter he sold our back gate). But I say it's fine. Honest, I do. And I'd like to be a bad woman, too, And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

T. S. Eliot Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

This poem, the earliest of Eliot's major works, was completed in 1910 or 1911 but not published until 1915. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. Prufrock, the poem's speaker, seems to be addressing a potential lover, with whom he would like to "force the moment to its crisis" by somehow consummating their relationship. But Prufrock knows too much of life to "dare" an approach to the woman: In his mind he hears the comments others make about his inadequacies, and he chides himself for "presuming" emotional interaction could be possible at all. The poem moves from a series of fairly concrete (for Eliot) physical settings—a cityscape (the famous "patient etherised upon a table") and several interiors (women's arms in the lamplight, coffee spoons, fireplaces)—to a series of vague ocean images conveying Prufrock's emotional distance from the world as he comes to recognize his second-rate status ("I am not Prince Hamlet'). "Prufrock" is powerful for its range of intellectual reference and also for the vividness of character achieved.

The Lovers of the Poor Brooks

Tin can, blocked fire escape and chitterling And swaggering seeking youth and the puzzled wreckage Of the middle passage, and urine and stale shames And, again, the porridges of the underslung And children children children. Heavens! That Was a rat, surely, off there, in the shadows? Long And long-tailed? Gray? The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League agree it will be better To achieve the outer air that rights and steadies, To hie to a house that does not holler, to ring Bells elsetime, better presently to cater To no more Possibilities, to get Away. Perhaps the money can be posted. Perhaps they two may choose another Slum! Some serious sooty half-unhappy home!— Where loathe-love likelier may be invested. Keeping their scented bodies in the center Of the hall as they walk down the hysterical hall, They allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall, Are off at what they manage of a canter, And, resuming all the clues of what they were, Try to avoid inhaling the laden air.

Richard Wilbur The Writer

Young as she is, the stuff Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: I wish her a lucky passage. But now it is she who pauses, As if to reject my thought and its easy figure. A stillness greatens, in which

Synedoche

a literary device in which a part is used to substitute a whole, or vis versa

The Lovers of the Poor Brooks

arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair, The pink paint on the innocence of fear; Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall. Cutting with knives served by their softest care, Served by their love, so barbarously fair. Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel! You had better not throw stones upon the wrens! Herein they kiss and coddle and assault

In just e.e. cummings

in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee

isie

intelligent sense imagination emotion

Satire

is a literary work whose purpose is to point out the faults of something. Authors utilize irony, exaggeration, or witty language to do this, sometimes in a humorous way. For example, political cartoons are often used to ridicule or point out the faults of government campaigns, actions, or activities.

Cosmic irony

is when it appears God or some benevolent force has played a trick on the character. The opposite of what he or she wanted came true; a character may receive his or her deserved comeuppance or have a reversal of fate.

e.e. cummings next to of course god america i

next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute? He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Ambiguity

something that can not be interpreted exactly because of a lack of specificity; something that has two or more possible meanings

Metonymy

the action of substituting for a word or phrase denoting an object, action, institution, etc.; a word or phrase denoting a property or something associated with it.

Modernism

the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post WWI period. The ordered, stable, and inherently meaningful world view of the 19th century could not, accord with the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. Marks a distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality; rejecting 19th century optimism, they presented a pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. This despair often results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism. 1890-1939 During and after World War I, flowery Victorian language was blown apart and replaced by more sinewy and R-rated prose styles.

Situational Irony

when the event or action that happens is the opposite of what one would have predicted to happen