PoemoftheWeek

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Hecht? Wasn't he the one who also provided a title that quotes Goethe?

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I don't know, did he? Where am I, or should I see that in the poem?

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I don't know, did he? Where am I, or should I see that in the poem?

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I was responding to your point, here. Your argument above supports the claim that if Hecht put it there, it must be significant/valid. All I ask for is some consistency. Your second question is inane.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I was responding to your point, here. Your argument above supports the claim that if Hecht put it there, it must be significant/valid. All I ask for is some consistency. Your second question is inane.

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ok...Hecht is the author of this poem as far as I know. Goethe, I can't see by looking at the poem. So your question is:Hecht? Wasn't he the one who also provided a title that quotes Goethe? So the answer is I don't know.
Your not asking the same question between the two posts.

ktd, how can you take a reference to a Luger and infer that he is writing about a Nazi soldier during WWII but not be open to the possibility that the references to Goethe and Weimar are meant to suggest humanism in a historical context? Obviously history is needed to understand the poem, or you could not see the man burnt at the stake as a Christian martyr or that the second scene is taking place in WWII.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Shanna, you may not want to throw stones at typos unless you're absolutely certain you'll never mis-spell anything yourself. :D (This is the voice of experience talking).

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I'll risk it. Right now I am completely, absolutely sure I want to throw stones at everything in sight. I do not have your unbelievable tact (er, limoncello, perhaps?) - I used to, though, I think I've lost it since, or chucked it into the nearest well - nor do I think the benefit of it is deserved by most.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

There's also the fact that you'd have to take on the fearsome Unnamable as well (not something I would relish given the fact we've got pics of him wrestling tigers with his bare hands) about "High Latimer" in one of his posts above (actually a typo I found quite amusing given the high and mighty quality of Hugh Latimer's rhetoric) .;)

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:lol: Like I said, I'll risk it. Its well worth the superhuman effort it calls for.

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Originally Posted by chmpman

ktd, how can you take a reference to a Luger and infer that he is writing about a Nazi soldier during WWII but not be open to the possibility that the references to Goethe and Weimar are meant to suggest humanism in a historical context? Obviously history is needed to understand the poem, or you could not see the man burnt at the stake as a Christian martyr or that the second scene is taking place in WWII.

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Again, history in degrees. And because I don't want to play Six Degrees of Separation.

Here you go, ktd:

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

The title of the poem comes from what were (supposedly) Goethe’s dying words.

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That was the first post on this thread about this poem.

Er, I thought you said you did actually read what people wrote?

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Originally Posted by Shanna

Here you go, ktd:

That was the first post on this thread about this poem.

Er, I thought you said you did actually read what people wrote?

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Where are you going with this? This is neither here nor there. We're talking about it now, so we'll deal with it now. I'm not sure what your trying to get out of this thread.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

There's also the fact that you'd have to take on the fearsome Unnamable as well (not something I would relish given the fact we've got pics of him wrestling tigers with his bare hands) about "High Latimer" in one of his posts above (actually a typo I found quite amusing given the high and mighty quality of Hugh Latimer's rhetoric) .;)

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That’s what I get for relying on someone else! As I’m sure you can tell, I copied and pasted the comment from the website on which it appeared. When I rely on my own resources, I almost never make such errors. But thanks for pointing out that website’s typo for me. :D

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

However, some typos are really funny. Did you know that Amon Goeth is the Nazi played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List?

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:lol: That is funny.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

That’s what I get for relying on someone else! As I’m sure you can tell, I copied and pasted the comment from the website on which it appeared. When I rely on my own resources, I almost never make such errors. But thanks for pointing out that website’s typo for me.

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I rather thought that might be the case...but it was so tempting to think you might not really be infallible after all. :D

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Originally Posted by Shanna

I'll risk it. Right now I am completely, absolutely sure I want to throw stones at everything in sight.

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Have fun. :lol:

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Originally Posted by Shanna

I do not have your unbelievable tact (er, limoncello, perhaps?)

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I just wanted to clarify that my little spelling question in my comments to Virg's poem honestly was due to my uncertainty as to whether there's an alternative spelling rather than attempts at tact (which you're right that I have been guilty of on other occasions). I think I have seen it spelled with an "e" before, but while I was in Italy I thought I usually saw it with an "i."

Please, stay on topic and refrain from personalizing your posts.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

To a degee...I don't want to be blinded by it.

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Neither do I, but I don't think anyone here has suggested anything radically divorced from what is present in the language of the poem.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

About Goeth, not really, the comparison between the title More Light More Light and whether there is light in the poem itself is sufficient.

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I acknowledged that it certainly could be sufficient. That's not really the question. The question is whether the reader obtains additional information about the poem and a deeper perspective on its project with the knowledge that the title is a quote from a famous thinker.

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A poem shouldn't have to be a history project.

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Of course not. I object as much to people who overhistoricize poetry as I do to those who get caught up in overly pedantic points about prosody. Either approach is attempting to add to an understanding of the poem via external analysis. That doesn't mean that I'm going to blanketly refuse to allow any sort of historical reading any more than I'm going to refuse to consider an analysis of the rhyme scheme.

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You get that the poem is talking about humanism from one line out of the thirty-four lines? Wait, not even one line but one word in one line.

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This is where I'm puzzled by your argument. You're someone who's insisting on a close reading with attention to detail in the author's rhyme and choice of words etc, and yet you argue that an entire line quoted from another source-- and not only that, the line that forms the title of the poem--is insignificant. Are you actually trying to say that any allusion to another's words in poetry should never be examined in relation to the original source? Would you say, to pick an example at random, that when T.S. Eliot uses the line "I had not thought death had undone so many" (Wasteland, ln.63) to describe a crowded London street that it is irrelevant to bring up the fact that he is quoting Dante's Inferno? The reader may not know that from reading the text of the poem alone if he/she is not well versed in Dante, but that doesn't mean there's no significance to his choice of quote. We're not talking about one word at random here. We're talking about a key word in the poem which is repeated several times throughout, and how it is being defined in the title of that poem.

Incidently, when you get to college you may be interested in reading some of the critics associated with Reader Response theory. I think you might recognize some of what you're trying to express here in their position (just don't forget to read the people who point out what the potential flaws are in such views as well).

Also, just a friendly suggestion. Most people aren't terribly successful trying to match poetic wits with Alexander Pope (myself most definately included ;) ).

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Originally Posted by Virgil

You're not rambling at all. When I first read the poem, I read the two narratives as parallel episodes, the second reaching for the first as a touchstone of horror. Under that reading, it is melodramatic and frankly mediocre. But as you point out, these are not parallel episodes but contrasting episodes, each episode a ritual. The first narrative is an ironic re-enactment of a crixifiction, the cruxifiers performing the ritual sanctioned by their religion (and therefore by its power) while the cruxified is appealing to his religion for understanding. The second ritual is completely devoid of religion with the Luger as the power of the choreographed motion. In many ways this recalls T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the perversion of ritual because it has been stripped of religious virility. The three dead call to mind a trinity, an inverted holy trinity. The blood of the Pole could in another time be seen as the blood of Christ cruxified. You're right about no one in the second ritual standing behind any religion.

Compare the lines: "And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ, / That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility" with "No prayers or incense rose up in those hours / Which grew to be years, and every day came mute / Ghosts from the ovens". Prayers verses no prayers, Christ as judge ultimately as to what transpired in the first episode verses mute ghosts, the silence as a sort of sterility.

Thank you ktd. You have salvaged this poem for me. I still don't care for the trite phrases, but the narrative justapositions adds a complex dimension to this poem.

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Again, wow. I had no idea enjoying poetry could be such hard work. Everything you say here is forced, twisted out of its original context and jammed into another, one you'd - quite simply - like to believe, making the end result quite ungainly. Its like a malformed baby. Its just sad. Never mind what the poet wanted to say, never mind what the critics have said, never mind the references to actual, physical places and people, never mind what is glaringly obvious - we'll do with it as we please, we'll make of it what we choose. They were wrong about Lawrence after all, now, weren't they? Congratulations, Virgil, you just killed it. I really think you can stop beating it now, though, its quite dead, believe me.

Oh and.. Virgil? what is a 'justaposition'?

You know "Shanna", for someone who really seems to dislike this site so much, you sure spend an awful lot of time here. Yes I can see you.

And you sure spend an awful lot of time criticizing others for their spelling mistakes and such. Your constant petty invective and negativity is unwelcome.

This is your one official warning, any more of it and you will be banned.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Neither do I, but I don't think anyone here has suggested anything radically divorced from what is present in the language of the poem.

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really? I would like to deal with the poem and not focus on how horrible these scenes are, to me. Not talk about how 6 million Jews died in the hand of the Nazis, and what I think about that.

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I acknowledged that it certainly could be sufficient. That's not really the question. The question is whether the reader obtains additional information about the poem and a deeper perspective on its project with the knowledge that the title is a quote from a famous thinker.

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again, really? I always find myself veering off into morality issues when I focus more on additional information and not the poem.

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Of course not. I object as much to people who overhistoricize poetry as I do to those who get caught up in overly pedantic points about prosody. Either approach is attempting to add to an understanding of the poem via external analysis. That doesn't mean that I'm going to blanketly refuse to allow any sort of historical reading any more than I'm going to refuse to consider an analysis of the rhyme scheme.

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again, use of history to a degree. I think one can easily get lost and end up in historical perspectives. Did anyone mention rhyme scheme this week? Or movement in the poem this week?

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This is where I'm puzzled by your argument. You're someone who's insisting on a close reading with attention to detail in the author's rhyme and choice of words etc, and yet you argue that an entire line quoted from another source-- and not only that, the line that forms the title of the poem--is insignificant.

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Say this again, please? I don't follow. I never said the title of the poem was insignificant. Different aspects of the poem have more 'weight' than other aspects. I can only cover and discuss one aspect at a time. Most of you seem to do a full sweep in one sitting.

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Are you actually trying to say that any allusion to another's words in poetry should never be examined in relation to the original source? Would you say, to pick an example at random, that when T.S. Eliot uses the line "I had not thought death had undone so many" (Wasteland, ln.63) to describe a crowded London street that it is irrelevant to bring up the fact that he is quoting Dante's Inferno? The reader may not know that from reading the text of the poem alone if he/she is not well versed in Dante, but that doesn't mean there's no significance to his choice of quote. We're not talking about one word at random here. We're talking about a key word in the poem which is repeated several times throughout, and how it is being defined in the title of that poem.

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No, I'm saying be careful you don't get lost. And maybe you should pick this week's 'Poem of the Week' as an example. Lets not be too random.

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Incidently, when you get to college you may be interested in reading some of the critics associated with Reader Response theory. I think you might recognize some of what you're trying to express here in their position (just don't forget to read the people who point out what the potential flaws are in such views as well).

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I'll keep this in mind.

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Also, just a friendly suggestion. Most people aren't terribly successful trying to match poetic wits with Alexander Pope (myself most definately included ;) ).

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again, what? I don't follow.

Have you read my perspective in the form of a poem in response to a poem by Pope showing his perspective? It's still a rough draft, but hey...

History plays the minor role
in poems, as do the page
and words on the page are
not the same.

If than, then I sit and pick
my nose to know that words
did not matter so; but let
my thoughts run wild with
the naked man that doesn't
need clothes for support.


ME :lol:

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Originally Posted by Shanna

Again, wow. I had no idea enjoying poetry could be such hard work. Everything you say here is forced, twisted out of its original context and jammed into another, one you'd - quite simply - like to believe, making the end result quite ungainly. Its like a malformed baby. Its just sad. Never mind what the poet wanted to say, never mind what the critics have said, never mind the references to actual, physical places and people, never mind what is glaringly obvious - we'll do with it as we please, we'll make of it what we choose. They were wrong about Lawrence after all, now, weren't they? Congratulations, Virgil, you just killed it. I really think you can stop beating it now, though, its quite dead, believe me.

Oh and.. Virgil? what is a 'justaposition'?

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It makes sense to not only me. I would like to hear your perspective on the type of poetic elements, if you will, on this poem. You seem to like 'dishing' but, would you like to actually participate in the poem analysis?