PoemoftheWeek

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Originally Posted by ktd222

So what? If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose to know? Hecht is introducing a passiveness for a reason.

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Okay, I can see where you are coming from but you are pushing it to ridiculous extremes. It doesn’t say that a one-armed Colobus monkey from Glasgow is holding the gun, either. Should we consider it as a serious possibility?

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Do you really believe this, ktd222? I mean, do you think that the gun itself rather than the person firing it should face a trial? Perhaps you think the glove is a disembodied entity floating around in space? Are malicious gloves the real reason for the extermination of six million human beings in gas chambers?

Apparently, there was a pair of satin mittens in the dock at Nuremberg.

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That being said, ktd does have a point. I don't know the significance of why Hecht phrases it this way (and given all the melodram I point out in the poem, it is not beyond question to think that this is more melodrama, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now) but it is very consciously done.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Okay, I can see where you are coming from but you are pushing it to ridiculous extremes. It doesn’t say that a one-armed Colobus monkey from Glasgow is holding the gun, either. Should we consider it as a serious possibility?

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I'm just trying to see what Hecht has created by doing this.
Maybe it does have to do with the Nazi soldier, but to a lesser extent, or else he would have included the Nazi with a more prominent role in the poem, say, the actual body of the Nazi?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

That being said, ktd does have a point. I don't know the significance of why Hecht phrases it this way (and given all the melodram I point out in the poem, it is not beyond question to think that this is more melodrama, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt for now) but it is very consciously done.

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I'm still trying to work out what you could possibly mean by an argument as garbled as this.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I'm just trying to see what Hecht has created by doing this.

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Your question has already been answered above. He uses metonymy for a reason. This is Ellen Miller Casey, not Shanna:

“It condemns the German soldier by its amazing use of metonymy and the passive voice. The soldier is a void, to be inferred only from a Luger and its glove and a riding boot.”

Like a nicely fitting glove, that pretty much covers it. The officer has no shred of humanity – he is nothing more than the murderous ideology represented by the uniform in which he stands. He has become something less than human. Besides, if you were the Pole, what would you look at?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Would make a great movie, a maudlin movie. And it might not be a bad movie, but a movie or a novel has space to develop character and in the words of one of my creative writing teachers "earn" the emotion. That's why Tolstoy in his large novels can get away with melodrama, there is enough space to develop it. And that's why a greeting card sounds so trite, there is no space to develop, I prefer to use the word "earn", the emotion. Here in 32 lines you have not one, but two vague stick figure melodramas that don't earn the emotion that's packed here.

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Exactly WHAT MELODRAMA are you going on about? And no, a greeting card does not sound trite because there is no space for development, you could have it go on for miles and it would still be as nauseating. It is trite because the idea at its core is a cliche, because it is based entirely on cheap values. There is no emotion packed there. It is hollow. It is not the volume of poetry that overcomes that limitation, but an awareness of the abyss between what is genuine and what is contrived. You, obviously, don't have any such awareness, so exactly what right do you have to call Hecht's poem trite?

If you are still there, kilted exile, the Colobus monkey from Glasgow was not in any way meant as a slur on your good self. :D

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Your question has already been answered above. He uses metonymy for a reason. This is Ellen Miller Casey, not Shanna:

“It condemns the German soldier by its amazing use of metonymy and the passive voice. The soldier is a void, to be inferred only from a Luger and its glove and a riding boot.”

Like a nicely fitting glove, that pretty much covers it. The officer has no shred of humanity – he is nothing more than the murderous ideology represented by the uniform in which he stands. He has become something less than human. Besides, if you were the Pole, what would you look at?

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I don't see him just condemning the soldierl. I see the 'act', and yes, I see how horrible it is, but I don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem. This may be more of the poem's purpose:

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I don't know the significance of why Hecht phrases it this way

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Now that, I agree with.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

and given all the melodram I point out in the poem,

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:lol: You gotta love it.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem.

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You don’t think Hecht has any beef with Nazis? :eek2:

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

You don’t think Hecht has any beef with Nazis? :eek2:

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I don't care. I don't think he cares about the Nazis, at least not in this poem. I think he only cares about the victims.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Except for a stray comment or two, it's not worth reading any Lawrentain schorlarship published before the late sixties. So if they can be wrong about him and ultimately revise their thinking, a bunch of critics can be wrong about the Hecht poem. What is it you call it - ideology?

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Oh, and I take it you're the best judge of that?
That is the full extent of your argument? If they were wrong about Lawrence, they can sure as hell be wrong about Hecht - and that's supposed to convince anyone here?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

what's your fear, I may pursuade somebody?

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:lol: :lol: :lol:

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I don't care. I don't think he cares about the Nazis, at least not in this poem. I think he only cares about the victims.

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He might not care for them but he certainly cares about them.

When in a hole....

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

He might not care for them but he certainly cares about them.

When in a hole....

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Not in this poem.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I don't see him just condemning the soldierl. I see the 'act', and yes, I see how horrible it is, but I don't see the Nazi soldier as part of what Hecht is trying to convey in the poem. This may be more of the poem's purpose:

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

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I agree with this. I think that the Nazi soldier plays a part just as the others, but part of the poem's purpose - and the aspect that struck me most forcefully - is the description (accusation?) of the fact that not only was the act allowed, without any 'saving' light, but that the act was also 'unremembered', almost. Unremembered is not the word I want to use, however. 'No prayers or incense rose. . . '. There is a word which sums up that feeling but my head isn't working right now.