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A valiant attempt but I still do not feel it. What is the point of 'rubbing it in' if in one stanza he talks about the ones that will rise, and in the next stanza he talks about the ones that do not rise? It would be a very, very, very bad decision, to find out you have not 'risen.' :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
mmm...worldview?Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
I don't know if emotion is the right term for the repetative line. I happen to like the repetative line. Like I sad it has a liturgical effect. So I ought to say what that means. I'll give it a shot, but I'm thinking through this for the first time, so don't pin this to me forever if I later alter my thinking. The liturgical effect in a Catholic service (and it may be the same in others, I don't know) is a repetition of a phrase by the congregation where it unites the cogregation in a religious/philosophic thought. "Lord have mercy," comes to mind. In between the repeated ine is usually some prayer which culminate to the repeated line. "And death shall have no dominion" is exactly such a thought. I guess it has emotion, but I don't feel an icreasing or decreasing level of emotion with each repetition. Of course that could be me. The litugical effect binds the congregation together. It's a communal building exercise, I think. I think the correct term is litany, and here's the definition from M-W:Quote:
Originally Posted by Asa Adams
In summary, it's a prayer that is repeated around a recitation. That's what Thomas is exactly after. I think he fails (for me) in hs recitation sections. I think he's just after cool sounding lines without any coordinated thought. I could be wrong.Quote:
litany
Main Entry: lit·a·ny
Pronunciation: 'li-t&n-E, 'lit-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -nies
Etymology: Middle English letanie, from Old French & Late Latin; Old French, from Late Latin litania, from Late Greek litaneia, from Greek, entreaty, from litanos suppliant
1 : a prayer consisting of a series of invocations and supplications by the leader with alternate responses by the congregation
2 a : a resonant or repetitive chant <a litany of cheering phrases -- Herman Wouk> b : a usually lengthy recitation or enumeration <a familiar litany of complaints>
But I think this is part of the point. Part of the reason for having the second stanza is to show that death will have no dominion, will not rule, either those who do have the fortune to rise from the sea and become as one, or those who do not rise but remain below in torment. Regardless of your position death will not have the power either to remove bliss or to remove pain.Quote:
A valiant attempt but I still do not feel it. What is the point of 'rubbing it in' if in one stanza he talks about the ones that will rise, and in the next stanza he talks about the ones that do not rise? It would be a very, very, very bad decision, to find out you have not 'risen.'
I think the poem is tackling the notion of a world without death and the strangeness of such a vision. The repetition of the line "Death shall have no dominion" I think is partly an assertion defying the one thing we generally regard as constant in life (if only someone would pen something similar about taxes ;)), and partly repetition countering the sheer instinctive disbelief that such a statement almost instinctively generates. I agree with Virg. about it being like the litany of a repeated prayer. One reason for repetition in religious service or prayer is that the repeated phrase is one containing a truth or idea which requires thinking and rethinking, and is sometimes a mystery which must be repeated to be understood. I think there's something of that going on here.
The more I read this poem the more the descriptions in it remind me of the sort of thing that comes out of certain passages in the book of Revelations (and I'm sure there must be some references to it here that I'm just not catching...maybe Shout Grace, or someone else who's studied the scriptures more can point to some parallels). I should actually say it's like Revelations meets Platonic Philosophy via the romantics with a dash of classical mythology for good measure.
On another tangent, I'm repeatedly drawn back to the way the sea functions in this poem as symbolic of a sort of underworld. As I said earlier, I think he must have had Lycidas on his mind in which the sea is such a prominent symbol of death, and rising from the sea a description of salvation and ascendence to heaven. I've been trying to think of other places where the sea functions as a kind of boundry between transcendence into heavenly bliss and remaining below. I can think of certain places where the ocean is associated with death ("full fathom five...") and it seems the sea is often proverbially, almost casually associated with the eternal ("I will love thee still my dear/ 'Til all the seas gang dry"). I find it fascinating though, the way he uses the sea here as the locus for meditating on an eternity without death. The sea seems symbolic of death and the underworld here. I found these lines at the beginning of the third stanza incredibly arresting:
For anyone who's ever spent time by the sea, the idea of the silence described in these lines when the waves cease to bit, is strange and awesomely disturbing. I think this describes beautifully, and in a way the reader can relate to, something of how strange it would be for death to suddenly cease breaking upon our mortal shores.Quote:
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
My response was to Jay concerning the creation of emotion in the poem by Thomas. The repeated lines have no more/less emotion effect from the start of the poem as it does at its conclusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
:lol: :lol: :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
That is a quote for the ages!
Quite a mouthful, yes. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
Well, as you can no doubt tell, it was my aim to by pithy and brief. ;)Quote:
That is a quote for the ages!
I'd like to preface this post by saying that I think there is good reasoning behind looking for Biblical ideas, simply because of the fact that the title and oft repeated line is a direct Biblical quote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
I think that there are quite a few literal parallels here . . .
'"When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,"
I think that this line could possibly refer to the whole of Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel is tripping out and God takes him into a valley full of all kinds of bones. God then begins to relate to him how he will resurrect Israel. Ezekiel 37 is really short chapter of the Bible and I think anybody could get a lot to relate to this poem out of it (though please read from a more accurate translation than the King James, like the NIV, NASB, or ESV. You can do that here.
Similarly, I think that the 'sea' references have to do with Revelation 20:13 - 'And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and both death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done'.
I just can't help but read this poem and find Christian metaphors. Paul, the author of Romans, when writing about Jesus' resurrection, was relating a very incredible idea (whether it be true or not). According to the Christian faith, Jesus dying, and then rising again, symbolically or literally conquered the power of death over all persons past, present and future. Jesus says that 'Because I live, you shall live also.' That is the predominant theme throughout the New Testament and Paul expounds it in different ways. I think that if true it would be strange and unimaginable, but I also think it is wonderful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
Here are two more places this idea occurs in Romans, Chapter 5 Verse 14 "... death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses ..." and also verse 21 "...so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through righteousness".
'Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,'
I probably took this part in a completely different way than everybody else. I just think that it's funny that he uses the words 'blows', 'hammers', 'nails', and 'sun'. Though I don't know how the word 'characters' was picked. To me it reads like a Passion narrative, rain dead as nails pounding the flower, breaking the sun until the sun breaks down. Because of the fact that Jesus did 'break down' and die, 'death shall have no dominion' (according to the Christian faith).
Though, did Dylan have any particular faith? Does anyone know? For some reason I thought that he didn't.
This is what I was talking about :D .Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
I apologize if I offended anyone.
Overall, I feel a real emotional disconnect with this Dylan Thomas poem. With so many of the lines lifted from other sources I feel Thomas forgot to incorporate himself, on an emotional level, into his poem. And I think we can sense this disconnect. When I relate this poem back to Milton’s poem we discussed last week, I can sense the difference. Even though Milton also takes lines from scripture, you can really relate, on a personal level, with what is disturbing him because he incorporates it into the poem, too.
On the other hand this week’s poem, at best, shows only the style in which Thomas likes to write with(reference to Virgil)…and at best, this ‘chanting-like’ repetition is in its amateurish state because it’s void of the emotional investment that’s required in such an exercise. Or is this hollowness what he set out to create in the first place?
ShoutGrace--Thanks for the scriptural references. I think Revelations 20:13 was the verse that had been kind of nagging me in the back of my mind with all the references to the sea in the poem, but I just couldn't remember where exactly it was.
I don't think he did. If anything I think his faith was something akin to that ponderous sentence of mine that everyone was laughing about, though I'm no Dylan Thomas expert, and I could be wrong about this. My sense is that he was raised culturally as a Christian and is thus using Christian scripture and ideology as the rhetorical framework for this poem, but I sense that his faith here, though it may include a certain respect for Christian beliefs, ultimately takes a more general direction into philosophy etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
Well, I know what you mean about it not being a deeply emotional poem. I agree that I don't think it's coming from as personal a place as Milton's "When I consider..." I also agree that it's not as good a poem as the Milton. It's not a great poem that stands up against the real giants of poetry, but I still think it's a good poem (and pretty good indeed, for someone who was only nineteen when he wrote it).Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
A new poem for the new week. I haven't read Atwood's poems before so thought it would be interesting to have a look at one of them with you:
You Begin
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
by Margaret Atwood
Extracts from DH Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider
by John Worthen
My sentiments exactly
One issue which we curiously neglect is Lawrence's religious formation. Lawrence was not just 'nonconformist', he was a Congregationalist, and thus the heir of a socially vital but theologically terrifying tradition which argues for the damnation of the entire human race apart from a minute band of perfected 'saints'. Lawrence repudiated the doctrine, but kept the spiritual arrogance, What is left, now the dust has settled? A handful of wonderful poems, some outstanding travel writing, and a collection of novels which now seem strangely hard to read. One illuminating fact which Worthen brings out is the speed at which Lawrence composed: 2,000-3,000 words a day. It is unsurprising that some of his writing now seems under-edited.
It is hard to take Lawrence's preaching’s about 'phallic tenderness' seriously, other than as a reflection of the deep-rooted fears evoked by the first phase of the sexual and economic emancipation of women. He is the ultimate spokesman for a particular type of male personality, so defended against a devouring mother that he is crippled by fear of commitment.
He would have done well to heed the words of Robert Burns;
O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!