PoemoftheWeek

[Jay]

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

[Petrarch's Love]

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 ).

[Shanna]

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.

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'?

[Logos]

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.

[ktd222]

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

I'll keep this in mind.

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

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

[ktd222]

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'?

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?