America as oppressor

In the Poem "America" the strong contradictions between America as a place of freedom and Ginsburg's visions of America as a place of oppression. The poem questions America's treatment of outsiders as criminals "America free Tom Mooney/ America save the Spanish Loyalists/America Sacco and Vanzett must not die /America I am the Scottsboro boys. " Ginsburg also introduces others' ethnicity and political viewpoints throughout the poem claiming either to be those foreigners as he does in the above quote, or to be completely against the diverse population that makes up America. When he uses this later method however, the lines are over emphasized creating a sense of paranoia. "America you don're really want to go to war. /America it's them bad Russians./ Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. /And them Russians. /The Russia wants to eat us alive. /The Russia's power mad. /She wants to take our cars from out our garages. " The contradictions of America's population and political choices are well emphasized in Ginsberg's reading and are used to show an internal turmoil that Ginsberg is facing as he reads to us.

Another Post on America

After reading the poem I went back and marked off all the times that the words “you” or “I” appeared and I found that it dominates most of the poem. This technique illustrates Ginsberg’s “me against you” relationship with his country that he maintains throughout most of the poem. There is a small section of the poem where he tries to ease up on this view after he declares “I am America”, but even this only lasts until line 64 when he can no longer continue this point of view.
Along with viewing the poem as a stream of thought I also saw it as a sort of confessional. He seems to be using the image/idea of America as a way to look back on himself, and although he does condemn America for its various infringements he also seems to be looking poorly upon himself as well.

allen ginsberg has been described as an "olympian" of a ranter, and in this piece he is at his finest. "america" seems to be the unravelling of a mental knot. or rather he is simply playing with it, examining it from all sides. he doesn't seem to answer his own question because he is not sure what he is asking, either of himself or of america. i think this poem is an attempt to express humanity it its most bare, taking its clothes off in front of the mirror of the self. he emits his thoughts as they occur, each line both stands alone and functions as some integral part of a greater idea, or some step in a convoluted process. like pynchon, ginsberg seems to address the trappings of humanity in the modern world by attempting to express the confusion directly. he is trying to reconstruct the culture of both america and his own mind, so that he might examine both of them and understand what is happening. he is, as most human beings are, a study of paradox. he is at once both disgusted with america and her past atrocities and her current insane obsessions (go fuck yourself with you atom bomb," "i'm sick of your insane demands", "when will you send al your eggs to india?" "i say nothing about the prisons nor the millions of underprivileged..." "save the spanish loyalists," "the russia wants to eat us alive") and yet something keeps him from simply decrying america. perhaps it is the knowledge that america nonetheless gives him a pulpit to stand on, a place to shake his rants into the wind. and of course this is not good enough for ginsberg. for this same america has outlawed communism, has made the word and the idea a platform of fear and control. america has destroyed its own citizenry with war and economic destruction. this sense of confusion and disillusionment is expressed very neatly in the poem, with varying degrees of playfulness and dread. he seems to address america at points as though speaking to an emotionally cold lover who cannot share ginsberg's ideas about beauty of life, and seems unable ot hear his pleas.
i disagree with brendan's post that this poem was not well written. I found it rather apt at expressing the sort of existential and emotional dread that came about from the generation following world war two, and i find that this same sensation may still be applicable today. though it is true that ginsberg does live in america, a country that grants him the freedom to write poetry (though the publication of his early poems such as "howl" was almost halted over charges of lewd sexuality), he recognizes that still millions of americans are without a voice ("him make indians learn read," "him need big black niggers," "i still feel sentimental about the wobblies"). he recognizes that there are still many things to be fought for, including the culture that is destroying human values and turning them into a commodity ("are you going to let yor emotional life be run by time magazine?")

America

At first glance it might be hard to discern the meaning (or belief that there is much of one) behind Ginsberg's poetry. It was clear to me from the beginning simply by the styling of his poem (including it's protest-like statements) that Ginsberg was not only very drug-influenced but I believe was a person who would have been classified as a "hippie" in this late 50's era. Clearly it is a poem defiant of America: "I smoke marijuana every chance I get" is one of the many examples where Ginsberg tries to assert himself as a rebellious figure. In addition, While I cannot be sure, the line where Ginsberg says " I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. " I couldn't help but think that he was discussing his trials with heroin as the pictures he presents here: "I sit in my house for days on end and stare" is extremely similar to the experiences which most heroin users have when using. I am somewhat confused though by Ginsberg's mental process in the stanza talking about Time Magazine. Is he attempting to provide the thought processes of two people? or is his saying how we should all stop reading time magazine and then his own confession to it to emphaisze the need for change? or is it to enhance a sarcastic undertone of the Machine-like culture of America and the people's misguided willingness to follow their leaders?

Walcott's Dead

As of right now, no one else has posted on this poem, and it was on the syllabus, I hope it isn't an artifact of last semester's syllabus. But I enjoyed this poem, very much so. The idea of artificial flight - I do not believe I've read a poem before that takes place from the perspective of a plain passenger.

What I really wanted to focus on was how for the majority of the poem, there are only a few completed sentences that end stanzas or part of stanzas. There are many more sentences finished within, which is an interesting writing tool. Of course, the obvious sentences are the first one, the opening: "The airport coffee tastes less of America.", which is a complete sentence, versus the last line of the poem, which awkwardly stands alone (thus putting emphasis on it): "...age after age, the uninstructing dead."

Just looking at those two lines alone brings to mind the idea of an internal emotional arch. The opening sentence, without reading anything else, seems to give a feeling of relief. Almost like: "Thank goodness I can finally get away from all that." It is a sign of perhaps something better to come. But the end of the emotional arch is not relief/hope, but instead a very resigned to the fate given. It is the realization that the dead, no matter how many there may have been and may be, cannot teach a lesson to those living today. They are unable to leave behind a symbolism, a warning, to those who may repeat their mistakes - a repetition of history.

There were also some references I was poking about looking for.

I was interested in the "trans-Texas jet", considering the timing of this flight. Thanks to a little Wikipedia searching, I found that these smaller airports, which had no more than 10 tarmacs, did well until the 1970's 'oil boom', which obviously created more flights. This relates to how Walcott sees that the "air, heavy with gas,/ sickens the state, from Newark to New Orleans."

Another reference is to Borges, and I think the poem discussed was: "The Other Tiger". Granted I found this poem online, so I do not know how accurate it would be but these few lines stuck out at me:

"Curving oceans and the planet's wastes keep us
Apart in vain; from here in a house far off
In South America I dream of you,
Track you, O tiger of the Ganges' banks."

The distance between the tiger and the poet is so far, and so much keeps them apart, far beyond the obvious difference of beast and man.

Another reference that I have trouble relating is what opens the second section: "Elizabeth wrote once/ that we make glass the image of our pain". I think it is a reference to 'The Glass of the Sinful Soul' . With some poking about, I found a review of this on JSTOR, from the Renaissance Quarterly. If I read this correctly, it is by Elizabeth I (in 1544), and she translates another poem by the Queen of Navarre. In the review it says: "...in which a tormented sinner explores the nature of God's love. In this mystical meditation, the female narrator draws on scripture to posit her soul's fourfold relationship with God, as daughter, sister, mother, and wife...". I believe this relates to how Walcott discusses the earth afterwards, in a "mother earth" sort of fashion.

I enjoyed through second section very much, while the last two I had a bit more trouble with. "Yet the South felt like home" - it begins the downwards motion of the arc, where even though the South feels like home, it is dangerous. It's important (and obvious) that he changes his dialect in the fourth stanza of the third section. I'm pretty sure this is a reference to the Klu Klux Klan and lynching. From here, the fourth section is just a heavy realization of how little today's people learn from the past, and the mistakes made in the past.

America

I did not like this poem at all. The reading nearly put me to sleep and I felt like I was listening to some rebellious 7th grader who hates life and country and anything he can find to be negative about. There wasnt one line that I saw myself going, "well written." I feel like a lot of people, who are not poets, could have written this poem.

So from a word literature standpoint, this, in my opinion, is of the lowest quality of any poem we have read this year. A lot of the poems we have read this year have really gripped the reader without having to come out and say any details. This poem sounds like some frusterated, depressed kid who is pissed off ranting about his country.

For example, does this stanza appear to be poetic:
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility.
Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

As far as content I would say it is highly hipicritcal to a point of comedy, as the intention of this poem, if there is any, appears to be that there are all these problems with America but by writing this poem the poet is doing their part to help. This is hipicritical because there are very few places in the world that would allow someone to publicly bad mouth the country in a poem, and America is one of those places. I would think poets would like America because it gives them the freedom to write about whatever they want, which is a rare privaledge in this world.

I also disagree with a lot of his references, "America why are your libraries full of tears?" This could be a reference to all of the books written in the library which would make little sense to say this because their are plenty of happy books. I would guess the poet is refering to American history, and although many would look at all the depressing times for example: Depression, Slaves, how we treated the natives upon arrival, Wars, etc. overall people are very fortunate to live here. Realizing that there are places in the world that slaves still exist, their are over 100 wars going on across the world right now, countries are having depressions a lot more frequently than the United States, and I think our history, compared to the histories of other countries in the world, would be one of the happiest.

I cant help but think when I read the following, I did not think that was great poetry or interesting content, I thought the poet needed help.

America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max
after he came over from Russia.


My favorite line: "I can't stand my own mind. " Because I can't stand his mind either.

America

I'm going to have to agree with Lilly here.  Listening to the poem on audio made it a completely different piece than reading it on the page.  I think this poem is one of those that really needs to be read aloud in order to appreciate.  Reading this is like trying to make sense of someone else's thought process so hearing him read it gives it life.  I know that seeing it on the page gives it a visible structure, but hearing it, the structure and rhythm really jumps out at you.  I also found it a lot funnier when read aloud then when reading it.  I liked being able to laugh at my own country. Nicely done Ginsberg.

Ginsberg's America

I really liked this poem, especially with Ginsberg's reading of it. He made it sound like someone's actual conversation with America (though maybe a disjointed or one-sided conversation). The bit around lines 80-90 was especially good to hear out loud because it gets across him making fun of the stereotypes against "them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians." Throughout, there seems to be a tone of childishness and silliness ("Everybody's serious but me") even though Ginsberg insists, "America this is quite serious." He boasts about things he's done wrong, such as smoking marijuana, not saying the Lord's Prayer, and for having been to Communist Cell meetings as a kid and not being sorry. This kind of attitude is one a young person might have. Also, the way he repeatedly "talks back" to this America in the first part of the poem makes him seem like an unruly teenager: "I don't feel good don't bother me. / I won't write my poem till I'm in the right mind." "I'm sick of your insane demands." Silliness comes out in the way Ginsberg treats a serious subject, national resources: "My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions." Perhaps the fact that "It occurs to me that I am America" causes him to say, "America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?" Here Ginsberg IS America, but is sometimes still addressing it and having discussions with it as if it were a separate person.

America

To me this poem seemed like a thought process in its rawest form and in some ways resembled ranting. These are private thoughts that are not normal said by Americans , usually filtered out by convention. He explains what America is doing its self and its reputation. The country is not longer respected because of its overwhelming ignorance concerning itself. The wrongs and values of America taunt him to the point that he cannot get the thoughts out of his head causing him to feel resentment towards himself; "I can't stand my own mind." He poses the question, "America when will we end the human war?" I think he uses the word "human" to emphasize that we are all humans, and all the same. War between us is self deprecating. It seems like he is having difficulty explaining his point, almost struggling because he is so distracted and angered by the process of arriving at it. He revolts against America in his own ways. He doesn't read newspapers, was a communist, smokes weed, gets drunk and by implication tries to get laid. He addresses the media and how it is controlling peoples lives. Then he had a realization. I think that this could have been that he sees that he is part of the some of the problems with America that he has been speaking about. He is America, he is speaking to America and so he is speaking to himself. The media is brought up again when speaking of America's unreasonable fear of all Russians. In the last few lines of the poem, the author says "I'd better get right down to the job." I think this, and some other lines, suggest that Ginsberg's America is about how he needs to do something, like write a poem, that will expose America to itself.

I really like Ginsberg’s poem a lot. I especially liked listening to the audio file because this helped keep the poem clear. The style of the poem is somewhat confusing because I think the author wants us to become part of his stream of consciousness. This poem personifies America as a living being, which is a commentary on the mass culture America has produced due to the “newspapers” and “Time magazine.” After all, America becomes addicted to these.
“I'm addressing you. Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.”
The author distances himself from this mainstream of consumers of “Time Magazine” as he says, “Everybody’s serious but me.” The author is unlike those who read the paper ‘every week” in the “basement” of libraries. The author portrays these consumers reading the newspapers in “basements” because it creates a dark tone as if this is not a natural way to live huddle sin “basements” as a slave to the media.

Stanza 11

I liked this stanza, where Whitman ponders which pictures he shall hang on the walls "to adorn the burial-house of him i love..." Whitman then describes various scenes that he believes sum up life in Lincoln's former country. He focuses on spring as a symbol for rebirth and his words seem a reassurance against both the loss of a hero and his own mortality. He mentions the "Gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun," which seems to serve as a symbol for the passage of time and as the engine of growth that accelerates the world forward. He mentions "herbage" and "leaves," describing them as "green," "fresh," and "sweet." this seems in contrast to the grief he expresses, which might suggest the leaves of fall,as they die and fall with flashes of color. He also mentions "the breast of the river," seemingly suggesting again the passage of time and the continuation of life. "Breast" suggests motherhood, or at the very least humanity, while the river implies a carrying on. Whitman suggests that humanity will still flow forward. He finally mentions humans at the end of the stanza: "And the city...with dwellings so dense...and all the scenes of life, and the workshops and the workmen homeward returning." These images of the city life are perhaps an homage to America, the nation that Lincoln saved, thus allowing for the cities to grow dense.

Section 8

In the 8th section, Whitman addresses the moon ("O western orb sailing the heaven"), who once seemed to know something woeful was to come. Whitman does not know what it was until now, after Lincoln's death. The moon "was lost in the netherward black of the night," perhaps in the way that Lincoln himself is now gone. Whitman conveys that the moon might have had something to tell him, but did not know what it was until the event revealed itself. Here, the moon could be some all-knowing being that is unable to convey its knowledge, or Lincoln himself in his last month. This section of the poem also serves to demonstrate how even a distant part of the natural world mourns for this president, "you sad orb."

Lilacs

"Lilac" is used over 10 times in this poem. The condition or nature of the lilac is important in the understanding of the poem.

1st Reference: "when lilacs in the dooryard bloom'd...I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring." - Here Whitman is saying that the sight of the lilacs and the spring in general is no longer a time of rebirth and happiness but of morning because it marks the time that Abraham Lincoln was assasinated, which is the main basis of the poem.

2nd Reference: "lilac blooming perennial and dropping star in the west, and thought of him I love." Again, the "blooming" of the lilac is mentioned, which would normally signify a hope or rebirth but to Whitman it represents sorrow and continued mourning for the death of this national figure and how the blooming of the lilacs will never again bring him the joy that it once did.

3rd Reference: " Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green."
- Whitman is reflecting on how he percieved the lilacs in his past, before the death of Lincoln. The heart shaped leaves represent the love people had for lincoln (source is at the bottom). This was his perspective when he saw the lilacs as a sense of love, hope and nature.

- He interupts to say that he is breaking the lilac as his dear president was destroyed.

4th Reference: "I give you my sprig of lilac" - Here Whitman is saying that the destroyed flower is being given to Lincoln on his coffin as a symbol or respect. I believe here lies the depth of this poem, that the lilac he once adored, is no longer of the same meaning to him, but upon much mourning and reflection he puts the lilac in which he destroyed ontop of Lincolns coffin as a token of his respect, honor and loyalty.

"The act of placing flowers in a coffin is a symbolic gesture of honor and respect. Although the flower is dead, a new lilac will be reborn in the spring. Similarly, when spring returns, Lincoln's memory will be revived through this elegy. Whitman's attempt to deal with death is a turning point in the poem. " (source below)

5th Reference: "now the lilac that blooms the first" - In this passage Whitman is signaling to the reader that he is no longer interested in destroying the lilac but more important to him is the rebirth of the lilac and through his elergy the rebirth of the spirit of Lincoln. This also proves that through the great depths of pain that he is experiencing, he is learning how to cope with the death as the elergy serves as his medication."

Last Reference: "I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, I leve thee there in the dooryard, blooming, returning with spring." Here the tone completely changes from complete and utter grief to a glimpse of hope. He recognizes that he will always feel the loss of his hero but he is also ready to move on.

I originally did not understand this poem, and then I read the following article which I derived all my ideas from in this post, that helped me understand the poem through the subject of the lilac.

Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/470522/when_lilacs_last_in_the_dooryard_bloomd.html?page=2&cat=2 By Cameron Pierce, published Dec 07, 2007

Mourning Dove

What I was caught by throughout this long poem was the constant repetition of the "gray-brown bird" and I'm pretty sure it is a mourning bird. It is a poem of mourning the passing of Abraham Lincoln, and it would be apt to use such a bird. And just in case no one knows what a mourning bird looks like:

http://www.westol.com/~banding/MODO_LU_052803a.jpg

The first time the bird is mentioned, it is in the thirteenth section. Whitman is almost pleading with this part of nature to mourn this great president. Nature, which really the president has no jurisdiction over. He does not directly effect nature, but his policies may.

It is also interesting the home of Walt Whitman is New York City. Surprisingly enough, there are mourning doves and they can be heard, so even in Whitman's home of urbanization and industrialization, this bird that he calls upon to mourn Lincoln he can call upon from the city, from his home. So in a way, it is as if no matter where any American is, he or she can mourn the loss of such a great president.

Again the bird is mentioned in the fourteenth section, and instead of a song, it is a carol that it calls out to the world. It is the last section that praises the bird and its song, for its various properties that relates it to victory, as well as to death. And death can be seen as part of the cost of victory. The mourning dove, star and flower are part of a trinity - the trinity that Whitman uses in order to mourn Lincoln - it is his private trinity.

whitman v nature

Whitman’s poem is a pastoral elegy mourning the death of President Lincoln. What I find most striking about this poem is the contrast between the mourners and nature. Throughout the poem Whitman searches for a way to grieve this great president. Whitman notices how people mourn Lincoln by going to “dim—lit churches” and singing “with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn.” Whitman hoped to commemorate Lincoln by leaving a flower at his coffin. For example, he writes, “a sprig with its flower I break.” Whitman’s breaking of the lilac symbolizes the death of Lincoln who was prematurely plucked from life. Even though Whitman spends several pages trying to mourn properly… he is still unresolved at the closing of the poem as he “leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.” The fact that he will return with spring suggests he has not found a way to cope with the death. In contrast to Whitman, nature is resolved as the poem closes with natural imagery: “There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.”

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

Lilacs are a symbol of new love and resurrection as they are annuals. Their rich green leaves, "heart-shaped" an image of a life source, are used by Whitman to highlight not only the vibrant life of spring to the death of Lincoln but also as a visual contrast to blood as red and green are on opposite side of the color wheel. Whitman also combines sounds with his visually stimulating mourning of Lincoln. Even in looking at two of the many repeted words within the poem one gains a sense of how personally affected Whitman is by the loss of Lincoln. The first prominent receptive sound is "O" in stanza two. "O" acts as a sharp cry of mourning in that it is a burst of air as if Whitman himself is in physical pain. Stanzas three, six, and eleven explore "with" as another repetition and in doing so emphasizes the very person who is not “with” the reader, Lincoln.

ode.

i enjoyed this poem. there are so many themes to be taken out of it that it seems a difficult task to fully analyze it. one passage that stood out particularly was the fifth stanza. man, as wordsworth claims, is a vessel for the divine, and he moves about the world he "trails clouds of glory...from god, who is our home..." wordsworth inverts the nature of life and death, insisting instead that our waking life here on earth is "but a forgetting" of the "heaven" that "lies about us on our infancy." he holds that man's conception of god and of immortality are not necessary illusions brought about by the presence of suffering on earth, but rather they are the elemental forces that have created our world, which is the real illusion. cast into this life, the infant and the boy will see "the glory and freshness of a dream," as the languidly of a child is compared to the lingering presence of the divine. unfortunately, the world begins soon to "close upon the growing boy," until the glowing light dies away and becomes part of everything else. in essence, this seems a tribute to Plato's republic, where plato suggests that mankind is imprisoned within a cave, watching his existence as shadows upon a wall reflecting imperfect imitations of the true "world." if he is able to free himself and leave the cave, man will discover a bright world of clear color and form outside the cave. similarly, wordsworth suggests that mankind has come from the "divine" light of some other world. as he grows, spending more time in his "cave," and slowly accepting the shadows as the "shades of (a) prison house," the brilliant light of the outside world grows dimmer.
another passage i greatly enjoyed was the 7th stanza. here wordsworth outlines the journey from childhood to maturity. he seems to conclude that the majority of man's life is "imitation," and that humans simply move from role to role," filling from time to time his 'humorous stage'." because man is trapped in this world of illusion, he must "fit his tongue to dialogues of business, love or strife..." thus wordsworth laments the human condition, suggesting the very nature of identity is false. like before, this passage seems a refitting of Shakespeare's lament in his play "as you like it":

"All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

Rhyming in Wordsworth's "Ode"

So I went through the poem and marked all of the rhymes, and I cannot tell if I was surprised or not that they didn't match. A poem of that length, well, the author would be hard pressed to make every rhyme scheme identical. But in some of the stanzas, the rhyme scheme just disappeared entirely. Granted, rhymes sound slightly different to everyone, but I think I got most of this right.

Take for instance, the third section. The rhyme scheme goes something like this:

A/ B/ B/ C/ C/ A/ D/ E/ E/ D/ F/ G/ G/ F/ F/ H/ H!

I note in each stanza whether every word has a match. Indeed, in some of the stanzas, the rhyme occurs three times, not just two. With the 'matching' rhyme scheme, there is almost more of a flow. All while trying to avoid the sing-songy voice that slips in while reading a poem, it does help the flow to the listener, I find.

So then moving along to the tenth section.

A/ B/ B/ A/ C/ C/ C/ D/ D/ E/ E/ F/ F/ G/ H/ I/ J/ K/ L.

In the beginning there is a relatively steady rhythm going on, but then when you get to the last six lines nothing fits and it draws attention those parts; as all disruption does in any aspect of life. Those lines are:

"In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring*
Out of human suffering;*
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."

I starred the two lines I had trouble rhyming. When you read it aloud, it does rhyme, but there needs to be a certain stress on the 'ing' of 'suffering'. So even if it is a rhyme, these last six lines are still a bit of an anomaly. Indeed, (as Steph mentioned in her post) this is the point where the child has reached a point of maturity, unable to return to the days of wondering at nature.

Also, an interesting note on the last section. Each word has a matching rhyme, except for the eleventh line, where the line ends with 'mortality'. Interesting that that particular word should stand alone, considering this poem concerns one of the most immutable facts of life: age and eventually, death.

Ode

I really enjoyed this poem.  I know I say that a lot, but along with the imagery and beautiful wording, Wordsworth did something really neat with the length of his stanzas.  I may be making this up, but it would be really cool if this were indeed true.  As you read the poem, the child starts off young and the stanza's start off short.  As the poem continues, the child gets older, six years, to being a teenager when he is  "Nor man nor boy," to manhood and "philosophical thought."  As the child grows, so do the stanzas.  They start off short when the child is young and grow in length.  I have no idea if Wordsworth intended this but its neat even if he didn't.  This way you not only get the image of growth in your head but also on the page.

Ode

This poem had allot of imagery which helps you follow the speakers train of thought. It is filled with appreciation and beauty of nature. I think the poem is about how young children see the world and nature in a different way than adults. You can see if well in the first three stanzas of the poem. As they grow up, people forget to appreciate the natural beauty in the world. Children seem to have a perspective that fills nature with glory, which reappears through out the poem. The speaker explains that there was a time when the world seemed "The glory and the freshness of a dream." But "The things which I have seen I now can see no more." The speaker still retains loves of nature as an adult, but it is not the same as it once was; "there hath passed away a glory from the earth." Then the speaker has a laps in his happiness, which is not the last, but he decides that he would be doing the world wrong to be stricken with grief on such a day. The earth is happy and this makes him happy. Children are another comforting thought to the speaker.

Ode

I think Wordsworth’s Ode is about maturity and the process of forgetting. Wordsworth regrets the idea that children have a fantastical sense of heaven and the greatness that is endured before birth; however, as aging maturity occurs this sixth sense quickly fades.
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream
It is not now as it hath been of yore
Turn whereso’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The “celestial light” represents the understanding and knowledge that a child possesses. Yet, that “light” has faded as “it is not now as it hath been of yore” because through aging one forgets this innate knowledge. No longer can the speaker delight in what he once knew as “the things which I have seen I now can see no more.” However, the speaker resolves that through memory he can still delight in what he found wonderful as a child because age brings wisdom and other knowledge that children do not have. At first, Wordsworth does not understand the rush for maturity and the adult world as he gazes at a young boy who he refers to as a “little actor” because he pretends to be engaged in a “wedding or a festival.” Wordsworth later understands why the child pretends to partake in such adult activities; because through age great understanding can be achieved and knowledge is not solely reserved for the young.

Second Stanza

The second stanza really stood out for the interesting questions it raises about the nature of religion and how we should view the world. The lines “shall she not find in comforts of the sun,/ In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else/ In any balm or beauty of the Earth,/ Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?” especially stood out to me. He is saying that instead of just waiting for the beauty and wonder that we will find in heaven, we should treasure the world around us for its own beauty, which can be just as amazing. He is also saying that the connection to ones surroundings and the openness of emotions that comes with paradise can happen within a person if they actually observe and care about what is going on around them. Also, the line “these are the measures destined for her soul” indicates that this openness to ones surroundings is a different kind of religious experience that does not need to be obtained through going to church. Her soul can be destined to do other things besides go to paradise.

Blood of Paradise

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

For me this was the best part of the poem. I liked how Stevens uses the term "blood" to describe people and their religious view. I think "shall our blood fail?" the speaker of the poem wondering if her religious views are not going to lead to anything and she will just die like everyone or will religion or belief for that matter, bring her to paradise. Then he asks, "and shall the earth seem all of paradise that we shall know?" and I think this is a reference to the last lines where he says "and next in glory to enduring love, not this dividing and indifferent blue." I think he is trying to say that Paradise can be here on earth while one is living instead of just some kind of heaven or after life. I thought the term, "indifferent blue" refers to the sky with the intention of the earth being under the blue and heaven being above the blue. I thought indiffernt was an appropriate word because the speaker is asking whether religion is going to bring her to paradise or if her religion is going to fail her... I think. And if thats the case than this relates to after life, and will her religion save her and bring her to heaven or will it fail her and bring her to hell. Then the next component of this section of the poem, is will religion bring paradise to earth while living and eliminate the indifferent blue?

The part here that says that sky is much friendlier now from part labor and part pain I thought might relate to Christianity and their belief of Jesus and his pain that he endured while on the cross and the labor could be the faith and the church goes on Sunday mornings. Thats just my interpretation there, could be way off

Sunday Morning

I absolutely loved this poem. I found the very style of the language to be inspirational. The way that Steven weaved his words to form pictures was incredibly intense and realistic. No reader would be at a want for more in terms of description in this work. One of the most poignant lines for me was "Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,/Alone shall come fulfillment to our dreams/And our desires". I found it to be so profound because in studying Freud in my other English class I have learned of a new theory that justifies (or is justified?) by this particular line. In the theme of "The Three Caskets", Freud claims that men (as exemplified by Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice") when given a choice will always choose Death and will willingly do so in order to achieve something. Freud claims that the third casket (made of lead) was representative of Death because of the fact that it was the casket which if chosen by a potential suitor would win him the hand of Portia. In choosing Portia (and desiring her) men are desirious of death and its finality. Therefore, in wishing to seek fulfillment (like winning the hand of Portia) man will eternally choose Death. Although Freud can be extremely mind-boggling at times, you cannot help but wonder if his theories are truly applicable to the universal human unconscious.

When I read Sunday Morning, I kept finding new meanings every time I read it through - and thus got more and more confused. There are many complex images and colours, each producing a different reaction.

The themes and ideas I took away from the poem, well, I can't quite sort them out. But what I found was an obvious clashing of pagan and monotheistic religions, similar to Tess of D'Ubervilles, with the ancient threads of the past pagan days through the countryside and the troublesome and disruptive Christianity that imposes its ideals on society. Indeed, the event of not going to church is enough to write a poem about - it is a rebellion against what is normally done, even though it may seem mundane to us.

Another theme was this sort of cage that Christianity has imprisoned society in - this cage that does not allow us to see and feel the power of nature and how so much is out of our reach because of what is imposed upon us. I got this from the 'dependency' that Stevens writes of - this dependency that has been taught to us, literally, we have no other way to live because that is how the rest of the world lives. It's almost a message - if you skip out on church and take yourself away from the rest of society - so it's the difference between isolation/freedom and interconnectedness/imprisonment. The mention of the 'undulating' birds shows how in nature there can be freedom and interconnectedness - the birds have the freedom of the skies, but the company of their flock.

Sunday Morning

I thought the first stanza of the poem was one of the best stanzas. The woman in the poem starts out being very content with her situation. Shes happy being dressed down and the chair seems "sunny," which is a word that one wouldn't normally use while describing a chair. However, because she is not in church, everything seems better and "sunny". Church feels imprisoning and she is jealous of the cockatoo and all green things that are free from organized religion and church. But then she realizes that the cockatoo is only distracting her and guilt starts to creep into her consciousness. "Calm darkens" and turns to guilt. It has turned what she thought was good and beautiful before into "a procession of the dead." Her mind is traveling in that direction and there is nothing, as of yet, to prevent it.

sunday morning

At first I was unsure of this poem, but aftre reading it stanza by stanza while relishing each line, I realized I like the poem a lot. I also like the title of the poem because at first I did not think of "Sunday Morning" but rather "Sunday Mourning" because the poem does talk a lot about detah and spirituality which is part of both sunday mornings and mourning. Perhaps Stevens was aware of this in writing the titel. I think the poem is best summed up through the final stanza as the woman comes to the end of her spiritual qualm. She resolves that believing in the beauty of nature and the living is what matters. Throughout the poem Stevens works his way up to the sky and heavens, but this final stanza takes a dip back down with the “causal flocks of pigeons” that make “ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.” The woman realizes she does not desire “paradise, the “sun,” nor “heaven,” which the men in the previous stanza glorify. Instead her thoughts are swept “downward” back into the “darkness which was presented in the first stanza. She does not want to devote herself to the dead which is what religion envies. For example, in Christianity, Christians glorify Jesus, who obviously died, and Christians also glorify death. The woman resolves to find her spiritual tranquility in the non dead of the living on earth.

Sunday Morning

I really enjoyed this poem, both for the style of the language and for the religious meditations. I'm not entirely sure ,but the poem seems to be suggesting that the modern organization of religion is a farce and does not capture the true nature of spirituality. The poem suggests instead that a more pagan spirituality is more likely to capture the temporal beauty of existence. Wallace describes a scene of a ring of "supple and turbulent" men who sing aloud upon a hilltop to "mourn" the summer and to describe their devotion to the natural forces ("sun," "blood," "sky," "the windy lake," "the trees," "echoing hills"). Their god is not jove in the clouds with his "inhuman birth," but rather as though "a god might be,/ naked among them." Wallace seems to suggest here that the natural signs of divinity that, though fleeting, and as he comes to recognize, sinking "downward to darkness, on extended wings," are more fulfilling of mankind's view of paradise than the immortal things "remote on heaven's hill." Wallace posits through the voice of the maiden that "death is the mother of beauty," and thus only because of death can mankind dream and feel desire. Though death does bring about sorrow and "strews leaves of sure obliteration on our paths," the rewards are much greater, as she "makes the willows shiver in the sun," and "causes boys to pile new plums and pears on disregarded plate." Wallace suggests the presence of springtime lust and desire, such lust that seemingly only comes about with the knowledge of coming winter. Thus, the rituals of worship that seek to find a heaven where death is no longer present seem to wallace to be a misundertanding of paradise, and because those rituals take away from appreciation of the "mystical" beauty of the world, he holds that "comforts of the sun" are a better focus of spiritual meditation.

when i have fears that i may cease to be.

One passage that I found moving was near the end of the book, where Oedipa considers her own sanity. She attempts to stop and consider the logical possibilities that are driving the events with which she has become obsessed, but finds that every road leads to a dead end. She realizes that because she has begun to see the vague patterns in the world around her she has become utterly alone, for either the patterns are only inside of her head, or the patterns are the work of other people and she, in trying to untangle them, has become their enemy. She cannot find refuse, neither in the world or in her own mind. This part of the book reminded me of the scene where she stands with Pierce in front of the painting in mexico and realizes that perhaps she, like the women in the painting, is merely stitching her own fabric into the void, filling it with her imagination and nothing more: "and so Pierce had taken her away from nothing, there'd been nothing to escape." (11) This passage distinctly foreshadows the later part in the book, as Oedipa once again recognizes the futility of escape inside the void: "For this, oh God, was the void. There was nobody who could help her. Nobody in the world." (141) Here, Oedipa realizes that she has left herself standing alone in the void. Because of her paranoia she has begun to recede the "fabric" that she has earlier woven into the world. The fabric was everything she knew and had created and held as true. As she sees more and more mystery in the world, and recognizes more and more patterns leading her she begins to dismantle the fabric of her world, eventually leaving her locked in the tower of her ego with no possible place to escape, with nobody left entwined inside of her fabric but herself. (Perhaps this is what Dr. Hillarius had warned against when telling Oedipa to Cherish it!...What else do any of you have?...Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be." (113))

p.s. speaking earlier about popular culture reference, here's a nice inversion: Radiohead's merchandise and ticket mailing service is known as "w.a.s.t.e."

Fillopian? di Presso? Courier's Tragedy?

This section of the book I found the most confussing. To start Oedipa and Metzger meet a man at The Scope (a bar) who talks to them about the US mailing system and how he and his Peter Penguid society have their own private mailing enterprize where they are even required to send mail. Here this idea of mail and communication is starting to emerge as an obvious theme in the book, as the first page of the book Oedipa is recieving mail about Pierce and then in Chapter 3 she recieves mail from her husband and now she is talking to a man oppose to the US mailing system. Then Oedipa finds the wierd shape in the bathroom which we still are unaware of its meaning and as we later find out that the symbol is of some mysterious importance. To me, this just seems so strange. First off, why is Fillopian, obviously a play on his name, talk to Oedipa and Metzger so openly like they had been freinds. Secondly, why is this mysterious sign written in the stall of the bathroom at a random bar. If this symbol turns out to be some kind of heroic finding that relates to the Russians and Americans and postal services or something then I am going to go back and be really puzzled as to why that sign is randomly in the bathroom stall at the scope. Anyways, then Metzger and Oedipa meet di Presso, another play on the name, who appears to be some kind of con-lawyer who is running away from his clients. I was not sure if I read this correctly, but I think he is trying to tell Metzger that he is not trying to win his lawsuit for his client Tony Jaguar for the bones he sold to Pierce and was never compensated for. Why bones by the way? The author could have used any kind of lawsuit he wanted and he uses bones that were used for charcol, bones from dead US soilders over seas. That appears to me to be a wierd and gross image. I am also confussed as to the role of the Paranoids and why they went with Metzger and Oedipa. Are they spies? Another part that really confussed me was the Couriers Tragedy and the tristero. I do not understand the connection that Oedipa is making between the symbol she saw, the Fillopian character and the play. In the fourth chapter Oedipa even goes and buys the script. I am also confussed about Pierce's stamp collection. Overall I think I am just confussed over the connections that are happening, like the stamps and the Inidian killer and the play and the sign in the bathroom and the mailing system.

Two Entropies and Action Energy

On pages 84-87 Pynchon describes Stanley and his hopes of finding a "sensitive" to listen to the energy within a machine that employs "Maxwell's demon." This scene was to my interpretation one of the main points of the book. The machine uses entropy both as it applies to communication and heat engines. Entropy as it applies to communication was originally a way to make conversation quantitative. Communication was equated to energy channels and because of previous work with entropy rates, entropy was used to express the ability of a communication set. This system when applied to words and showed that small amounts of information can be encoded in complex ways such as cultural symbols and metaphors. However, when a system becomes too large you cannot decode it and it loses meaning. This is an obvious parallel to the system in which Oedipa has become trapped. The second form of entropy regarding heat engines is about lowering entropy. I had to read this section in the book several times because I wasn't sure if Pynchon was referring to the reaction that lowering entropy causes or the lower entropy itself. Then i realized that it could be a contrast to action energy which is the amount of energy that must exist before an action can occur. So if there must be action energy to lower the entropy and the two systems of entropy intersect as entropy is lowered what is the action energy. Maxwell's demon creates this action energy. If the demon causes the loss in entropy but contains the entropy removed then he has extra energy. This means that he cant communicate according to the use of entropy in the communication system. The person who understands the demon within the machine must then understand the larger system of the demon's meaning. The ending of this book reflects back to Maxwell's demon because Oedipa is not the sensitive she cannot understand the system it is too large, it has no end.

two worlds in the book, drugs and Oedipa

Pynchon’s novel focuses a lot on the use of LSD as a psychedelic drug. The world around Oedipa is infested with drugs, even Oedipa’s shrink not only wants her to be drugged up but he is also taking LSD. In fact, Dr. Hilarious becomes plagued with paranoia and insanity as he locks himself up with a gun. Pynchon creates two worlds in his book; there is Oedipa’s world where she is not on drugs yet her life is filled with paranoia and chaos as if she were under the influence of drugs, and there is the world Oedipa lives in, which is marred with drug-use that only she has the ability to see because she is not taking part in the craze. She says, “there is me, there are the others. You know, with the LSD, we’re finding, the distinction begins to vanish. Egos lose their sharp edges. But I never took the drug, I chose to remain in relative paranoia, where at least I know who I am and who the others are.” Odipa is able to distinguish herself in her world, which is the only stability she has in her life. I think Pynchon focuses a lot on drug use to reveal the historical context of the book. For example during the 1950s and 60s drugs were being studied in the government. The CIA and the Army tried to use LSD as mind control but once this went public there was much opposition. I think Pynchon’s book reflects a lot with the time period it was written in.

Dr. Hitler Hilarius

The scene starting on pg. 108 really got me, it was pretty funny but at the same time I get this feeling that the subtext is just going straight over my head - like Oedipa, at first she thinks the gunshot is "an instect whirring loudly past her ear" (108). When I read this scene twice over, I found that it was almost as if Hilarius was trying to bring Oedipa to a point of complete clarification. Indeed, she went to Hilarius' office to have confirmation that "she was some kind of a nut and needed a rest, and there there was no Trystero." (107) I particularly want to focus on a few lines that Hilarius says before the police arrive.

But instead she gets pulled into this crazy hostage situation where it becomes clear that she is, by our definitions, more sane then her shrink - (also, interesting that Pynchon used the more colloquial word) - as he is in this hallucination of World War II. The references that Hilarius makes, such as Speer (who was originally an architect for Hitler, but moved through the ranks and started to debate how exactly Germany should 'colonize', it was his view on the economies that could've brought the Nazi Regime to power in all of Europe, but the other view [which was that the territories conquered should be drained of their resources in human labor, industry, etc] won out and helped lead to the disintegration of the Nazis), definitely place his hallucination. Then when Oedipa goes in to help him as Helga Blamm makes instant coffee outside, she is very cool and casual about it.

I saw the entire experience as something that Oedipa could've used to gain knowledge, but instead it's used as a publicity stunt (when Mucho meets her outside and gets her opinion on the radio). The one section where Hilarius tries to defend the entire goose chase that Oedipa has been on seems very clear and not the voice or mind of someone going through a hallucination.

" ' Cherish it!' cried Hilarius, fiercely. 'What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by its little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.' " (113).

It is then that the police, who seem most cowardly of all, appear to bring the situation under control. What Hilarius says seems to be a commentary on the state of American society, with the mass production and communication, taking away the responsibility of those involved to create personal connections. The entire novel concerned with a type of communication - letters - it's just interesting to look at communication now and compare it. We have the internet, which allows for us to communicate without any emotional responsibility at all - so in a way, with the lack of face to face communication, we "begin to cease to be" because human interaction is needed to develop.

There's so much in these few lines - like every few lines of Pynchon's novel. But today the line "don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you" is very powerful. There seems to be a solution to every tiny emotional complex problem that comes up in society today and the solution always seems to be a prescription slip. The fantasy that Oedipa thought she was living, it brought her out of the comfort zone of tupperware parties and the suburbia of California, and that's what is important now. While people today may not be entirely content with their lives, but they're not brave enough to pursue something like Oedipa did, to move entirely out of what they know and use the smallest leads to go deeper into something that half the time they don't even know if it exists.

Just wondering what other people thought on this - this sort of prediction Pynchon has in Hilarius' lines.

Tangled Web!

As I was reading this book, I realized that it would be very easy to really fall into it and become taken in by all the references, connections and weird coincidences, especially where they connect with the real world. It's filled with so many layers that it's hard to sort through them all. This seems to be exactly what happens to Oedipa as she goes on in her research of the Tristero: she becomes obsessed with the symbol she can't escape and the coincidences that keep happening, to the point that she begins to question her own sanity. There is one passage toward the end that seems to sum it all up:

"Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would be either a transcendent meaning, or only the earth. In the songs Miles, Dean, Serge and Leonard sang was either a fraction of the truth's numinous beauty (as Mucho now believed) or only a power spectrum ... The bones of the GI's at the bottom of Lake Inverarity were there either for a reason that mattered to the world, or for skin divers and cigarette smokers ... Another mode of meaning behind the obvious, or none."

This could apply to more than just streets, songs, and GI bones. Oedipa wonders, was there really any Tristero organization? Was Pierce leaving her an elaborate prank of some sort? Is it all in her head? Just as the reader can wonder, is there some sort of underlying message Pynchon is giving us in code? Or is the whole book just a tangled webs of people, places, and images that have no real connection? I think what happens to Oedipa is the same as what would happen to a reader who tried to answer that question: No matter how much you searched, you still would not find a definitive answer. (Unfortunately for her, along the way she loses many of the people she had come to know, as well as her own sense of reality or sanity.) What I love about this book is the way it IS what it tries to describe--that is, a tangled-up web of things that seem connected and significant but may not be. If anyone does do a bucketload of research and finds out there really is an underlying (encoded?) message to this book, that would be awesome and I would love to know what it is. I don't think it would be possible to find one, though, because that seems to be the whole point. The book really is a question that is never answered, partly because it ends before Oedipa can find the mysterious bidder. (And if she does find him, would it lead to more mystery?) The question is, "Is there another mode of meaning behind the obvious, or none?"

Oedipa Cont.

"things then did not delay in turning curious". This is the first line of the turning point of the novel. Chapter 3 begins similarily as strange as the beginning of the novel. While it opens up in Oedipa and Metzger's hotel room, it sonn travels (through Oedipa's mind) back to memories of her ex Pierce and more objects which he may have left for her to sort in his will ( namely a stamp collection). The character of Oedipa fascinates me. This is a woman who crones for her husband Mucho in the beginning of the tale and yet only three chapters in she is already having an affair with a man whom she has known less than 24 hours. On top of that, her mind is constantly traveling between her past and present relationships with Pierce, Mucho, and Metzger. I find it hard to tell who it is that matters the most to her as all three seem to have a significant affect on her and on her ideals of the others. On top of that, Oedipa claims that she thinks that Mucho already knows about her affair and yet decides not to mention it to him on the chance that it will cause Mucho to start having affairs with teenage girls at his station...yet while this bothers her, other than this thought she seems to completely abandon any sense of guilt over her own affair as well as any thoughts of her husband when she is with Metzger. Who is this woman who seems to be intrinsically tied and defined by the men she is with? Do the various men serve to fill her own insecurities or in the case of Oedipa is she beyond that? After all she seems to confident enough to say to herself ( upon meeting metzger) that even in a sweater and jeans she knew she looked good. Oedipa seems to defy much of what I know of my fellow female....

Oedipa

This story seems strange right from the beginning. As the previous post mentioned the fact that our main characters name means "More Oedipus" is distrubing as to what the future holds for her. Will we have a reverse of relationships and have a daughter murder a mother and begin an affair with the father? In addition, will Oedipa be as spectactularly rememberable as her name infers? Oedipa already seems like the strangest of characters, even on the first page how she describes herself as trying to "feel as drunk as possible" is already indicative that she either a: has disturbing issues which will lead her into alcoholism or b. that she is simply immature in mind. However the fact that she does have an intense imagination does leave me to think that this will without a doubt prove to be a thoroughly interesting novel. One point in particular that is peculiar is the name of her husband "Mucho Maas" meaning "much more" in spanish....typically this is not a name that one who understands spanish would give to their children as "mucho" and "mas" are many times interexchangeable which leaves me to believe that perhaps her husband plays either a less than useful character in the novel...or in his very actions and language he is simply "too much".

I had much of the same reaction as Brendan did. Everything in the book seems something that we cannot relate to, because all of it is the oddest things that could happen all one after another for Oedipa. Just her name alone rings the famous bell of Oedipus, and her last name, Maas, is Spanish for 'more'. Oedipus alone is enough, but 'more' of the female version of Oedipus? It all seems a bit weird to me, just that alone. Then when Brendan commented on the strip tease, combined with far too much liquor and the odd thought process of Oedipa, it was sort of hilarious, but in a morbid, sinking way. How she puts on all her clothes and just the image that Pynchon gives is amusing, but somehow completely off. The strip tease propagated by pop culture today does not have nearly so many layers, and she probably looks bulky and far from pretty. Then the continuing scene makes it all the worse, I don't know whether I felt embarrassed for Oedipa or just disgusted by the image of of her in all the clothing then having the accident with the hairspray can which goes completely out of control, as seems a theme in this book. Everything that is about to happen to Oedipa seems something so out of control and out of the ordinary that it becomes hard to draw the line between the reality we know, the reality she knows, and what she considers mysterious or out of the normal every-day activity. It just seems that the world she is in is one of chaos and every decision she makes cannot be seen as good or bad because it simply leads to something more uncharacteristic of the world we know. But that may not be uncharacteristic of the world she knows.

Like Brendan, I'm completely mystified by the beginning of this novel and I feel that it will only become much more so.

More references...

It is amazing how many historical, religious and pop culture references, both obvious and hidden in the text, Pynchon fit into the first two chapters. When all of these references are brought together they form a sort of second story that resides just beneath the main story. In the first chapter there are numerous connections to German history scattered everywhere. Mazatlan experienced a rush of German immigrants in the mid 1800s, Bartok, the composer, was forced into exile by the Nazis, Gestapo officers were the secret police for the Nazis and Die Brucke (or “the bridge”) was a group of young German artists who had a major impact on modern art by painting violent images with emotional tension. They were also brought down by the Nazis. The name Metzger means “butcher” in German and Wendell’s last name, Maas, although more likely a play on the Spanish word, “mas” meaning “more”, also means “web” or “network” in German.
Several of these references could be ways to voice Pynchon’s opinion on various political events that were taking place in the 60s or had taken place before. Of the three references to people who were exiled two were exiled by the Nazis (Bartok and Die Brucke). Kubitschek, one of the lawyers names, might be Juscelino Kubitschek who was the democratically elected President of Brazil and was forced into exile by the CIA because they anticipated his cooperation with Communists. The fact that the CIA is mentioned alongside the Nazis as exiling people might be a clue as to how Pynchon felt about the U.S. government at that time. Jay Gould was an American Financier who is considered one of the most immoral people of the past century, and since his portrait was hanging above Pierce’s wall this shows what type of person he was.
Also, in chapter 2 the Greek myth of Narcissus (the town she goes to is San Narciso) plays a huge role in the background of the story and what is happening to Oedipa. Echo was a nymph who fell in love with Narcissus, a man of great beauty and even greater conceit. He ignores Echo and eventually dies and turn into a flower in front of his own reflection. This can easily be compared to the situation between Oedipa and Metzger, and there are several references to the myth with the hotel name and the pool.

Crying of Lot 49...WOW

What a wierd begining to a book!!! If I am reading this correctly, and there is a good chance that is not the case, then a woman named Oedipa recieves a letter from a dead ex-boyfriend in the very begining of chapter 1. This is akward because why would a dead ex-boyfriend send her a letter, or a will if that is what it is, about a confussing real-estate issue that backfired and Pierce, her ex-boyfriend, lost $2 million. This makes the reader not only question what is going on, but what kind of relationship did Pierce and Oedipa have if he is in her will. Then later in the chapter a doctor calls at 3 am and wants Oedipa to get involved with some kind of drug trial or experimentation. This is also very strange, why would the doctor call her at 3 am, and what is the connection with drugs? Next, she goes and visits her lawyer and he wants her to run away with him. What is wrong with all of these people. I do not know if the author is trying to make a statement that all the proffesions that most people view as highly successful are actually really messed up as the Doctor calls at 3 am about drugs and the lawyer wants her to run away with her. Oedipa seems very strange to me and I cannot relate to her yet. She has a wierd thought process in my opinion, and is always day-dreaming and having these images and I just don't understand what her deal is. I also noticed that the radio station that Oedipa's husband works at is KCUF which is the F-word spelt backwards, I only know this because I used this spelling in 5th grade with my friends. I would assume this was on purpose.

The next chapter is also wierd as Oedipa goes to San Narisco with a car rental to see the law office where Pierce used to work. Then she meets up with a lawyer at the firm, Metzger who she ends up playing a striptesse game and having sex with later. What I do not understand is why would he bring a bottle of Tequila to meet with a married woman to go over her dead ex-boyfriends real-estate case. This is very strange! The whole sex scene I can see because you see that all the time in movies and books where the woman goes to a hotel room and ends up cheating on her boyfriend or husband or whatever in some act of passion. However, I still dont understand why a lawyer would bring a bottle of Tequila to go over her dead ex-boyfriends case, its very wierd. Also, what is the deal with Miles? He's a rocker in some kind of hippie band or something who just randomly meets her at the Hotel and goes to her room in the middle of Oedipa's striptesse game. What is with that?
Overall this seems to me to be a very wierd book so far.

Repitition in The Crying of Lot 49

In these first 30 pages Pynchon is creating a sense of repetition and in doing so creates a sharper image of his characters' world. A world where this reiteration of imagery creates a surrealist reality. For example green is shown twice as a color associated with both a metaphoric and literal eye. "the greenish dead eye of the T.V tube" (1) and "Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and cried. No one had noticed; she wore dark green bubble shades" (11) here we see once more that opaque surface, now infused with the image of a dead surface that something hides behind. Pynchon uses the repetition of driving and highways, an important theme on the west coast where driving is an essential mode of transport. Already one sees this theme emerging (13-15) where driving acts as a force driving Oedipa forward into unfamiliar territory and at the same time creating familiarity through the highway system; a system used repetitively not only in this novel but in many other novels set in California. It is most strikingly similar to Didion's "Play It as It Lays" where the main character spends hours driving just to reflect.

Pop-culture referennces

I really enjoy this book, not only for the writing style, but also for the references to popular culture contemporary to the book's publication. Published in 1965, at the height of the Beatles' career, and the so-called "British Invasion," the opening chapters make several references to the Beatles. Oedepia's husband, coming home form his job at the record store, mentions the new single "I want to kiss your feet,' by the band "Sick Dick and the Volkswagons." The title closely mimics "I want to hold your hand" by the Beatles, who also called themselves at one point "Long John and the Silver Beatles." The use of Volkswagon is also a funny ply on "Beatles." Later, Pynchon directly mentions the Beatles as he introduces "Miles," with "a Beatles haircut and a...mohair suit." He is a high school dropout who sings in a band called the "Paranoids" who sing in British accents in order to sell more records.

Mucho!

One thing that I appreciated in the first couple chapters of the book was the description of Oedipa’s husband, “Mucho.” He seems OCD and almost troubled. The description given about his old job at the used car lot is interesting. Pynchon speaks of what emotions and thoughts the random things left in old cars provokes in Mucho. He is unable to let go of the memories of his past and therefore not able to enjoy the present. Panco “could still never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filled in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of somebody else’s life. As if it were the most natural thing. To Mucho it was horrible. Endless, convoluted incest.”

Pynchon... discourse

Throughout Pynchon’s book, information and or lack of information becomes a problem for Oedipa. Even in the beginning of the novel information is not completely clear. For example, Oedipa must execute the will of an ex-lover, which she finds out via a letter. Information continues to be presented yet confusing when Oedipa gets to her motel and the scene quickly becomes a spectacle with a lot of noise going on. There is the television booming, the band; Paranoid blaring, all while Oedipa and Metzger engage in a wild flirtation. So much is going on in this scene that all the noise meshes together as Metzger and Oedipa become “coincided with every light in the place, including the TV tube, suddenly going out, dead, black.” Information in this book is presented in various ways, from the letter to music. After all, the text is frequently interrupted by strange tunes. The one song that perhaps will coincide with the character’s lives is the “serenade” because this song mentions a “lonely cry,” which may somehow reveal meaning as the book unfolds.

At the Fishhouses

I like this poem because it wonderfully describes the life of a fisherman, which includes the monotony and the strenuous work as well as the beautiful side that can be seen when you look closer. Things that would seem disgusting to many people passing by is a source of beauty for the fisherman who work with these very things all day, every day for years on end. “The big fish tubs are completely lined with layers of beautiful herring scales and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered with creamy iridescent coats of mail, with small iridescent flies crawling on them.”

The unrhymed set up and long stanzas fit perfectly with the overall message and subject matter of the poem. According to the poem, knowledge is “utterly free…[and] forever flowing” so summing the message of the poem up into neat stanzas would contradict what Bishop is trying to say. Also, it would not see right to use perfectly rhymed, short stanzas to describe the tough and tiring work of the fishermen being talked about; the narrative-like set up fits much better with the overall tone of the poem.

Although there is no rhyme scheme, there is a repetition of words that further emphasizes the monotony of their jobs. The words “up” and “down” are repeated several times throughout the poem to show that every morning they must bring down the boats and every night they have to bring them back up only to be repeated the next day. Instead of saying outright “each day they have to do the same thing over and over again” she interweaves it into the narrative because the repetition has become such a part of their lives they don’t even notice it’s there anymore.

The Gift Outright

I was not really sure what I thought of this poem because it was difficult to understand. Robert Frost is discussing American nationalism. I thought the last line of the poem where he says that the western united states was "still undstoried, artless, unenhanced, such as she was, such as she would become" sounds negative to me, thus I cannot decide whether Frost thinks negatively of nationalism or not. This poem was read at JFK's inauguration, and Kennedy asked Frost to say "such as she WILL become" instead of would. Obviously this must be a positive poem or Kennedy would not chose for it to be read on his inauguration but it sounds to have a negative tone. I do find the first line of the poem to be very interesting and effective in catching the readers attention. "The land was ours before we were the land's." Land is not usually referred to as a human possession and is usually attributed to being "owned" by God. Frost however says that "she was our land....before we were her people." This may suggest that on American soil they own their own land, property and have their own rights and ideas where as on British soil they were "possessed."
Another strength to this poem is where Frost says that something was holding the English back (I think he is talking about the English) and later they found it was themselves. This is relevant to the Revolutionary War, which he may be hinting at, because the only people stopping the British from accomplishing their independence was themselves or fellow englishmen.
I also like his line, "found salvation in surrender."
I agree with Erin that this poem is confusing and it has a negative tone to it. I do think that there must be something in this poem because it was used for JFK's inauguration.

'The Gift Outright'

When reading this poem (seeing it was written by Robert Frost), I was surprised by how much I did not like it. Frost speaks here in abstract, almost legal-sounding terms ("Possessing what we still were unpossessed by / Possessed by what we now no more possessed...") that confuse me more than excite some emotion. All Frost seems to point out is that legally, they do not belong to the country in which they live although their living there makes it theirs. The part from "Something..." to "deeds of war" at first made no sense to me, and only after several readings did I guess that he meant giving themselves to the land somehow made them belong to it, and I still don't quite get it. The last three lines stand out the most to me visually, but I can't like them either because they don't seem true: "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" doesn't describe the cultures that existed in the west before the colonials "vaguely realized" in that direction. I suppose Frost speaking from the perspective of a newly-independent American would not see it this way and would write accordingly, but that line still bugs me. "Such as she was, such as she would become." Does this mean that the country would become, as it was, artless and unenhanced?
Does anyone have any more helpful insights on this poem?

Meru

Of all the poems that we've read this year, I liked this one the most.  I think because to me it really hit on what humanity is and does.  "man's life is thought,/And he, despite his terror, cannot cease/ Ravening through century after century."  I think what Yeats says, in a much more eloquent way, is that despite the fact that humanity is pretty aware of the damage it does onto itself, "Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!" it continues along its destructive path.  Of course he could just be mentioning history but I'd like to think that what he is saying one of two things: 1) we have yet to learn from the mistakes made in the past that caused the "Ravening, raging, and uprooting" or 2) we have yet to appreciate the past.  Either way, the last few lines of the poem bring in the image of a forgotten destination.  Bringing in Mount Meru gives the poem a religious aspect and so the snow that covers the mountains and naked bodies through night and day shows that the final destination of humanity has been forgotten.  Maybe I'm completely off here, but thats what I thought.

W.B. Yeats' "Meru"

This poem seems to represent an exploration of anarchist theory. Of course, this is not the wanton violence or destruction, nor the disguised dictatorships, which seem to come to mind when one considers the nature of "anarchy." Rather, it is a more "natural" and poetic meditation on anarchy. To paraphrase the American historian Howard Zinn, those things that we fear most of anarchy (namely, violence, death, destruction, upheaval, etc.) have ben brought about not by any "anarchist" group, but rather by the imperial nation states of the modern world. Poets and artists alike have long noticed that the so-called "order" that is protected so dearly by civilization is merely a guise by which certain functions of human nature (greed, violence) may be furthered by the subjugation of others. Thus, Yeats laments the notion of civilization "...brought /Under a rule, under the semblance of peace..." This civilization has failed in its promises of peace, of its destruction of suffering. Humanity, still unable to escape a life, "Where but to think is to be full of sorrow," raves and rages through the centuries, never surrendering the ideal of immortality or peace. Meanwhile, the pursuit of that ideal further extends the reach of the so-called "civilization, and thus furthers the suffering and alienation of modern humanity. Yeats goes on to ponder the existence of hermits. Setting them upon Meru, the "center of the world," Yeats places them closer to the elemental, the "desolation of reality," into which both man and civilization inevitably plunge. They are living in the present with its constant necessities, and are not focused on the "monuments" of peace that will pass "before dawn." However, Yeats does not seem to praise these "hermits." they instead seem beyond praise, they simply are. Any monument of glory or praise to their lives will pass, as will the snow that "beat down upon their naked bodies."

Meru

I thought this poem was speaking of the inherit desire for knowledge that is possessed by man and man kinds yearning to understand everything that is going on around us. Civilization is brought together by its unanimous ignorance in understanding the ways of the universe. Man fears what he may learn by delving into such a question, however he cannot stop himself from frantically looking for the answer everywhere he goes. The desire for knowledge and curiosity out weighs the fear. However just as "day brings round the night," life brings round death. Time will take away everything that humanity has earned and there will be nothing left to even prove that it ever existed in the first place.

last 14 lines in Bishop's poem

The last fourteen lines of Bishop’s poem describe the salty ocean that is a “transmutation of fire.” Bishop equates “knowledge” with this acidic like water. Bishop explains “what we imagine knowledge to be” through opposites. For example, she describes knowledge and the ocean as both “dark” and clear.” I thought these were rather opposite words to be listed in the same line together. I think the author does this because just as the ocean is not stagnant, knowledge is forever “moving” and “utterly free” to change. Our perception of truths is constantly in flux. Also, knowledge can be “bitter” and “burn” just as the salt from the ocean stings the skin. The last line of the poem couples nature and knowledge through “our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown” because obviously water flows but knowledge flows too through generations and perhaps the “flowing” refers to blood flow and the idea that knowledge grows and moves through human beings. The tense of flow starts as the present tense; “flowing” because living and carrying knowledge is present but knowledge is also “flown” because in a “historical” sense knowledge has been previously attained; therefore, Bishop uses first present tense, then past tense to reveal knowledge as existing through time and society.

Night, Death, Mississippi

I found this poem incredibly scary.  I thought the the first part of the poem seemed like it was the voice of a white person aware that a lynching is taking place.  Hayden uses phrase such as "Screech-owl?/ Or one of them?" to identify to the reader that the speaker does not identify with whatever is making the noise he hears.  The section continue to tell how the listeners stay as if entertained by what they hear, and that could they, they would be there to witness it.  Along with the clue that this is  a KKK lynching "White robes like moonlight/ In the sweetgum dark," we are also given an incredibly gruesome depiction of what happened and the reward, a bottle of beer, for the boy who participated.  The second section is told from the point of view of the boy who participated in the lynch.  He is much more descriptive as a speaker because he was actually in the action or the lynch.  I think it is really creepy how this poem shows how accepted and even encouraged lynching was as a practice. The only kind of redeeming feature of the poem are the lines in italics which seem to know how immoral lynching is.

Heaney

To me the most striking parts of this poem are the ones in which obedience is spoken of. Heaney forcefully recalls both self loathing an self pity in speaker's acquiescence to the military order and protocol, " little emptier, a little spent/as always by that quiver in the self, /subjugated, yes, and obedient." This point is again powerfully produced in the ending of the poem where one might expect that writing would be a source of encouragement and freedom. Instead the reader only knows " Anonymous submission. " During his experience "behind a waterfall" the speaker not only lost his power but his individuality.

Night, Death, Mississippi

I was a little shocked after reading this poem to see that it was written in the point of view of a former member of the ku Klux clan, as I was expecting from the title to read a heartbreaking poem about a victim of lynching. This gave the poem a chilling and haunting feel, whereas if it were written in the point of view of the victim it would have been heartbreaking but would have lacked the new edge that this unique angle provides. I liked how Hayden played with the lighting of the poem in the first few stanzas to make the contrast between light and dark even more apparent. The old man “turns out the kitchen lamp” and goes into the “windowless night.” And according to the old man, the white robes are “like moonlight in the sweetgum dark” indicating that they are the shining light in the otherwise complete darkness.

Incident & Night, Death, Mississippi

Both Incident by Countee Cullen and Night, Death, Mississippi by Robert Hayden are poems written about African-Americans in the United States that experienced racism. Incident is a strong poem about an 8-year old child who was in Baltimore from May through December and all he could remember from his time there was an "incident" where a "Baltimorean" called him a "Nigger." I thought the word "keep" was a great word choice for Cullen to use because if he had said "I saw a Baltimorean looking straight at me" would mean that there was a person looking at him and that is all. But when he says, " I saw a Baltimorean keep looking straight at me" implies that the man was staring at him intently. This evokes an emotion of disgust or confussion or maybe some combination of the two, and after you find out what he say's to this young, innocent 8 year old child, you find out that he was probably staring at him with a look of disgust.



If that poem is not sad enough, the next one, Night, Death, Mississippi is even worse. This poem is about a man telling a boy about a black man being hung, assumably by the Klu Klux Klan. The first part of the poem (I) describes the scene of the hanging, but the 2nd part (II) begins with a terribly graphic sentence, "Then we beat them, he said, beat them till our arms was tired and the big old chains messy and red." That shows the true hate these people had for the African Americans. the poet also includes that the men felt it was better than beating a bear because a bear does not know why the hunter would want him dead, where as the black person would know. The saddest part in this poem is when a mother says to the children who would have been watching this event take place, "go fetch paw some water now so's he can wash that blood off him." That shows that at the time, this was accepted in Mississippi and that there was no remorse from anyone including the wives and children. The last line, which is italisized like 3 other lines in the poem which I do not understand why they are in italics, but it says, "O night betrayed by darkness not its own," and I am not sure what that means but I think it means that the African Americans may have been American, as night is darkness, however, the whites that were also Americans were not the same. Therefore, the blacks were betrayed by someone that was not themselves, meaning the whites. They make references to Jesus in this so I guess you could also say that Jesus was killed by people who were not his own because he was divine.

The Asians Dying

This poem spoke deeply to me. Although I am unsure of which war it was that is being spoken of, it reminded me of the Cambodian Genocide run by Pol Pot with the description of "rain falls into the open eyes of the dead", I have studied this Genocide and much of the photography from that era is extremely reminiscent of this particular line. Bodies of victims lay everywhere and so many villages were completely destroyed by the Pol Pot's regime. This poem captures the endless destruction brought on by war perfectly. It highlights the true pain that is felt by such massacre and the eternal effect which it has: "Pain the horizon/Remains/Overhead the seasons rock/ They are paper bells/Calling to nothing living". Events such as this are never forgotten and it takes years before rebuilding of a normal life can even begin. Despite each new day the pain still remains and with it comes the reminder that the world is completely altered and is a much darker and horrific place than once before. Two other lines which really stood out to me were "the dead go away like bruises/The blood vanishes into the poisoned farmland", I found this lines to be profound because they reflect the aftermath of war...the living must find their loved ones and their dead countrymen and bury them..a slow process quite like the disappearing of a bruise, and a dull pain emits after accepting the death of so many. The stolen lives of the victims have left their permanent mark on the land...their spilt blood has truly cursed and "poisoned" what was once prosperous country.

Heany's Poem

This poem has a frustrated and disappointed tone. The title of the poem, "From the Frontier of Writing" suggests that the speaker arrived at the frontier of writing and left unsatisfied with the procedure he was subject to. I believe he is speaking of the editing process and the criticism that comes with being a writer. The "tightness" in the first line refers to the writer’s confinement to the conventional way of writing and to the expectations of the editors and critics. Moving or driving in a car represents writing and rewriting while the checkpoints met along the way represent editors and critics. The process is painful and referred to as "pure interrogation." The writer is "a little emptier, a little spent" after the first round of criticism. However, he fears the critics and is subdued by them; he feels "that quiver in the self,/ subjugated, yes, and obedient." He does not even bother resisting because he knows that the critics and editors are the ones with the power represented by the soldiers with the guns. At the second check point, the soldiers are "repeating/ data about [him]." The word “data” is very impersonal and dehumanizes the writer. Everybody is waiting for him to mess up so they can jump in and mark him as a failure. The writer finally emerges "from behind the waterfall" where everything is obscured and blurry. He has been criticized and his work has been edited and now all is finished. The entire editing process is now only a fading memory as the soldiers are "receding/ like tree shadows into the polished windscreen."

From the Frontier of Writing

When I first read this poem I was caught by the immediate casual tone, with the first line containing the word "nilness" and "round", both words that are slightly different than their original root, making it feel like it is a real man behind the wheel of the car, with a certain dialect and background.

I also like how he puts the speaker of the poem onto the reader, starting in the second stanza with "towards your window, you catch sight of more...". But stepping back from the concept of the poem, there is a certain sadness that exists - with the military being side-by-side by ordinary every day people. Having them coexisting shouldn't happen, it's like it should only happen in a war zone. This sadness came through in certain words, like "cradled". The instant you hear that word, you think of cradling a baby and but that innocent image is immediately taken away when the next word is spoken: "guns". But the sadness is taken away by the relief of getting through the roadblock. The relief that leaves you with the feeling of being "a little emptier, a little spnet/ as always by the quiver in the self,/ subjugated, yes, and obedient."

Hayden's poem

I like Hayden’s poem a lot because it is very different from the other poems we have been reading. After all, the meaning of the poem is conveyed through dialogue and point of view. The speaker of the poem shifts to make the poem feel like a conversation. For example, the first line “A quavering cry. Screech owl?” reveals a change in perspective. “A quavering cry” sounds like the narrator of the poem speaking but with the “screech owl?” with the question mark, makes me ask who is talking? Now I am pulled further into the scene because as a reader I am experiencing different perspective of this night in Mississippi. This shift in speaker continues throughout the poem and is apparent through “Time was. A cry? A cry all right” The first part again sounds like the narrator but “A cry” “A cry all right” sets the tone for either an inner dialogue where the person reaffirms their first observation that there is indeed a cry or perhaps a third person is in the scene that answers the question of whether the strange sound is a “cry” and not the presupposed “screech owl.” I think there are at least two people in the scene as Hayden says, “ beat them till our arms was tired.” The “our” suggests that there is more than one person partaking in the killing of a black man. The short line format of the poem adds to the idea that there is a dialogue going on. Also, the terse line breaks convey the sense that the slaughter of the black man is not uncommon. The staccato feeling of the words and sudden line breaks go along with the tone of the poem as the murders have no feeling or emotion towards their actions.

Rhyme Scheme in Lycidas

After the first read of Milton's poem, after I was bombarded with images and references that I slowly cleared up, I was caught by the rhyme scheme of the work. The differences between the last two stanzas alone are quite major. At first, there seems to a pattern two the second to last stanza, beginning with "Weep no more" - it's a typical ABAB, but then it veers off from there.

A/ B/ A/ B/ B/ A/ C/ C/ D/ E/ D/ E/ G/ F/ G /H/ I/ A/ A/ J/ K

While I found that the repetition of certain end rhymes, like the two 'A's at the end of the stanza sort of pull the stanza together, at the same time it made it even more difficult to process. But I feel that this is a bard's song, and when one listens to a song you don't sit there and pick out and write down the end rhymes, but you listen to the story and the imagery.

The last stanza was more easily identified.

A/ B/ A/ B/ A/ B/ C/ C

When I read aloud the last two stanzas, focusing on the end rhymes (probably a bit too much), I found that the bard-like quality of the poem ended with the second to last stanza. The last one almost forces the reader back into the lilt that it's best to stay away from. Conceptually, the interpretation of the last stanza allows for hope, something absent in a story of a tragic drowning. "At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:/ Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new." The three words in the last line: 'tomorrow', 'fresh' and 'new', can only imply a brighter future, one brighter than the sad past.

I also really enjoyed the images in the second to last stanza. Starting from line 168 specifically, there is a feeling of hidden strength in the lines and rhythm that Milton creates. Each line becomes progressively more powerful. "...yet anon repairs", then "...and with new-spangled ore", then "Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:" and it continues with the image of Lycidas "mounted high", perhaps next to Apollo on his chariot. It ends with the hope that Lycidas is now among other talented like he, and even though he is lost to mortal mankind, he has become immortal through his afterlife. It reminds me of the theme from Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium; the theme of the conflict of the immortality of the sou and the mortality of the human flesh.

I thought this poem was interesting because the author seems to have strong beliefs, but there is a distinct difference between what he thinks and what he does. He could have demeaned her history but comparing it to his much longer history, one that was in place long before hers, but he does not “because she smiled so much and seemed delighted that I thought to bring her an orange juice back from the food car.” This reasoning is also in direct contrast to his next statement where he says, “I respect elders of every color,” because clearly he does not respect her in the way he describes her as a naïve and uninformed woman. He spends most of the poem wanting to tell her off, but in the end he can only muster to make “plans for what I would do and say the next time/somebody from the enemy thought I was one of them.”