Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Spring Break Assignment
1. This quote by Adrienne Rich essentially praises poetry for the freedom and hope that come with both its creation and its enjoyment. She says, "The imagination's roads open before us," and, "This on-going future, written-off over and over, is still within view. All its paths are being rediscovered and reinvented." These lines reflect the author's view that poetry allows such an expression of real emotions that it allows both the author and the reader to experience a thorough sense of freedom.
Adrienne Rich's quote relates to our class discussions of social conventions and social institutions in this way. Rich says, "Poetry has the capacity to remind us of something we are forbidden to see. A forgotten future..." The use of the word "forbidden" refers to society-imposed social conventions, which do not allow deviations from the standard path or from what is normal and expected. Poetry, through its "capacity to remind us of something we are forbidden to see," serves as a way to experience freedom from this.
Rich also addresses the limiting nature of social institutions when discussing what's "pushing" the poetry: "Is it the constriction of literalism, fundamentalism, professionalism - a stunted language? Or is it the great muscle of metaphor, drawing strength from resemblance in difference?" The "stunted language" Adrienne Rich is referring to is taught to everyone throughout years of school, and in the second sentence she implies that what gives poetry its power of freedom is not its structured nature, but the ability of words to symbolize other, deeper meanings.
2. Raymond Carver's short story "The Beginners" connected the most with me of all the stories we have read in this course thus far. This story explores relationships and their underlying feelings - feelings of shame and loneliness, among others. This portrayal and exploration of feelings we keep hidden felt very real to me and everyone can relate to this concept.
This, I think, is an example of an "unspeakable where, perhaps, the nucleus of the living relation between the poem and the world resides." The unspeakable, in this case, refers to true feelings which are kept suppressed even from one's partner due to guilt about these feelings. The nucleus represents the core or center of something, and the end of this quote suggests that this nucleus represents the relation a poem has to society and the people reading it. Therefore, in the case of "The Beginners," the "unspeakable" act of being so guilty about one's feelings that they are withheld them from those closest to you, is what ties the poem to the world and makes it real and relatable. When a poem has the ability to recreate human emotions accurately, it has a real connection with the world, which "The Beginners" does through its look behind the scenes into the dark side of relationships.
3. Both authors, Henry David Thoreau and T. S. Eliot, express an unhappiness with life in general, or at least the lives they feel confined to, in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and in the excerpts from "Walden." Their approaches to describing this frustration and unhappiness, however, vary greatly. The main distinction between the outlooks of Henry David Thoreau and T. S. Eliot is that Thoreau expresses a belief that he can change that which he is unhappy with, while Eliot seems to have given up.
When Thoreau first discusses his reasons for living in the woods, he says he "wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear..." He goes on to discuss ways in which he is unhappy with the way people live their lives: "Still we live meanly, like ants... Our life is frittered away by detail... We are determined to be starved before we are hungry." These excerpts show that Thoreau has experienced people living life in ways that he considers frivolous and wasteful, but they also show that he has an idea of how he thinks life should be lived, and that he believes he can achieve this lifestyle if he sets his mind to it.
T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, takes a very cynical approach to expressing his unhappiness with the life he knows. The instances in nature he chooses to address are, generally, dismal: "Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels." This is a great contrast from Thoreau's highly descriptive and appreciative depictions of nature. Eliot describes many frustrations with life as it is. He addresses the constant judgment by others and the sameness of each day and each life, among other things. For example, he says, "For I have known them all already, known them all - Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." This demonstrates his frustration with the repetitiveness of the life he lives, and a few lines at the end indicate that he does not expect this to improve: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me...We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till human voices wake up, and we drown." Eliot's outlook on life, that we will drown in the sameness of the lives we live, is the greatest distinction between the outlook that Thoreau possesses.
4. The pin represents rules, regulations, society's expectations, and anything else that makes a person feel that he/she has to conform. The first part of the quote, "Eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin," suggests that the speaker is "sprawling on a pin" as a direct result of being "formulated," or forced to abide by a set of rules. The pin, then, is the pressure felt to adhere to a specified set of standards set in place by society.
The biggest thing that has me pinned and wriggling on the wall presently is my upcoming graduation from St. John's in May of this year, a mere two months away. Following graduation from college, the "norm" presented by society is to find a job and a place to live, and to have some sort of idea about what one's future will hold. I have none of these things. The only thing my future currently holds is doubt. Not having a plan is not up to par with society's standard for success and happiness, which is on my mind all the time. I don't personally want to feel like I need to rush into anything just because I graduated from college, but pressure and expectations from my family and society cause me to worry that I am not on the "right" track.
Adrienne Rich's quote relates to our class discussions of social conventions and social institutions in this way. Rich says, "Poetry has the capacity to remind us of something we are forbidden to see. A forgotten future..." The use of the word "forbidden" refers to society-imposed social conventions, which do not allow deviations from the standard path or from what is normal and expected. Poetry, through its "capacity to remind us of something we are forbidden to see," serves as a way to experience freedom from this.
Rich also addresses the limiting nature of social institutions when discussing what's "pushing" the poetry: "Is it the constriction of literalism, fundamentalism, professionalism - a stunted language? Or is it the great muscle of metaphor, drawing strength from resemblance in difference?" The "stunted language" Adrienne Rich is referring to is taught to everyone throughout years of school, and in the second sentence she implies that what gives poetry its power of freedom is not its structured nature, but the ability of words to symbolize other, deeper meanings.
2. Raymond Carver's short story "The Beginners" connected the most with me of all the stories we have read in this course thus far. This story explores relationships and their underlying feelings - feelings of shame and loneliness, among others. This portrayal and exploration of feelings we keep hidden felt very real to me and everyone can relate to this concept.
This, I think, is an example of an "unspeakable where, perhaps, the nucleus of the living relation between the poem and the world resides." The unspeakable, in this case, refers to true feelings which are kept suppressed even from one's partner due to guilt about these feelings. The nucleus represents the core or center of something, and the end of this quote suggests that this nucleus represents the relation a poem has to society and the people reading it. Therefore, in the case of "The Beginners," the "unspeakable" act of being so guilty about one's feelings that they are withheld them from those closest to you, is what ties the poem to the world and makes it real and relatable. When a poem has the ability to recreate human emotions accurately, it has a real connection with the world, which "The Beginners" does through its look behind the scenes into the dark side of relationships.
3. Both authors, Henry David Thoreau and T. S. Eliot, express an unhappiness with life in general, or at least the lives they feel confined to, in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and in the excerpts from "Walden." Their approaches to describing this frustration and unhappiness, however, vary greatly. The main distinction between the outlooks of Henry David Thoreau and T. S. Eliot is that Thoreau expresses a belief that he can change that which he is unhappy with, while Eliot seems to have given up.
When Thoreau first discusses his reasons for living in the woods, he says he "wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear..." He goes on to discuss ways in which he is unhappy with the way people live their lives: "Still we live meanly, like ants... Our life is frittered away by detail... We are determined to be starved before we are hungry." These excerpts show that Thoreau has experienced people living life in ways that he considers frivolous and wasteful, but they also show that he has an idea of how he thinks life should be lived, and that he believes he can achieve this lifestyle if he sets his mind to it.
T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, takes a very cynical approach to expressing his unhappiness with the life he knows. The instances in nature he chooses to address are, generally, dismal: "Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels." This is a great contrast from Thoreau's highly descriptive and appreciative depictions of nature. Eliot describes many frustrations with life as it is. He addresses the constant judgment by others and the sameness of each day and each life, among other things. For example, he says, "For I have known them all already, known them all - Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." This demonstrates his frustration with the repetitiveness of the life he lives, and a few lines at the end indicate that he does not expect this to improve: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me...We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till human voices wake up, and we drown." Eliot's outlook on life, that we will drown in the sameness of the lives we live, is the greatest distinction between the outlook that Thoreau possesses.
4. The pin represents rules, regulations, society's expectations, and anything else that makes a person feel that he/she has to conform. The first part of the quote, "Eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin," suggests that the speaker is "sprawling on a pin" as a direct result of being "formulated," or forced to abide by a set of rules. The pin, then, is the pressure felt to adhere to a specified set of standards set in place by society.
The biggest thing that has me pinned and wriggling on the wall presently is my upcoming graduation from St. John's in May of this year, a mere two months away. Following graduation from college, the "norm" presented by society is to find a job and a place to live, and to have some sort of idea about what one's future will hold. I have none of these things. The only thing my future currently holds is doubt. Not having a plan is not up to par with society's standard for success and happiness, which is on my mind all the time. I don't personally want to feel like I need to rush into anything just because I graduated from college, but pressure and expectations from my family and society cause me to worry that I am not on the "right" track.
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