All of these texts express the complexity of truth through the differing representations of Hughes and Plath’s turbulent relationship. Hughes’ ‘Birthday Letters’ is a series of poems addressed to Plath that convey his subjective truth of the nature of their relationship and subsequent marriage. The anthology is written with hindsight and knowledge, and includes questioning; as Hughes is unsure of his memories. ‘Fulbright Scholars’ in particular portrays a tone of uncertainty through the use of rhetorical questions, authorial answers, and the repetition of ‘or’. ‘Where was it, in the Strand?’, ‘Or arrived.
‘Five Bells’ continues to engage readers through its poetic treatment of mortality and mourning. Does this resonate with your own interpretation? Kenneth Slessor was the poet of time, of “the cold fact of time”, as he said in describing the genesis of his wondrous poem “Five Bells”. This poem is strongly engaging through its poetic treatment of mourning, as it is notably encompasses obvious elegy elements, directed towards his dear artistic friend Joe Lynch, but as Slessor mentioned, and from what can be observed, the poem is as much about the compression of memory in time, in relation to symbolic and literal mortality. The poem offers not answers, but questions towards the meaning of existence, and is toned with a sense of failure, loss and desolation, as it seems that neither Lynch's art, nor the art of the poem, can defy death.
How are life lessons given in poetry? Many different ideas are explored in poetry as love, war, life and death and even advice. Advice is given through many poems and sometimes implicitly. Some famous poems are the best examples of this theme. As a very good example, I chose “if” by Rudyard Kipling, a less known poem called “Poem at Thirty-Nine” by Alice Walker and my last poem is “Once upon a time” by Gabriel Okara.
However, the version in which human experience is perceived is shaped by memories - defined as an individual’s ability to recall past sensations, experiences and knowledge - which has the ability to illuminate and emphasise certain truths of the past. As separate entities, history and memory often present their flaws, so, it is the intersection of history and memory that allow a responder to gain an empathetic vision of the past which acknowledges an individual’s personal experience of the events. These concepts can be explored to further a student’s knowledge with supporting texts that reiterate the central ideas. One such text focusing on the above concepts is the nonfiction text The Fiftieth Gate where composer, Mark Baker, conveys the continual tension between the subjectivity of his’ parent’s memories and the objectivity of the historians’ reliance on archival evidence. Baker further conveys that the reconciling of such aspects can enlighten a reliable vision of the past.
The significance of place 4. The nature of creativity and the artist The understanding of shared ideas across different contexts is enhanced by the reader’s study of poetry and film. Thomas Hardy’s poem, “The Voice” and Woody Allen’s contemporary film, Midnight in Paris, both effectively convey a range of different emotions that arise from the subject’s longing for the past and the importance of romantic relationships. In “The Voice”, the subject is a victim of his feelings of longing for the past and his romantic relationship. Similarly, Woody Allen’s film, Midnight in Paris, conveys longing for the past through the character Gil Pender, and demonstrating his love for the 1920s.
Lewis then goes on to explain the protagonist’s friend (A guess however not 100% proved due to the limited detailed text provided), Ransom, furthering the development of the setting. It should be highlighted that his choice of diction in regards to the narrators friends name, Ransom, leaves one with a bucketful of interpretations. The name could symbolise who this person may be, someone in which the narrator must return a favour too and may bear consequences if such is not completed. It could be a friend’s nickname or last name from a childhood or college. The list of possibilities is endless, yet with this specific extract, and the emphasised theme or madness, it leave one to think that this “friend” may in fact not be a friend.
Judgment and Creativity This semester, notably the second half of it, has brought about a lot of thinking about judgment and how it correlates with creativity. There were examples from a number of readings (Cat's Eye, My Name is Asher Lev, Great Stories, and Snake and Other Poems) that specifically caught my attention as a reader and captured how culture's judgment affects personal creativity among certain characters. Being judged not only allows us to identify creativity, but also can steer us away from it. The relationship between the two ideas shapes the stories that contain them, and is really what these texts are trying to reveal to their readers. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood contains judgment that comes from many different characters, switching back and forth from Elaine, the main character, to others that are around her and influence her.
“A good poem may lead to sadness, joyful or simply wandering, but it always leads us to think more deeply about life” Discuss this statement with reference to at least two Sassoon’s poems. A good poem may lead to sadness, joyful or simply wandering, but it always leads us to think more deeply about life. A War poem is a poem that is written on the subject of war. It is applied especially to those in military service. The nature of war poem is to show how horrible and disgusting war is.
Lit 5-125 Workshop in Critical Writing: Poetry 20 December 2012 The Inseparability of the Past and Identity The idea of the past has always been a matter of concern to people. Ha Jin’s poem “The Past” touches upon this concern by trying to trace the significance that the past holds for each individual and how it is supposed to be linked to one’s present and being. Through some kind of internal monologue, the speaker is making an effort to deal with his own past, to understand it and accept it. Although he is uncertain of how to do this in the beginning, he gradually takes it for granted and decides to make the best out of it, transforming it into a renewed self-image based on his needs. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker expresses his initial thoughts and feelings about his past.
Death is a theme that has be revisited by many authors and poets time and again in countless ways with several interpretations. Among these are the ideas that death is the absolute conflict that results in self discovery or the natural cycle of life ("Twentieth Century Literature"). Death has been viewed as a way of explaining life itself and the concept of living to the fullest. As we explore further, one might even go so far as to say that death as a theme in literature can be viewed as a source of the creation of literature ("Twentieth Century Literature"). The constant repetition of