Critics thought of him and his work as a good poet and an even better writer who made a major difference in the Harlem renaissance. Harold Bloom thought that “Thomas hardy, with his acute sense of life’s ironies, might have admired Sterling Brown’s Rain Which Precedes Robert Penn Warren in reviving Hardy’s Sprit” (5). Blyden Jackson a critic of the time likes Sterling Brown because he is a great poet and how Brown uses dialect with precision. David Littlejohn said that “Brown Attempted to do for the south what Langston Hughes did for the north” (Bloom 19). People thought that Brown’s irony was sharp, his ideas were exciting, and he was not only and protestor of his time but one of the first times.
The literal purpose of the poem is to inspire the reader to be outside and enjoy nature, but the deeper purpose of the poem is to encourage the reader to be more optimistic/or look at the positive, when the speaker states that he is lonely he also mentions natures beauty and clarifies “a poet could not but be gay” because of his experience with nature. The speaker of “I wandered lonely as a cloud” is a lonesome person but has cheerful views; a deeper explanation of the speaker is that he is imaginative or creative because he
“Old Man” clearly explores in paradoxes the problem of identity, as well as a feeling that we are cut off from our past and our future. The presentation of memory in the poem is directly linked to this idea of having a problem with identity. This is not necessarily the plant that is suffering from an identity issue, yet it may even be Edward Thomas who is suffering in “memory.” The first stanza develops a theme of naming. The plant with strange names is remembered fondly, we feel, by one who ‘knows it well’ – the phrase suggests a familiarity and wealth of memory associations, an idea challenged later in the poem. Here, however, the gentle internal rhymes, ‘tree’, ‘rosemary’, ‘thing’, ‘clings’, suggest a conversational, fond reminiscence.
It consists of four cantos written in Spencerian Stanzas, which consists of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by one alexandrine (a twelve syllable iambic line), and rhyme pattern ABABBCBCC. The Byronic hero is the epitome of the Romantic era and the poem introduced the idea of the Byronic hero so it is safe to say that it is quite ‘Romantic’ in character. ‘Romantic’ comes from the term ‘romance’ – a prose or poetic heroic narrative which originally appeared in medieval literature. It legitimised the personal imagination as a critical force which meant that not only could poets write about everything but that ordinary people could criticise literature and poetry and have a voice. Romanticists had some connection with Utopian social thinkers who believed in an ideal ‘fair’ society.
Aristotle once said, “The impulse to form partnership of this kind is present in all men by nature.” Knowledge of one’s identity through knowledge of where one belongs can give meaning to life and bring about happiness, while exclusion can trigger a sense of unworthiness, even inferiority, and alienation as shown through the poetry of Peter Skryznecki and the film ‘Into the Wild’ We chose the poems of Peter Skrzynecki as our prescribed text and there is a greater sense of not belonging and alienation in every poem than belonging and acceptance. It is almost that he wants us to feel sympathy and condolence for him in his poems. Poems such as ‘Migrant Hostel, Ancestors and Feliks Skryznecki’ convey his message of being estranged and isolated from his identity of the polish culture and his uncertain future. To convey these views Skrzynecki uses a variety of techniques, the main ones being: metaphors, similes, personification, rhetorical questions and the use of tone. The poem Migrant hostel (Parkes 1949-1951) carries authencity and themes of difficulties assimilating into a new culture, feelings of uncertainty and insecurity and therefore issues surrounding identity, or the lack OF identity.
Among the list of themes he addresses is that of loneliness, particularly in his poems Alone and The Raven. These poems certainly travel down the road less travelled and examine topics that can only be beautified by poetry. Using an array of poetic techniques, Poe breaks free of the constraints of conventional writing and finds ‘the mystical’ in the world that surrounded him. Oscar Wilde believed that poetry was inspired by the mystical richness of the world in which he existed. Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry certainly lives up to Wilde’s standards by taking his experience with the dance of life and intertwining it into his work which essentially took readers through a journey of the mystical.
Disconnection from the conformity and systemization of society drives some transcendental-like individuals to figurative, and sometimes literal, periphery. This ideology values spirit and intuitiveness above empirical elements; it measures a human’s goodness by personal experiences with the goodness of nature. In the film Into the Wild, the protagonist, Christopher McCandless, probes for true meaning in and of his existence within the works of one of his favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau, who was the central figure of transcendentalism. Chris manifests similar philosophical ideas, like those of Thoreau, and chooses to withdraw from civilization in order to lead a contented life of self-reliance. Sickened by the conservatism, materialistic context, and hypocrisy of humanity, he embarks on a nomadic journey across the country to acquire an honest home, a new identity, and happiness.
The context influences the ideas that are portrayed within a text. John Keats’ context is evident within his 1819 poems ‘Bright Star’ and ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ in their examination of the desire for immortality and the power of love. These concepts reflect the Romantic Movement which emerged in the late 18th century and early 19th century and focused on the belief that nature, independence and love are of great importance in life. The Romantics opposed the focus on rationality and reason of the Neo-classicists and their belief that emotional restraint was necessary and science offered answers to the dilemmas facing humanity. Keats’ poems clearly show the importance he places on idealism, immortality, the power of imagination and love in human experience and existence.
“Discuss the ways in which Yeats presents his ideas about writing and the audience for his poetry in ‘The Fisherman’ ” The Fisherman appears to epitomise Yeats’s ideal audience as his simple purity is shown through his relationship with nature and the description of his unpretentious clothes in the quote ‘to a grey place on hill in grey Connemara clothes’. The repetition and colour imagery of ‘grey’ highlights how Yeats’s ideal audience does not have superficial qualities as grey is not a superficial colour. For Yeats, it is the fisherman’s inner qualities of truth and art that matter and have meaning rather than the superficial values of his audience. The natural imagery of the fisherman on a ‘hill’ highlights his innocence and purity as he is at one with nature and learns from life experiences. This is what Yeats wanted his idealised audience to be like but in reality, Yeats felt that his audience was corrupted, as they did not understand his art that he spent so long working on.
being not defined but open to possibilities). Also, Paz’s concern for the existential meaning of poetry and his belief in the poetic essence of man and history (e.g. in The Bow and the Lyre, 1956) gains coherence when considered alongside of Heidegger’s critique of the aesthetic tradition and his premise that poetic language is the house of Being. Finally, Paz’s ambiguous critique of