Abigail Shih 04//16/13 AP Literature and Composition Ms. Schwartz The human body is a very personal entity that has always been perceived differently throughout human history. In every different era, society and religion have constructed unique ideas about how one should relate to the human body and what it means to be a healthy individual. Due to the multiple viewpoints on how we view the mind, body and soul, there are many clashing opinions. Walt Whitman and John Keats are two very esteemed poets whose views on the human condition are polar opposites. Keats in his poem “Ode to a Nightingale” uses precise diction to illustrate his morbid view on the body, seeing it as a decaying shell while in Whitman celebrates the body in “I Sing the Body Electric” through the use of repetition.
Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” both share significance about journeys. When read on their own both authors showed symbolic factors as to their stories. Authors chose to use symbolism in their writings to catch the reader’s attention to help them better understand the purpose behind the author’s story. These two stories are both different in their own way; one story speaks of death while Robert Frost’s poem speaks of a decision that will change someone’s life. These two stores are both different as one is a poem of course, and the other is a short story.
Archibald MacLeish “Calypso's island” I. Introduction The collaboration of modernist poetry and Greek mythology is the bedrock of my choice for the assignment. Provided the fact that myths themselves possess the ambiguity of fiction, religion, fairytale and history, one can only be prompt to dive in the endless pool of factual and fictional, and the reflection of the morals and customs of that time and the modernist approach to the myth offered by Archibald MacLeish. The themes and motifs that run through the poem as a parallel to the original myth of Odysseus (or Ulysses) are ones that spark public controversy and are problems of the present day. Patriarch society and the view of the woman as an irresistible allure that threatens to lead men astray and corrupt them.
Many readers have different interpretations while reading It Calls You Back, written by Luis Rodriguez; it is often said the narrative has a weak structure, detracting from the work, due to Rodriguez’s word choice and writing structure. Luis Rodriguez often chooses to use the dialogue from the different cultures he has been a part of throughout his lifetime, helping to not only define who he is as person, but as a writer as well. Many critics of the narrative however, fail to pay close attention to the internal characteristics of the text itself, and often look for external evidence to explain the work, thus being an example of new criticism. One of the main differences between Rodriguez’s memoir versus others is the lack of education Rodriguez was able to receive. Although he did attend Cal State La, he was never able to graduate, due to being imprisoned.
Gender and culture are not safe in this world either, shifting, shaping and contorting our perception of the story, Atwood guides us down a labyrinthine hall of mirrors. Somewhere along this hall of mirrors we find Atwood using literature to try and resurrect voices history has withheld, disregarding the cultural myths imposed on them. The idea of rehashing old tales to spark a new meaning reverberates in Atwood’s belief that Myths have and can be used as the foundation for new narratives and perspectives that “find their meanings within their own historical moments”1. With her engagement with Homer (“The Odyssey”) and Robert Graves ("the Greek Myths") from a feminist, revisionist perspective, Atwood generates almost an entirely new myth. The critic Sharon R. Wilson has remarked that Atwood uses this mythology to replay old stories, form new perspectives so that "they can shimmer with new meaning"2.
Although the archaic scriptures of the Holy Bible are highly controversial and continue to be interpreted from countless perspectives, they are often found to be inspirations for several authors and poets. Emily Dickinson, an acclaimed poet of the 1800s, is one of these writers who have found incentive in passages of the Bible. In her poem, “Eden is that Old Fashioned House”, Dickinson limns the neoteric paradise, which we fail to find, in comparison to Adam and Eve’s experience in God’s Garden. In the classic poem “Eden is that Old Fashioned House” by Emily Dickinson, the ostensible ennui of our everyday life is metaphorically represented as a hidden Eden. God’s Garden of Eden is the legendary paradise, unsullied by corruption or maliciousness and in this poem Dickinson defines modern day Eden as what “we dwell in every day”.
In comparison to the temporal realm, this is composed of true beauty of imperfections and flaws. Objects from the temporal realm cannot be transported to the eternal realm. The debate between the temporal and eternal realms has been going on for centuries. This controversy can be seen in books, poems and other forms of media. The quest for the ideal in poetry must pass through the temporal realm, where real life is praised for its flaws and beauty; this can be seen in Alfred Tennyson’s "The Lady of Shallot", Maxine Tyne's "The woman I am in my dreams" and Alice Major’s “Puce Fairy Book”.
Therefore, this analysis bases itself upon a theory of fiction and, more specifically, of short-stories. First, it is necessary to briefly expose what has been written on fiction. Common sense immediately associates it with “unreality” or “lack of truth”, but this does not fulfill the entire concept: the fictional element that interests literary criticism has more to do with imagination than to philosophical truth itself. All the later literary theory developed from Aristotle and on has defined narrative, poetry, and drama as the broader categories of literature. Narrative interests us as it includes short-stories, such as Updike’s work analyzed herein.
There are many definitions of myth that repeat similar general aspects that can be summarized as follows, “Myths are symbolic tales of the distant past (often primordial times) that concern cosmogony and cosmology (the origin and nature of the universe), may be connected to belief systems or rituals, and may serve to direct social action and values.” Fritz Graf defines a myth as a “traditional tale” with two aspects that distinguishes it from a fairy tale. A myth has to be flexible and adaptable to many literary genres but limited because it must be culturally relevant. Religion also has many definitions but they are also generally similar to each other. One definition is “Religion is a specific system of beliefs about a deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, and a philosophy of life.” Religion can also be defined as a set of beliefs or practices that are related to things that are sacred or even the ways the world is viewed. It is assumed that myth and religion are two completely different things.
The movement arose from the international sense of depression, and the realization of many that there was nothing concrete or reliable anymore. It dealt with the way human personality has changed, as Virginia Woolf once defined it, embraced chaos and absurdity as the way to move beyond the simplistic. Since gender has always been the topic discussed in literature and philosophy, it has earned some attention in the time of modernism as well. In the past, women were considered inferior to men in their judgment and abilities. Male philosophers and social theorists identified woman “with disorder, savagery, chaos, unreason, and the excluded ‘other’”.