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Transcendentalism poetry
Poetry transcendentalism
Poetry transcendentalism
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Poem Literary Analysis: Theme in Song of the Builders Mary Oliver, a transcendentalist thinker, brilliantly conveys her ideals of individualism to the reader through the story of a single cricket. As she conveys her message, she also inspires the reader. The theme of her poem, Song of the Builders, emphasizes the significance of individualism —all through the use of one cricket. Mary Oliver uses symbolism and juxtaposition to show how everyone’s individuality can contribute to the world. The symbolism is started as a cricket is introduced. Oliver presents a solitary cricket moving the grains on a hillside (5-8). The struggle and progression of the cricket allows her theme to develop. The cricket moves the grains by himself, which supports
the idea of individualism. The cricket cannot change the entire structure of the hill, but the cricket can leave its own unique mark on the hill. This cricket symbolises humanity. It shows that with individualism, humans can leave their own marks behind in the world. The theme continues to develop as Oliver elaborates the symbolism. Oliver then utilizes the cricket’s mindset to symbolise how any individual can contribute to the world: “How great was its energy,/ how humble its effort (10-11). The cricket, modest and passionate, puts great energy into its work. However, it is humble because it knows its limits. There is a limit to the amount of grains a cricket can move. There is also a limit to the amount of things one human can do. It shows how not everyone has the ability to completely change the world, but with effort, everyone has the ability to contribute to the world. As the story progresses to the last stanza, Oliver ties up the loose ends. The story of the cricket ends. Instead, the juxtaposition is made—connecting the story of the cricket into reality: “Let us hope/ it will always be like this, / each of us going on / in our inexplicable ways / building the universe”( Oliver 8-12). The cricket correlates to humanity, and the hillside correlates to the world. The grains the cricket moves contrasts to the way individuals build the world. The juxtaposition Oliver uses demonstrates how humans should develop our individualism and help build the world—just like the cricket. Oliver starts out with symbolism by presenting a cricket moving grains by itself . She then uses juxtaposition to contrast the situation to reality. By doing so, she is able to show her theme. She shows how if a cricket is able to help build a hill, then a human can have the same ability. Everyone can contribute to the world in their own way.
Humankind has been facing and conquering problems, droughts, famines, and wars for instance, since the beginning of its existence. Throughout an individual’s life, obstacles arise and challenges present themselves in an attempt to inhibit the individual from moving forward. In her poem Crossing the Swamp, Mary Oliver utilizes a variety of techniques to expand on this idea, establishing a relationship between the speaker and the swamp as one of determination and realized appreciation.
Many overlook the beauty that is expressed by nature. The images put together in nature influenced Mary Oliver’s “First Snow.” The beauty expressed in “First Snow” shows how there is hidden beauty in nature such as snow. Also how snow, not so simple, is something so stunning and breath taking. The descriptions of Oliver’s visions show that many things are overlooked in nature and shouldn’t be. She elaborates to show that nature sets forth not just snow, but something so much more. Mary Oliver uses many examples and proofs to show the beauty. In “First Snow” Mary Oliver conveys the image of snow to embody the beauty of nature.
Originally published in 1999, Mary Pattillo’s Black Picket Fences explores the circumstances and conventions of the Black middle class, a group that has experienced both scholarly and popular neglect. In the Acknowledgments section of this work, Pattillo details the mentorship she received as a graduate student from William Julius Wilson at the University of Chicago. She recounts that Wilson often encouraged his students to extend, and even challenge his scholarly works, and that this urging provided the impetus for her research on the Black middle class (xiv). The challenge Pattillo (2013) refers to, becomes quite apparent when comparing her work to Wilson’s 1980 piece, The Declining Significance of Race. In this work, Wilson (1980) contends that in the industrial/modern era of the United States, class has surpassed race to be a salient factor of social stratification. He supplements his argument by referencing the progress and achievements of the Black middle class, relative to the “economic stagnation” of the Black underclass (p. 2). Pattillo (2013) offers a
The poetry “Your buildings” was written by Rita Joe who is aboriginal author. She has been describing her feeling about aboriginal people and history. Rita Joe wrote your buildings reflects on the changed landscape of her people, and her homeland area to the most modern building have replaced the natural landscape and destroyed the beauty of her homeland. Now only a memory in her hearts of people. The author tone in to the poetry was sad, hurt and sarcastic by saying “Your Buildings” she was talking to the white man what have you done to her homeland. Also when the author mentioned in her poetry “while skyscrapers hide the heavens, they can fall” Rita joe mean all of those buildings you build high, they hide the beauty of her homeland, and
“Watch your tone young lady” a phrase known all too well to the American culture, whether it be from mom giving her children a lecture or on a television screen being spoken out by an actor. The tone of voice that one uses while speaking plays an extremely significant role in what the spoken words actually mean. Many times one can say one thing and mean another just from placing emphasis on a particular word. With tone of voice plays such a vital role in the meaning of a sentence it becomes clear that poetry, although often times found in books as written work, is meant to be read aloud; this was not all that clear to me until I attended my very first poetry reading. On November 10th Ramapo College welcomed the marvelous poet Mark Doty to its campus. Through Mark Doty’s reading of “House of Beauty” and “Theory of Marriage” it became clear that the use of emphasis and tone are vital characteristics that allows for the poet to challenge poetic traditions and conventions.
He is a janitor at the local school, and lives in the same apartment building as Ana. Each time his phone rings he is instantly reminded of two tragic moments in his life. “My phone doesn’t ring much, which suits me fine. That’s how I got the news about our boy, shot dead like a dog in the street. And the word, last year about my wife’s car wreck. I can’t hear a phone and not jerk inside.” This quote is a big part of the importance of having family. Wendell’s main sign of symbolism is the pitcher. The pitcher represents the life in the garden. Wendell realizes that he can’t change a lot of things in his life, including his lost family, but he can change a patch in the lot. He realizes that it is better to do that than complain about the things he can’t change all day. Leona is another very important character in this book. When she walks past the garden, she tells herself she will plant a patch of goldenrod. Goldenrod is very important to her because it reminds her of her grandmother. She drank a cup of goldenrod tea with a nutmeg floating in it every morning, and declared that she would not need any more medicine. This shows that her main symbol is goldenrod, because Leona is trying to plant it in remembrance of her grandmother. Leona goes to the city hall to try to get the city to remove the trash so more people will be able to plant there, and she
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Dillard refers to the corpses of the moths beneath the spider web in her bathroom for the 16 years she had quit writing as if it was the death of her writing as the moths died to the spider.
Riley, Jeannette E. "Mary Oliver." Twentieth-Century American Nature Poets. Ed. J. Scott Bryson and Roger Thompson. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 342. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
The conceit in line 8, “like an iceberg between the shoulder blades” (line 8), illustrates the briskness death emanates whilst taking the life from the warmth of your body. This ice and fire comparison coaxes the reader to pursue the unwelcoming thought of death as the adverse path to travel by. By no means does Oliver attempt to romanticize the idea of a brief and painless endeavor. Furthermore, the recurrence of cessation illustrated by the “hungry bear in autumn” (2) simile suggests the seasonal regularity death’s toll takes on the living. The presence of frequency characterizes the shift in forbearance to the acceptance of the inevitable. Oliver is caught up in reminiscent thought as she employs worldly imagery to describe life. For example, in lines 15-16 Oliver writes “and I think of each life as a flower, as common / as a field daisy.” This line stands out in the fact that it represents the first occurrence of communal thought. Describing each life as a “flower” in a “field” suggests that life is supposed to be about the people whom you surround yourself with, and less about the solidarity that stems from the notion of darkness. Oliver’s implication of poetry and down-to-earth imagery captures not only the progression of thought, but also her feelings towards the concepts of life and
‘’The woman thing’’ by Audre Lorde reflects more on her life as a woman, this poem relates to the writers work and also has the theme of feminism attached it. The writers role in this poem is to help the women in discovering their womanhood just as the title say’s ‘’the woman thing.’’ The poem is free verse and doesn’t have a rhyme to it and has twenty-five lines.
In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the narrator attempts to understand the relationship between humans and nature and finds herself concluding that they are intertwined due to humans’ underlying need to take away from nature, whether through the act of poetic imagination or through the exploitation and contamination of nature. Bishop’s view of nature changes from one where it is an unknown, mysterious, and fearful presence that is antagonistic, to one that characterizes nature as being resilient when faced against harm and often victimized by people. Mary Oliver’s poem also titled “The Fish” offers a response to Bishop’s idea that people are harming nature, by providing another reason as to why people are harming nature, which is due to how people are unable to view nature as something that exists and goes beyond the purpose of serving human needs and offers a different interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. Oliver believes that nature serves as subsidence for humans, both physically and spiritually. Unlike Bishop who finds peace through understanding her role in nature’s plight and acceptance at the merging between the natural and human worlds, Oliver finds that through the literal act of consuming nature can she obtain a form of empowerment that allows her to become one with nature.
“The House That Built Me” by Miranda Lambert is a song that tells the story of a woman going back to visit her childhood home after experiencing life as an adult. The speaker discusses how she identifies her home with the memories and experiences that have molded her into the person she becomes, but she feels that something is missing from her life. She believes that going back to “the house” will help her recover her true sense of self. When my childhood home was sold, I experienced a deep sense of loss. Like the speaker in the song, I felt that I was missing pieces of myself for many years afterwards. Just as the speaker learns that it is not the tangible house that keeps her memories alive, but herself, I eventually learned that while letting go of the “house” I grew up in was difficult, I would carry the memories and experiences of growing up there within my heart.
Another form of symbolism has to be the narrator's bus ride in New York. He hears a song being sung that he knows about a robin getting tied up and plucked. The narrator compares this to his situation with Dr Bledsoe writing the false recommendation letters, saying the narrator should never be accepted back into school. He feels foolish and notices that he's been bamboozled and tricked.... ...
...clude this as a symbol that gives evidence to Crane using this story as a microcosm since people are able to relate to this in their life, or even as a society.