John Ashbery's April Galleons
John Ashbery, the great American modernist poet, achieved a fiscally small but artistically tremendous success with his book April Galleons, published in 1987; he won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry with his 1975 effort Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, and won nearly unanimous acclaim from poets both domestic and abroad; this volume continues in the same stylistic vein as Self-Portrait, and furthers the deep and fragmented exploration of the themes which have fascinated him, as evidenced through his verse. This volume was both a stylistic departure and a thematic continuance from his earlier books, including the notable 1956's Some Trees and the subsequent The Tennis Court Oath. John Ashbery, in all these works and all the works following them (including his latest offering, Your Name Here) addresses several major topics, most notably the meaning of America and the myth of the American Dream, as well as the subjective human experience of consciousness, the unusual and fragmented sense of time and identification it produces; his approach is typified by a search for the truth and meaning of things, explored through series of abstract objects set into a fabric which creates a thick emotional density. Although a investigation of every poem in this book would be valuable and enlightening, for brevity's purpose only three will be selected: A Mood of Quiet Beauty, Insane Decisions, and Some Money.
Ashbery's style in A Mood For Quiet Beauty is typified by the French symbolists he so admires and has used for inspiration throughout his career; this is shown by his reliance on unusual and often impenetrable abstract imagery s...
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For a little money and a coat.
The great tree, once grown, passes over.
I said you can catch all kinds of weird activities.
Meanwhile the child disturbs you..
You are never asked back with its dog
And the fishing pole leans against the steps.
Why have all the windows darkened?
The laurel burned its image into the sky like smoke?
All was gold and shiny in the queen's parlor.
In the pigsty outside it was winter however
With one headache after another
Leading to the blasted bush
On which a felt hat was stuck
Closer to the image of you, of how it feels.
The dogs were in time for no luck.
The lobster shouted how it was long ago
No pen mightier than this said the object
As though to ward off a step
To kiss my sweetheart in the narrow alley
Before it was wartime and the cold ended
On that note.
Poetry’s role is evaluated according to what extent it mirrors, shapes and is reshaped by historical events. In the mid-19th century, some critics viewed poetry as “an expression of the poet’s personality, a manifestation of the poet’s intuition and of the social and historical context which shaped him” ( Preminger, Warnke, Hardison 511). Analysis of the historical, social, political and cultural events at a certain time helps the reader fully grasp a given work. The historical approach is necessary in order for given allusions to be situated in their social, political and cultural background. In order to escape intentional fallacy, a poet should relate his work to universal
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The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual. The speaker of this poem realizes that the decision is not just a temporary one and he "doubted if I should ever come back.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Choices are never easy, facing hundreds upon thousands of them in our lifetime, man has to make decisions based upon these choices. Some decisions are clear while others are sometimes not clear and more difficult to make. The poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is a prime example of these choices in life. This poem is a first person narrative that is seen by most people as being told by Frost. The poem opens up with the narrator encountering a point in the woods that has a trail diverge into two separate paths. In the poem Frost presents the idea of man facing the difficult predilection of a moment and a lifetime. I believe this idea in the poem is embodied in the fork in the road, the decision between the two paths, and the decision to select the road not taken.
Mar. 1972: 86-100. pp. 86-100. Major, Clarence. American Poetry Review.
Above all, 'The Road Not Taken'; can truly be interpreted through much symbolism as a clear-sighted representation of two fair choices. The two roads in the poem, although, 'diverging,'; lead in different directions. At the beginning they appear to be somewhat similar, but is apparent that miles away they will grow farther and farther away from each other. Similar to many choices faced in life. It is impossible to foresee the consequences of most major decisions we make and it is often necessary to make these decisions based on a little more than examining which choice 'wanted wear.'; In
The poem entitled “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is perhaps one of the most well-known poems to date. Frost’s poem explores the different paths and choices individuals are presented with throughout their life, which can later influence their lives significantly more than originally anticipated. Specifically, Frost describes a fork in the road at which the narrator must choose between two very different paths with varying outcomes. “The Road Not Taken” emphasizes the importance of taking the less traveled road through Frost’s usage of a wide range of literary devices. “The Road Not Taken” suggests that individuals should fully experience the process of making a choice before reaching a decision as that one single choice may later have
In his poem "The Road Not Taken" Frost's theme is about how the choices one makes affect life. When we come to a fork in the road, a decision needs to be made. Both paths are different and choosing the right one – if there is a right one – will depend on where we have been. Each choice that we make plays out differently in our lives. We can look back and wonder what would have happened if we choose differently. But that is outweighed in what we would have missed. Each choice affects who we are, where we are going, and moreover our lives.