Nietzsche on Spoken Word:
To Nietzsche, there is no such thing as the truth. It is a human construct made of subjective terms. Our entire language, our way of communicating between life, does not exist outside of our humanity; nature cares not for truth or lies. To Nietzsche, metaphors are as close to the truth that man can reach because every language-based concept is simply our association between a symbolic representation of our experience and the physical thing. To him, concepts are metaphors that do not correspond to reality. We use metaphors and other literary devices to convey our feelings when words fail us. An example would be saying “she was drowning in a sea of grief,” as she is not literally drowning, but she is stricken with grief. Spoken word
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Poets speak not in “truth” but in literary devices because they heighten emotions and are understood by a vast majority. When explaining a situation to someone who has never experienced it, a simile or metaphor is the only way to convey how you felt at the time. Instead of struggling to find words to convey the love and adoration you felt, compare your love for him to the lightness of the summer breeze, and how it lifts your soul. The truth is simply an illusion that has been used so long that it seems to no longer be one. Nietzsche once said “Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer coins”. Man is so enamored with the construct of truth that he will cling to it to hold up the illusions that truth is real. Spoken poets understand the fragility of truth and the delicacy they must handle it with. Writers acknowledge that our language cannot fully support itself, and needs others to build onto the foundation to built. Human minds are powerful, but this is not always enough, metaphors are as close to the
When Elie Wiesel gave his millennium speech on April 12, 1999, he could not be aware of the future validity of both his words and warnings. Throughout the use of rhetorical questions, personal anecdotes, and historical evidence, Elie Wiesel challenges his audience, both present and future, to avoid falling prey to indifference.
Martin Luther King Jr once said“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that”. This shows us that light exhibits love, however can be destroyed by the darkness. In the book Honest Truth, a 12 year old, Mark exhibits that love is unbreakable when built a strong bond with someone. “Dogs die, but the dogs live as well. Right up until they die they live.They protect their families . And love us. Make our lives brighter. And they will not waste time thinking about tomorrow”-(Gemeinhart 140) . He shows the bond not breaking despite experiencing various consequences. In the poem, The Gardener XVII, the poet shows that light is inevitable, but darkness can lurk around.For example, in Line 4 the poet mentions”Your words are too dark I cannot understand them”(Tagore 4). This shows that dark cannot be incomprehensible, but light can show us that there are many paths of life. Despite these two passages being written years apart, they still use proper language to show us the differences between light and dark. The poet and author use of literary devices such as similes alongside vivid imagery as well as irony to ensure that the poem and the book shows the proper emphasis of the theme.
Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, delivered The Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, in Oslo on December 10, 1986. He started his speech off by reciting the following prayer: "Barukh atah Adonai …shehekhyanu vekiymanu vehigianu lazman hazeh"—"Blessed be Thou…for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this day." Then, after his speech, the people thanked him for everything he had done to help humankind make peace. With a profound sense of humility, he accepted this honor.
Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities; it is solely used to evoke emotive feelings in the reader in which to convey a message or story. This form of literature has a long history dating back thousands of years and is considered a literacy art form as it uses forms and conventions to evoke differentiating interpretations of words, though the use of poetic devices. Devices such as assonance, figurative language, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve a musical and memorable aspect to the poem. Poems are usually written based on the past experiences of the poet and are greatly influenced by the writer’s morals values and beliefs. Poetry regularly demonstrates and emphasises on the
Poetry is often created by an author’s need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner. Hundreds of poets have impacted society throughout history through phenomenal poetry that, even with dark tones can be emotionally moving.
For example, in “We Are Not Responsible,” a poem written by Harryette Mullen, the narrator is an employee on a plane, who is speaking over a loudspeaker. This is all a metaphor and the poem is really a social commentary addressing the problems with racial stereotypes. Mullen could have wrote a paragraph in prose, but instead chose to write a more ambiguous poem, requiring the reader to think about the subject. That being said, in my opinion, great poems use concise and understandable language to best communicate their message. Poetry is often synonymous with unnecessary and outdated language, but this does not have to be the case. The poem “Weep,” written by George Moses Horton, gives a comprehensible description of the Civil War and its effects. Good poetry uses metaphor and complex language when a subject can not be described in a universally
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
Nietzsche's style of writing was a deliberate stylistic choice meant to hide the meaning of his work and philosophy from those who would not be able to understand it, and through there misunderstanding would abuse it. This writing style was also meant to help support and give meaning to Nietzsche's arguments on the nature of language and how language is, at its root a metaphor describing an object that is disconnected from us. Nietzsche's work broke down language to its metaphorical roots and explored the nature of how our language is disconnected from the objective reality around us. Nietzsche uses the metaphorical roots of our language to show that words and language our fundamentally disconnected because of the subjective nature of language. Nietzsche shows these metaphorical roots by showing how simple words and phrases that we use in our everyday life are really disconnected or at least removed by the barrier of language. Language is a serious of metaphor's all describing how an object subjectively appears to the individual. No language can describe what it is like to "be" that object, nor properly describe what it is that makes the object what it is. All language can do is provide a vehicle through which man can communicate what he is subjectively experiencing and relate it via a metaphor to another individual who will only get a idea of what is being described rather than an actual concrete description.
Nietzsche and Truth Throughout the course Nietzsche’s lifespan, his attitude towards truth and religion has shifted various times. He first left his Christian beliefs and changed his major from theology to Philology in order to search for truth. He did not want to have faith without knowing what he was having faith in beforehand. By his thirties Nietzsche started to interpret that people were making up myths and stories in order to keep themselves in denial from the truth of life, thus giving a different meaning.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due to our illusion of truth. Therefore, Nietzsche concludes that all we can claim to know are interpretations of truth and not truth itself.
It is imperative for us, especially all poets and writers of prose that use language to express figurative meaning, to critique this theory because it only decreases creativity and denies that artist say anything beyond the literal with their words and metaphors. Davidson's ideas violently affront to the purpose of our craft. If we become completely dependent upon objective, literal meaning and learn to reject subjective, figurative meaning in words, we will consequently become less human and more detached from the world, from our natural surroundings, from our fellow human beings, and from the spontaneous, creative voices deep in our guts that often speak of truths literal expression cannot capture.
Poetry in essence is a written artistic form of expression. It allows for writers to reveal their ideas and feelings in a very unique way. Wallace Stevens once said, “Poetry is a destructive force”. In other words poetry has power, I believe this is a very true statement. Another poet by the name of William Carlos Williams once said, “Poetry is a small (or large) machine made out of words.” I also believe this statement to be true, each aspect of a poem is important to its function as a whole, and if something is missing or changed it can no longer work in the same way. The poet Derek Walcott I believe knew these “rules of poetry” and modeled them in his own writing. For example we can see use of these statements in his poem “A City’s Death By Fire”.
People always say that they want a twin because of the curiosity of what it would be like to always have someone there and the idea of being able to play tricks on other people. Few people don’t have the experience of having a close bond with another individual. So it is nice to be a twin the thought of having your own personal buddy and someone you can share your clothes with. I get asked this question a lot what is it like being a twin? I cannot answer that question appropriately because I don’t know what it is like not to have a twin.
Poetry unlike fiction is solely based on the author’s personal take on a certain subject. The tone, diction, syntax, and mood of a poem are all determined by the author of the poem. For some readers, to interpret a poem or explain the plot can be a difficult task. Other forms of literature such, as fiction is much easier to understand and discuss.
From the very beginning of human species, literature existed side by side. Human life, in the form of human passions, feelings, loves, sufferings, and human history existed in the literatures. Human legends started with the very stone age, recorded in the stone scripts. It was a human need to communicate the past to the future generations. Poetry, as an art form, has been for many centuries praised, contemplated and has continued to affect man. Man has used poetry to express love and grief, birth and death, innocence and guilt, heaven and hell in a more effective way. In order to achieve such a way of expression the poet does not have any other material at his disposal except language. However in poetry, this language itself, turns out to be the goal of the poet rather than only an instrument for communication. Her/his way of expressing ideas and emotions summarises the poets craftsmanship and creativity. What the poet does is that he/she illustrates and exemplifies how language can be used to achieve the most effective way of expression. Poems deal with universal themes such as love and hate, birth and death, innocence and guilt, heaven and hell, which are familiar to all readers. For this reason, believing in the importance of literature and the contribution of poetry to language teaching and learning, we have decided to use poetry to act as a means to enrich the language awareness of ELT majors.