" He ( the poet) is responsible for humanity, even for the animals, he must see to it that his invention can be smelt, felt, heard."
( Arthur Rimbaud)
From the queen of erotica to a poetic pilgrim, the critical nexus on Kamala Das?s poetry has oscillated between opposite poles. These varied critical stances reflect that the genius of the poet refuses to be strait-jacketed into a uniform notion. In this paper, I will attempt to reveal the social issues that imbue the oeuvre of her poetry.
Kamala Das in her much discussed autobiography, My Story , pointed out: ? A poet?s raw material is not stone or clay, it is her personality.?1 In direct contradiction to Eliot?s theory of poetic creation, Mrs. Das asserts that her poetry is subjective and through it she voices forth her strains and stresses. This, however, does not imply a selfish preoccupation with the self but a melioristic vision that is shocked and disgusted at the plight of fellow mortals. Her sensitive soul is deeply affected by the maladies that lie deeply ingrained in the social matrix.
In the poem Afterwards -- no intertextuality with Hardy?s poem -- written when the poet was in her teens, she questions the notions of scientific progress that has ushered the nuclear holocaust:
? Son of my womb,
Ugly ...
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Works cited
1. Kamala Das-- My Story, DC Books, Kottayam, Aug. 2004.
2. Kamala Das-- Summer in Calcutta, DC Books, Kottayam, Nov.2004.
3. Kamala Das-- The Descendants, Writers? Workshop, Calcutta, 1991.
4. Kamala Das-- The Descendants, Writers? Workshop, Calcutta, 1991.
5. Kamala Das-- Collected Poems, Vol. I, Navkerala Printers, Trivandrum, 1984.
6. Al Harmony Vol.6, July-Sept,2005.
7. Anthony Perera-- ?Love India, love Sri Lanka?, Sunday Observer, April 29, 1984.
8. Kamala Das-- The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, Orient Longman, 1973.
9. Kamala Das-- Only the Soul Knows How to Sing, DC Books, Kottayam, 1999.
10.Kamala Das-- Only the Soul Knows How to Sing, DC Books, Kottayam, 1999.
11. Presented to the author by the poet as a manuscript.
In this paper, I plan to explore and gain some insight on Audre Lorde’s personal background and what motivated her to compose a number of empowering and highly respected literary works such as “Poetry is Not a Luxury”. In “Poetry is Not a Luxury”, Lorde not only gives voice to people especially women who are underrepresented, but also strongly encourages one to step out of their comfort zone and utilize writing or poetry to express and free oneself of repressed emotions. I am greatly interested in broadening my knowledge and understanding of the themes that are most prominent in Lorde’s works such as feminism, sexism and racism. It is my hope that after knowing more about her that I would also be inspired to translate my thoughts and feelings
Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, entitled " The Poet", takes the reader into a new awareness concerning an artistic writer. This essay created new insight about a writer's handicraft. Emerson shows us how a poet uses his gift to connect a non-artist of words to feelings that he is unable to express. A poet uses his God-given ingredient, the soul, to describe the things that engulf our lives. We, that do not have this talent, are given this connection by the writings in "The Poet".
Peoples’ personal life experiences usually affect the topic of their work. John Keats was a famous poet who grew up in an idyllic life until tragedy continuously stroked until his death at twenty-five years old. At eight years old, his father died in a tragic riding accident. Six years later, his mother died of tuberculosis (TB). In the midst of his troubles, his teacher strongly encouraged his reading and literacy ambitions. Living next to an insane asylum, Keats eventually started to develop physical and emotional problems. Diagnosed with TB, Keats helplessly watched his beloved brother die from the final stages of the same disease. Furthermore, he was unable to marry his fiancée, Fanny Brawne. Drawing from his individual experiences, Keats wrote very vividly about the pains and suffering he was going through. He expressed his unfulfillment as a writer, his love and struggles, the fleetingness of life and happiness, and his inner conflicts. Jack Stillinger writes, “It is this combined experience of suffering, death, and love all at once, against a background of serious conversation, reading, and thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to excellence in his poetry” (qtd. in Everett). All of Keats’s life experiences combined to make works of arts that could only be inspired by individual human experiences. John Keats’s background directly affects the topic of his works in order to realistically articulate his feelings in poetic form.
The question is: What do you think the grandmother meant when she said to the Misfit, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” Why do you think the Misfit killed her when she said that? Since the question is two parts, I’ll answer it in two parts.
Sylvia Plath may be one of the most remarkable and idolized modern poets of the twentieth century. Sylvia Plath had an emotional life, and a troublesome past with her father's death, insecurities because of self-doubt, a tragic break up with her husband and severe depression, leading to her suicide in 1963. These tragic events in Plath’s life played a vast part in her career as a poet and novelist, by inspiring her to create her melancholy and notorious masterpieces.
Sylvia Plath was a gifted writer, poet and verbal artist whose personal anguish and torment visibly manifested itself in her work. Much of her angst stems from her warped relationship with her father. Other factors that influenced her works were her strained views of human sexuality, her sado-masochistic tendencies, self-hatred and her traditional upbringing. She was labeled as a confessional poet and biographical and historical material is absolutely necessary to understand her work.
Nature and civilization have always shared a strong bond and; as seen throughout history, when human interaction challenges this bond a tension between Mother Nature and humankind arises. One job of the poet is to reveal this tension through his or her poetry in an attempt to quell the quarreling. Percy Shelley was one such poet that viewed society as being fractured from nature and throughout his poetry one can find examples of this as well as of the benefits from society becoming synchronized with the world. Timothy Morton’s “Within You Without You”; a section within The Cambridge Companion to Shelley, attempts to summarize Shelley’s argument in his poetry that mankind and Mother Nature are in a state of disagreement and need to reconcile to be harmonious. Although Morton accurately analyses the majority of Shelly’s works, which leads to theories that can apply universally in his poetry, some of the statements Morton presents challenge what the poet wrote.
Poetry is the wind for a trapped and wounded soul. A great example of a wounded soul is, Sylvia Plath. She was an immaculate poet, who expressed her personal troubles through writing. As Plath’s life smouldered into a heap of dust at the age of 30, her poetry grew and bloomed. In the years before her death, her most troubled period, Plath penned three of her most well-known poems, “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips”—all three illustrating the horrors of despair with strong, expressive literary devices. Plath, who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30, has been hailed ubiquitously as one of the most acclaimed and preeminent poets of the 21st century. Plath’s poetry was influenced by tragic events in her life and her prolonged battle against her deep depression and obsession with death. Plath’s personal issues made her the definition of a confessional poet. In the poems, “Daddy”, “Tulips”, and “Lady Lazarus”, Plath confesses her emotional and nervous breakdowns during her endless depression.
Poetry is a way of expressing ones thoughts, morals, feelings and ideas through the use of minimum words. Some peoples only escape is through their poetry and that is where Emily Dickenson poems come into analysis. Many authors like Emily Dickenson use their poetry to express everything from love to hate in which they feel. Emily Dickenson’s wrote three poems How Happy is The Little Stone, I Like a Look of Agony, and I Measure Every Grief I Meet which will be analyze today. Throughout her poetry especially in these three poems Emily Dickenson used many different elements of poetry to express her thoughts. The two elements of poetry that will be mention in this essay are imagery, theme, and symbolism.
Robert Frost is considered by the casual reader to be a poet of nature like that of a Wordsworth. In a sense, his poetry is about nature, yet with strong underlying tones of the drama of man in nature. Frost himself stated, “I guess I’m not a nature poet,” “ I have only written two without a human being in them (138).” Marion Montgomery’s critical essay plays with the epitaph that Frost proposes for himself in The Lesson for Today: “I have a lovers quarrel with the world.” Montgomery says, that the lovers quarrel is Frost’s poetic subject, and states, “throughout his poetry there is evidence of this view of mans’ existence in the natural world (138). The essay examines how Frost’s attitude toward nature is one with armed and amicable truce and mutual respect interwoven with boundaries of the two principles, individual man and the forces of the world. But the boundaries are insisted upon. The critical essay examines how Frost’s direct addresses of nature are often how man is essentially different from objects and features of nature. Montgomery insists, “…his trees and animals, though he speaks to them, do no take on grave countenances (140).” The jest of Montgomery’s ideal is when Frost speaks directly to or directly of natural objects or creatures, “that ...
“In Tradition and the Individual Talent”, T.S. Eliot affirms that the greatest writers are those who are conscious of the writers who came before, as if they write with a sense of continuity. T.S Eliot addresses literary tradition as well as poetic tradition, and states that it is important to focus on “significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet” (18). In this sense, the importance of tradition in poetry relies on the fact that a poet must be aware of the achievements of his predecessors, for, as we shall see in the case of Stevens and Ashbery, “the emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless...
Sylvia Plath was American short-story writer, poet and novelist that was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and died on February 11, 1963. Sylvia Plath is best known for, her books of poems, “The Colossus and Other Poems Collection” and the “Ariel Collection” of Poems.Plath’s poetry was known for its rhyme, alliteration and disturbing and violent imagery. Plath’s poetry is considered part of the Confessional movement, which became very popular in the United States during the 1950s through the 1960s. It is considered a type of poetry about “of the personal”. Confessional poems are more associated with the subject matter of sexuality, mental illness and suicide.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.
Through her dark and intense poetry, Sylvia Plath left an eternal mark on the literary community. Her personal struggles with depression, insecurities, and suicidal thoughts influenced her poetry and literary works. As a respected twentieth century writer, Sylvia Plath incorporated various literary techniques to intensify her writing. Her use of personification, metaphors, and allusions in her poems “Ariel,” “Lady Lazarus,” and “Edge”, exemplifies her talent as a poet and the influence her own troubled life had on her poetry.
In my own perspective I view poetry as one 's way of expressing how they feel or how they perceive things that had happened to them, or what they have seen or heard about. I have found that my perspective of poetry doesn 't divagate too much in comparison to the perspective of others, when a woman named Kasopay speaks her thoughts of poetry “I think poetry is the language of the heart. Poetry is very manifold and with it, it is possible to write down every kind of mood and feeling. The most poems are timeless and have a deep message. With the different variations of interpretations get everyone an own access to the poem. Poems are often drawn of the life and this worldly wisdom makes them important for other.” I agree with her in that we both