Hilda Doolittle

I enjoyed studying Hilda Doolittle after concentrating on male poets over the last several weeks. Doolittle’s poetry is very different from all the other poets we have studied. Most of the poetry we have read has been complex and is left open for various interpretations. Doolittle’s poetry is complex in a different way. For instance, “The Pool” is only four lines, but without knowing the title, we most likely would not understand what she is describing. Her poetry is beautiful and full of imagery. “Sea Rose” is one of her poems that the reader can visualize a rose flying through the wind and landing in the sand. Most of her poetry relates to nature with flowers being a common theme.

“Helen” is another poem that struck my interest because we have discussed other poets that used Helen of Troy in their works. The one line that really caught my interest was “God’s daughter, born of love,” After reading Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan,” I was under the impression that Zeus raped Leda and became pregnant with Helen. Therefore, Helen would not have been born of love. Aside from this, Doolittle describes Helen as a statue. “Still eyes,” “white face,” “white hands,” and “stands” all imply that Greece is staring at a statue of Helen. Greece hates Helen and blames her for starting the Trojan War. Her beauty was destructive and caused many deaths. It almost implies that the only good beauty is the dead beauty.

The Metamorphoses in "The Walls Do Not Fall"

The way I read the text is by focusing primarily on sections 4 and 6. Although each section is significant in its own way, 4 and 6 stand out for me. Section 4 talks about a sea- shell that withstands many of the abuses it undergoes in the ocean, while section 6 is presented from the view point of a worm which stands in contrast to the sea-shell. This is the alleged "metamorphoses" I see in the text. Both are metaphors for the human condition; going from being rigid and strong as a sea-shell, to complete vulnerability in the form of a helpless critter.

Seeing that the poem is placed within the context of WW2, maybe it's a description of the coping mechanism for those who were fortunate enough to escape with their lives. First, the rigidity is a facade of normalcy that people try to build in order to convince themselves and others that they remain unaffected by what has transpired. It is, as Victor Frankl described in his book "Man's Search for Meaning," a way of coping with an ongoing surge of pain by adopting antipathy. The sea-shell expresses its indestructability by saying "Infinite water can not crack me."(Line 112) .Second, when it becomes clear with time that human beings are not build like machines, that person becomes more attached to his/her "soft" side. The worm is "rain-swept (163) and "torn from a stem." It does what it does to survive but at the same time is aware of its finitude: "I know how the Lord God is about to manifest when I..Spin my own shroud." In other words the worm approaches the end of its life and comes face-to-face with its maker.

It's true that it might be a bit of a stretch seeing that there is a disconnect in terms of what the previous section expresses, but that is the only way I manage to make sense of it.

H.D.'s "Helen"

One of my favorite poems that we studied this past week was “Helen.” I know we talked about it pretty in depth in class, but after reading the link that Dr. Johnson had up on Angel, I became really interested in the comparison between H.D.’s Helen and Edgar Allen Poe’s Helen. By looking at the two poems, we can really see the distinct difference between H.D.’s version of Helen and Helen as an object of the male gaze.

Poe’s “To Helen”

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
to his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have broght me home
To glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window niche
How statuelike I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

Though both poems draw on the beauty of Helen, Poe seems to be commenting entirely on her physical appearance, almost romanticizing Helen’s role in history whereas H.D. is commenting on Helen as an object of hatred for “All Greece.” She is showing the reality of how Helen functioned. I feel like Poe’s picture of Helen relies solely on her physical appearance and H.D. is asking us to look closer. She is asking us to see more of Helen than just an object of lust, but as “God’s daughter” (12) and as a women who endured immense hatred against her.

Another thing that I find really interesting is the parallel between a type of statue imagery in both Poe’s poem and H.D.’s. Poe talks about “How statuelike I see thee stand” and in H.D.’s poem she talks about how “Greece reviles/the wan face when she smiles/hating it deeper sill/when it grow wan and white” (6-9). When I first read H.D.’s poem I didn’t see this as a reference to a state but after reading Poe, I can see a parallel. Both are referring to Helen as a statue but that statue functions in different ways.

H.D. and Imagism

After reading H.D., I can say that I don't mind Imagism in general, but I didn't particularly love H.D. To be specific, I mainly just didn't enjoy her war trilogy poems. I thought that the religious imagery was boring and I really struggled to pay attention in class on Wednesday. (Sorry, Dr. Johnson). The illustrations of Mary used in class were a little helpful and interesting, but at that point, my brain had just turned off.

What I did enjoy were the few other imagist poems of H.D.'s that reminded me of romantic poetry. I really like the nature aspect of those poems. "Oread" provided a nice little snapshot of the sea splashing on the rocks. I liked "Mid-Day" too because of the idea of the continuity of nature. At the end of the poem she says "O poplar, you are great/ among the hill-stones, /while I perish on the path/ among the crevices of the rocks." It's like she is saying that although we will come and go, nature will live on. There were other poems by H.D. that I kind of only understood bits and pieces of. For example, in "Garden" I didn't fully get the first part, but the second part I was able to sort of relate to. "O wind, rend open the heat,/ cut apart the heat,/ rend it to tatters" reminded me of growing up in Florida where you pray for a wind to break up the heat that is like a blanket at times.

H. D. Packing a Punch

I have found H.D. to be another poet that I am having a difficult time understanding. Nonetheless, I like how H.D. found a voice of her own through representations of imagery, and I enjoy her shorter works. She really packs a punch into a single stanza of writing; the Imagist movement was launched by her and I admire this. Her poem, "Tribute to the Angels" threw me for a loop, but here is what I have gathered from the poem thus far. . . First, there is a combination of holy women in the poem, H. D. seems to be synthesizing all women goddesses, Eve, and Mary into one combined "femaleness". Like D. H. Lawrence, H. D. seems to be taking characters familiar to us and giving us a different perspective. In the poem, Eve is carrying the Book of Life--this seems to be a redemptive transformation! Eve is "Psyche, the butterfly; Out of the cocoon", so there is a transformation that Eve undergoes, she is free and out of captivity, no longer defined by the sin of the fall. Perhaps H. D. was tyring to echo her own transformations through her poetry, perhaps reflecting what she gained from psychoanalysis, as it is clear she praised Freud.

I found a question H. D. proposed that reads "Do I wish myself, in the deepest conscious or subconscious layers of my being, to be the founder of a new religion?" Well, perhaps she was attempting to do this through her poetry such as "Tribute to the Angels". She does not establish a new religion, but she certainly gives new perspectives through the combination of Greek and Biblical women. Through her artistic journey, H. D. appears to be quite philosophical and spiritual in her own right.

It is difficult for me decide exactly how I feel about imagist poetry. In class we talked about how it is supposed to capture one concrete moment or image, and how it is not supposed to be about any certain concept or emotion. And, on the one hand, I can really appreciate this attempt at simplicity. Some poems are so weighed down with concepts and heavy language that they are difficult to read, but imagist poetry is much simpler than that. However, when I was reading Hilda Doolittle’s imagist poetry, I found that her brief “sketches” left me wanting more. It’s as if I felt a strange mixture of appreciation and dissatisfaction while reading her poetry, leaving me a little bit confused as to how exactly I feel about imagist poetry.

One particular poem where this occurred for me was while reading “Oread.” Being a bit of a nature lover, I really like H.D’s description of the trees and ocean. Perhaps my favorite line is the final one, which reads: “Cover us with your pools of fir.” I really like the imagery here, and can almost smell the sea-salt air mixed with the fragrant pines that Doolittle portrays in this poem. Therefore, in respect to her imagery, I really appreciate this poem. I think it does an excellent job of capturing one concrete moment in time. It’s almost as if we’re given a brief snapshot of time. Yet, for as much as I appreciate this little “snapshot,” I find myself wishing for more. I would like to know more about this landscape Doolittle has created, but the imagist genre does not allow for this. Therefore, I must be satisfied with the disappointingly small description “Oread” gives me.

It is this conflict between really liking what I read but still wanting more that leads to my confusion about imagist poetry. I think imagist poetry is an excellent way in which to poignantly capture a brief moment of time or beauty; yet, the moment is so brief that, if other readers are anything like me, we end up dissatisfied and wishing for more. I guess I just have a love/hate relationship with this type of poetry. I love the simplicity these poems’ briefness provides them, but at the same time I hate their brevity. Confusing? I know. But I guess it’s just something I’ll have to deal with as we read through the rest of H.D.’s poetry.

Lawrence

I'll admit, when I first started reading D.H. Lawrence's poetry I wasn't a fan. It was all over the place - he didn't have a distinct voice it seemed. Though as we discussed him in class, I liked him more. A lot more. His sexual undertones, which I didn't catch at first, is actually quite humorous (though gross at the same time - I.E. the whales and the turtles.)

"The English Are So Nice!" Is my favorite because it's so repetitious, arrogant and mocking - it's hilarious! It sort of reminds me of a Dr. Seuss story in a way. I also liked "Snake." When I first read it I saw it as an attempt to defy authority yet the speaker fails - and then regrets his actions after he threw the log at the snake. But I also see it as point to enjoy all things in life, or give the "bad" and "ugly" the chance to be enjoyable. This is where I think Lawrence's humanity comes through quite clear. "Snake" then in turn relates in these sense to "Butterfly" in that even beautiful things have their downfalls.

I like "The Bride" however I didn't think of it as a incestuous poem until we discussed it in class. I just feel that he had a very close relation with his mother - you can definitely categorize him as being a "mama's boy." I think the Bride idea could stand for the fact his mother is the only one in the world who truly loved him and that he truly loved, and that their bond is forever.

Lawrence

Lawrence is very different from the other poets we have read. His poetry is much easier to understand compared to the others. It was a quite a relief after reading Eliot. Lawrence didn’t write with a specific intention. He wants us to interpret it for ourselves. There are no wrong interpretations. For example, “Snake” can be read several ways. My interpretation is that the narrator was taught to kill poisonous snakes. He doesn’t exactly understand why he is supposed to, but he kills them regardless. One day he sees a snake peacefully drinking water. The snake is not harming anyone, so he is unsure whether to kill the snake. He felt obligated to kill it because of his upbringing. He attempts to kill the snake and regrets it in the end. He felt he had to attack, but he did not have a real reason behind it. Perhaps Lawrence was trying to get the message across that we shouldn’t be attacking other people especially without a justifiable reason.

“The Ship of Death” reminded me of Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium.” They both are about aging. Lawrence wrote this poem close to his death. His attitude about death is very negative. He is angry because he does not understand what is going to happen after he dies. He says that death is empty. It is a long voyage that we have to prepare ourselves for. I don’t think death is something that we can fully prepare for. We know it is going to happen, but there is nothing we can do to make it easier. Everyone has to deal with death, but it is very different when you are the one facing it.

A Cycle of Poetry about the Cycle of Life

When I first started reading Lawrence's poetry I was not impressed. My first thought was, "Oh great, more 'I-love-her-but-can't-have-her-boo-hoo' crap." Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with this kind of poetry, but there's so much of it out there it gets old after a while.

As I continued to read his poetry, however, it got better and I was more impressed. He has some very deep reflections on certain aspects of nature and life, which I find quite interesting. I especially liked "Piano"--I thought it was a very poignant reflection on the fleetingness of life and loss of youth, told from the perspective of someone having a flashback from their childhood.

I also loved "Medlars and Sorb-Apples", "Snake", and "Lui et Elle". Although it's hard to see what exactly he's saying in some of them, it's great how he can make such a beautiful reflection on such simple topics--fruit, a snake, and two tortoises, respectively. Most people see these things simply as objects, but Lawrence uses them to make parallels to real life--for example, seeing a female and male tortoise swimming side-by-side reminds him of human relationships.

"The English are So Nice!" was a good laugh--although it appeared at first to be a sappy tribute to the English, it turned out to be a clever, sly dig at them. I love this kind of satire.

"The Ship of Death" was by far my favorite. It reminded me very much of "Thanatopsis," being a reflection on the fundamental meaning of the cycle of life.

Overall, I saw Lawrence's poetry as a reflection of the cycle of life--his early poetry dealt with unrequited love, a common trouble of youth; his later poetry was more mature and meaningful, and his final poem dealt appropriately with death, the final stage of life.

Encountering the Snake

I want to do a bit of analysis on "Snake" before today's class, so I am turning to a scholarly article titled "D. H. Lawrence's 'Snake': The Edenic Myth Inverted", by David Thomas. Clearly, the encounter with the snake in Lawrence's poem is in contrast to the experience Adam and Eve had with the snake in the Garden of Eden; Lawrence gives us an "inversion" of the myth. Some of the examples of "inversion" in the poem include: no formal announcements of covenant, which normally parallel the Adam and Eve story. There is the "great dark carob tree" but it doesn't represent the "tree of knowledge" because it holds a minor significance in Lawrence's poem. In the poem, the snake consumes water, reversing the typical roles of consumption, suggesting that the snake is the one who suffers from the "fall". Furthermore, the snake is not the deceiver, and he is speaking to a man, not a woman.

As we have mentioned there are "tensions" in Lawrence's poetry, a tension in "Snake" is the idea that the man in the poem sees the snake as "one of the lords of life". With this, there is an effect that the person conversing with the snake has rejected the "life-divine", severing ties with potential redemption and salvation. The snake becomes divine rather than satanic, and the relationship between the snake and man is considered--through the reverse of the Biblical story. Therefore, I think Lawrence is (thus again) establishing tensions and complications often found in his work, through the poem "Snake".

Lawrence's Emotion

In the textbook’s intro to D.H. Lawrence, he is quoted as saying, “Poetry now a days seems to be a sort of plaster-cast craze, scraps sweetly molded in easy Plaster of Paris sentiment. Nobody chips verses earnestly out of the living rock of his own feeling” (321). Critical of more intellectual poets such as Yeats and Eliot, Lawrence sees their work as cheapened by their lack of true emotion. Clearly, Lawrence prefers to write from his own experiences and make emotion one of the driving forces of his poetry. This is especially evident in his poem “The Bride,” where the emotion of the speaker is evident throughout the poem.

The emotion is evident through his imagery, which includes descriptions of the woman’s “uncanny cold” hair, and her “still, winsome sleep.” Additionally, the speaker’s perception of her as her as one who “looks like a young girl,” even though in reality she is very old, demonstrates the speaker’s affection for her. The expression “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” applies in this speaker’s perception; the woman is certainly no longer in her prime, but his affection for her allows him to see “a young maiden […] smooth and fair.”

Yet, for as effective as Lawrence’s imagery is at portraying emotion, I must admit that my biographical knowledge of him makes some of this emotion difficult to accept/comprehend. It is difficult for me that this poem, which beautifully displays the speaker’s emotion at losing someone who presumably was a lover, is written in honor of his mother. If I didn’t know about Lawrence’s relationship with his mother I would probably assume the speaker was supposed to be an older man speaking for his dead wife, but it makes the poem harder to accept when I realize that the speaker is Lawrence bemoaning his mother’s death.

So, Lawrence certainly accomplishes his goal of infusing his poetry with emotion. It is hard to miss the feeling present in “The Bride”; yet, biographical information makes Lawrence’s emotions somewhat harder for readers to swallow. I don’t imagine that many people experience incestuous feelings; therefore, some of Lawrence’s emotions are difficult to comprehend and empathize with. The emotion is certainly there, but at times it’s just a little too much.

A Peculiar Perspective on Nature and Love

The poetry of D. H. Lawrence seems most commonly to have one (or both) of two themes: nature and love. The vast majority of his subject matter pertains to nature or flowers or animals in one way or another, and quite often depicts sex or love among these creatures. It seems that he finds the true poetry of nature to be in the gritty, close-up parts and acts of nature: a kind of intimacy that can't hide the dirt beneath the fingernails.

Besides the au naturel love-making, Lawrence also relates different parts of nature in ways that you wouldn't necessarily expect. For instance, contrast the butterfly eating dirt in "Butterfly" with the snake drinking at the water trough in "The Snake." The butterfly, often a symbol of nature's glory and beauty, is brought low, resting on someone's shoe and even "sip[ping] the dirt" from it, while the snake, who crawls through the dirt, is revered: "Someone was before me at my water-trough, / And I, like a second comer, waiting."

Lawrence seems to bring nature a fullness with these glimpses, rounding out his readers' possibly narrow perspective of it.

Another example is Lawrence's descriptions of nature in "Southern Night." The speaker sees the moon, which apparently is red on this particular night, and calls it "thou red thing," "this red anathema," and "the red Macula." Typically one thinks of the moon to "set the mood" when it comes to love on a romantic night; it is also recognized as a symbol of renewal, even of guidance. However, much like in Picasso's Guernica, this particular light in the night is only an illuminator of horror. The speaker laments his memories, likening them to mosquitoes biting.

Memories, northern memories,
Bitter-stinging white world that bore us
Subsiding into this night.

The moon here guides the speaker not into enlightenment, but defilement: "Maculate / The red Macula."

The Ship of Death

Out of all of Lawrence's poems we had to read so far I find this one probably the most interesting one, and it's not necessarily because of some kind of profound philosophical message it invokes. Rather it's the symbolism with which Lawrence manages to describe the whole process of dying, death, and resurrection. The message isn't subtle at all as one becomes aware straight from the start that it's about dying (a breath of fresh air considering we had to deconstruct and dissect Eliot's writing for more than a week); but the analogy Lawrence gives of the lost ship is very instrumental.

The "ship of death," the way I read it, is--ironically-- a metaphor for life. Over and over the author affirms that it is heading towards "oblivion" (death) and even condemns suicide between lines 20-29 by contrasting "self-murder" or "break of exit" with the "journey(life) one must take into the oblivion. He also keeps stressing that we are falling into darkness and that we are decaying as the ship keeps moving on. The injunction that "we cannot steer" (line 63) the ship implies the inevitability of death.

The part where a resurrection is hinted at (and again, this is my reading) is when one emerges from the darkness he is "lovely" which stands in contrast to the decaying body that was heading towards its doom.

So although the process is pretty straight forward and obvious, it does spice it up when symbolism is added to the text.

Lawrence

I think that the biggest thing I appreciated this past week was not having to read hundreds of footnotes! Though I started to enjoy Eliot over the past week, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief over Lawrence’s simplicity.

One of my favorite Lawrence poems was, “The Enkindled Spring.” I’m not sure I totally understood what Lawrence was trying to say, but I loved the way he juxtaposed a lush green forest with fire imagery. Though the two images are completely opposite of one another, it works. “This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green” (327, 1). The spring, like a bonfire, suddenly bursts up out of nowhere, giving us vivid and beautiful colors.

I also really loved “Snake.” It was so simple and easy to understand, but gave me some beautiful images. “Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently” (333, 12-13). The idea that the individual in the poem was torn between his wanting to “be a man” and his complete awe over the snake’s beauty was an interesting concept.

Though Lawrence does focus on nature and animals in a similar to many Romantic writers, for me, he was a lot different. Generally speaking, I don’t enjoy “nature writing.” Descriptions of trees, bird, etc. tend to bore me unless there is something kind of different about them. I had to read Thoreau over the summer and I still don’t think I’ve recovered. J Lawrence always adds a little something different to his descriptions, something that makes them unusual (i.e. firely trees, fornicating turtles, etc.) and I think that is why I like him.

Butterfly ( D.H. Lawrence)

Seeing as we are in the month of October I thought it would be interesting to touch on this issue in the poem. October represents a transition period between the summer and winter. It ushers in winter, and in the poem we get a sense of inevitability with respect to it. A recurring theme is the wind blowing "sea-ward"; a wind that apparently no matter what the butterfly does forces it to merge with the wind and succumb to its pressure. Although "it is warm" in the garden, Lawrence keeps reminding the reader that the wind persists. In other words, no matter how much we desire to freeze time, it moves on irrespective of our wishes.

In this respect I see the butterfly as a metaphor of summer. He is vibrant, white and big. If winter is usually associated with death, a butterfly flying freely from flower to flower is the exact opposite. As the butterfly dissolves in the distance, so does summer.

It is a realistic depiction of time. Although we often try to avoid its passing, every attempt at trying to do so remains futile. The wind is too strong for a weak butterfly to try and fly against the current.

D.H. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence has been considered to be a "prophet of humanity" much like Walt Whitman. Our book explains that Lawrence believed Whitman was too indiscriminate. However, one could argue the two are very similar despite what Lawrence believed. For instance, Lawrence conformed to Whitman's free long line and bardic voice.

Lawrence's works are spontaneous overall; not only within each poem, but with regards to all of them as a whole. He attempts to cover multiple subject areas which provides evidence about how his imagination takes him off on tangents. Though a bit different, Whitman's poetry could be noted to be more of poetic visions as opposed to poetic imagination.

I, for one, believe that D.H. Lawrence took a lot from Walt Whitman. Lawrence's style of writing can be highly attributed to Whitman, yet he practically refused to see it. It is important to notice the similarities instead of shrugging them off. Whitman came way before Lawrence. So maybe D.H. was trying to envolve into an original and in the process he could've simply tweaked Walt's ideas to serve them as his own?

More Eliot: Journey of the Magi

During Eliot's later poetry his style changes. This can be seen in "Journey of the Magi" and "Little Gidding".

"Journey of the Magi"

The poem is based on the biblical story of the wise men who followed a star to worship Jesus at his birth. Eliot describes their journey not their arrival. The poem is written as if it is a reflection; he is retelling the story to others. He shows the harshness of the journey not the glory or celebratory moment. I believe Eliot uses this as a way to capture his dealing with converting to Christianity; conversion was difficult for him which lead to alienation/lack of support. Eliot's theme of death and rebirth comes back in this poem. In this instance, death and rebirth relates to another religion: the birth of a new religion to him and the death of his old ways/religion. "Journey of the Magi" shows the suffering and pain that plays a large role in Christianity.

More Eliot

The past weeks classes, along with the ones preceded them, really helped me when it came to T.S. Eliot. I know that you aren’t always supposed to pull a deeper meaning out of poetry, but our discussions helped me make some sense, and draw some information out of T.S. Eliot’s poetry. The videos were also a nice insight into his life. It is obvious that his life seeped deeply into his text, even if he did not believe such things should occur.

Most great writers have some form of tragedy in their lives, and the relationship he had with his wife could definitely be that inspirational tragedy. His life seemed to be a constant struggle - which makes me think is one of the reasons why we as readers struggled so much with his writings ourselves - he couldn’t write everything clearly because how else would we share in his struggle if nothing is difficult for us?

Overall, I think I’ve grown to like not on T.S. Eliot’s poetry, but T.S. Eliot himself.

Eliot: Part 2

I really enjoyed watching the film clips and documentaries in class because I think it really helped me understand his poetry. Although, I'm torn on his motives between he and his wife. I do not doubt that he didn't love his wife but I feel as if he just "dismissed" her out of his life. He didn't stay to take care of her. Yes, she had her issues but if they were dealt with the correct way I'm not sure it would have ended the way it did. It bothers me that he just ran away and didn't help her. I understand that it was probably very difficult for him but still.. running away doesn't solve anything. And, as a side note, people knew nothing of mental illnesses back then and the medicine she was prescribed was just a bunch of alcohol. But, because of the mess he was through and because he didn't receive any care as well, I sort of get his poetry know - or at least why it was all over the place. It reflected his personal life, in a sense, as it did with society.

I enjoyed reading "Journey of the Magi." I felt this poem was about alienation from the rest of society as the magi was an insider looking out (and feeling alone). All of the magi realized that the birth of this child was about to change things but it did not affect them in anyway. They saw the journey to the infant as burdensome and pointless. What were they journeying for? Nothing, it seems. The speaker, the magi, was doing nothing but complaining. I feel like this reflects Eliot's own personal struggles with his wife because he felt their marriage, towards the end, nothing but burdensome - hence his runaway action.

More on Eliot...

“Journey of the Magi” is quite different from anything we have read from Eliot this far. I found it interesting that he describes the journey of the three wise men as being painful. I don’t believe that the biblical version mentions the conditions of their journey. It makes sense that the conditions would have been pretty brutal in “The very dead of winter.” The narrator seems to be alienated and sad which is common in Eliot’s poems. The Wasteland and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” have similar narrators who have been alienated from the rest of the world.

I was very interested in Eliot’s relationship with his wife and how it impacted his life. The movie that we watched in class portrayed his wife as being mentally ill. The medications that she was prescribed seemed to a dangerous combination. I wonder if she really needed all those medications? It looked as if the meds were only making her condition worse. The way Eliot was portrayed in the video is exactly how I imagined him. He kept to himself and showed little emotion. He seemed to care very much for his wife, but he didn’t know how to respond to her ill actions. His behavior and lack of communication is hard to understand which explains why his poetry is difficult to interpret.

Final notes on The Wasteland

All that can be said about this iconic poem, I think, has been said in class. There is not much to add to the discussion apart from saying that I feel just as confused now reading the poem as I did a few weeks ago. Considering it's one of the first poems done in the modern genre it's comes as no surprise that it is so abstract and surreal. Although the idea in class was to compare this style of poetry to the early surrealists such as Magritte and Dali I personally relate it more with the abstract Russian painter Kandinsky. The reason why I see the parallel is because (and this is strictly just my opinion) those paintings exude a more haphazard and disorganized form to the whole ensemble while still evoking some emotional output from all the colors and shapes. When I look at Dali, although there is chaos taking place there is also coherence to the paintings; all the figures present are clearly delineated. Humans are humans, ants are ants, clocks are clocks, and so on.

Eliot's writing in this poem is indicative of the former style. Many lines in the poem, for example the last few lines, do convey some message, but it is fragmented overall and is very hard to distill. Yes "Shantih" has a concrete meaning in Hinduism, but I still find it hard to connect it with the content of the poem.

Eliot

After watching the biographical information on Eliot this past week I have a completely different view on his life and personality. In previous classes, after reading the short biographies usually proceeding “The Waste Land” and “Prufrock” I was left with few facts. I knew that he was one of the most popular poets of his time and I also knew about the intellectual aspects of his poetry. I always pictured him as a snob, sitting around drinking brandy, trying to come up with ways to baffle his readers with allusions of previous eras. OK, so he may still have been like that, but now I see a different side of him. He was withdrawn. He suffered tremendously over his wife’s illness. He even had an adorable relationship with his little goddaughter.

I was really happy that we got to watch to biography on Eliot while we were still reading his poetry. When we were studying Yeats, we read all of his poetry and then watched the biographical info. I think that if I would have had a better understanding of his life, I would have looked at his poetry differently. With Eliot, I absolutely know that I looked at his poetry in a different light after understanding his biography.

I really enjoyed “Journey of the Magi.” It was the first poem by Eliot that I was able understand after my first reading. I was really drawn to the fact that I was able to see a completely different side of the story of the wise men. They would have suffered under the harsh conditions of the journey, “a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp/The very dead of winter.” Also, I appreciated the symbolism in the second stanza. I recognized that the three trees and old white horse were symbols (I had them underlined) but had no idea what they meant. I appreciated being enlightened in class yesterday.

Eliot Continued

I really appreciated watching the videos on Eliot's personal life. The intro on Eliot in the Norton Edition said he "had marital problems" with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, but I had no idea what that really involved until last class. I thought it was interesting how no one would "talk about" Vivienne's mental condition, all of her "issues" seemed to be pushed under the rug, and this approach didn't seem to do anyone justice. From checking out Wikipedia, I read that the marriage for Vivienne brought "no happiness", and for Eliot the marriage brought "the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land".

Upon watching the video, I decided to go back and re-read Journey of the Magi to try and analyze it from a different perspective, now having deeper insight and better conceptualizations of Eliot's personal life. The poem was published in the same year he converted to Anglicanism. I think the journey Eliot underwent to come to his conversion was difficult and tedious, as we learned last class Vivienne was not in support of his new faith. Like Eliot's life, the poem is "real", distressful, agitated and direct:

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.

Furthermore, the opening lines also remind me of how The Waste Land started, kind of desolate and cruel. Jumping to the conclusion, the ending seems kind of "torn", the Birth is not necessarily celebrated, but looked at as a death of the "old", the death of "gods" (paganism), still resulting in alienation. . . hopefully I am reading this right? I am looking forward to discussing this in class, and gaining more insight!

The Wasteland

I had a very difficult time with The Wasteland. Eliot seems to jump all over the place, and it became very confusing. After reading it for the first time, I could not figure out if there was a main theme. I did some research on the poem and found it extremely helpful in understanding each part of the poem. I am still a little unclear on the main theme. Regeneration is mentioned a few times and could possibly be considered a theme. The activities that we did on Monday made everything much easier to understand. I think that has been the most helpful exercise we have done! It was much easier to understand when we “acted” out different sections.

The Wasteland was pretty much everything that I had expected it to be. I knew it was going to be difficult to follow and knew that it would be pretty depressing. Everything he describes is what I imagine to be in a wasteland. The opening few lines describe the month of April as being cruel. I think of the winter months as being the cruelest, not April. That just set the tone for the entire poem. Eliot uses phrases such as, “stony rubbish” and “heap of broken images” to describe this wasteland. He mentions rats more than a few times throughout. We get a visual image of a deserted old town in ruins. I think my favorite section of the poem is “A Game of Chess.” I did not exactly like the content, but I found it to be one of the easier sections to understand.

The Waste Land

I have studied The Waste Land before in a different class, but to be honest, I still didn't really get it when I started studying it again for this class. (And still don't, really). But I do have a new insight into both the content and the inspiration behind parts of it. The religious aspect of it was pretty bewildering after the first couple read-throughs of the poem. It seems as though there is some type of allusion to every damn religion out there. Eliot, what were you thinking?! But after our group study during class, it seems as though to understand certain aspects of this poem (like the religious imagery) it is helpful to sit back and look at the poem as a whole instead of trying to figure out each individual allusion. When we look at it this way, we see a sort of whirlpool where this religion and that religion and all kinds of other religions are being mixed in to create a veritable religion buffet. We can assume then, maybe, that Eliot was confused with his spiritual life and was trying to see what would work better for him. Like choosing an outfit, a person might want to see all the details before trying it on. Eliot may have been toying with the possibility of becoming more religious but couldn't choose which one was right for him. Mashing them all together in The Waste Land sort of sets them all out on one plate and a confused Eliot could then decipher what he really wanted out of life, or a religion, by taking a step back and seeing it all in one place. (Much like the way I had to take a step back and see the poem as a whole).

The Waste Land

After we dramatized part of The Waste land , I think I have a firmer grasp of the meaning, at least the beginning part of it. As I said in class, it seemed as if the Waste land was describing degenerates. All of the situations we displayed had one, if not many, people or situations that questioned physical, mental, or moral qualities.

We discussed the fertility myth today in class. The only way I can apply that, is through the myth of the Fishing King. As we discussed, because he was impotent, the land was as well. WWI had just occurred, and it could be said that this left the world “impotent” or desolate... in the state of a waste land- it is in complete disarray. That may be reaching too far, but that’s the only way I can make a connection which makes sense in some way.

That being said, since the land is in disarray, that would account for all the degenerate people that is in The Waste Land.

Although I’m still a big iffy on The Waste Land as a whole, I do think I have a better understanding of it now, as opposed to before.

The Waste Land

When, at the beginning of the semester, I learned that we would be studying “The Waste Land,” I was filled with dread. After reading it this past weekend, I felt only slightly better because, as I mentioned in class, I still didn’t understand how the various sections connected. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I thoroughly enjoyed Monday’s class! By focusing on each section individually, I could easily pick out the commonalities between them. I was really torn between my elation at finally “getting it” (at least somewhat) and the realization that the poem can be extremely depressing.

One of the things that stood out to me was Eliot’s view on male/female relations. Dr. Johnson mentioned Eliot’s negative attitude toward women, but I thought he seemed to really have negative views on both men and women in terms of their sexuality. In the second section, Eliot seems to be looking negatively on both Lil and Albert. Yes, he could be saying that Lil is casting aside her husband’s sexual needs, but look at Albert. He almost lost his wife when she had her last child but Albert still won’t “leave her alone.” Also, we can reference the typist and her “carbuncular young man.” I’m not sure if it is simply because Eliot used the word “assaults” (on line 239) but I basically looked at it as a sort of rape. Again, we can say that the typist just did not care about closeness or sexual relations, but I feel that both parties were equally to blame for the lack of relationship between them.

Wasteland

“Death by Water” was the shortest part of the poem, but I thought it was one of the easiest sections for me to discern. In short, Phlebas has died by drowning, and in death all worldly concerns cease to matter. Phlebas’s body is then picked away by “whispers”, and I think the message is that inevitably our bodies will one day die and decay, as we head toward a “whirlpool” through the ages and stages of youth. Eliot warns the “you” who “turns the wheel and look to windward” to “consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you”. He is telling us not to turn a blind eye to death, and not to put the reality of our deteriorations out of mind just because we may be young, “handsome”, and able bodied now. The contemporary state of our beings is fading, and just as the Phoenician sailor, long forgotten, we will be forgotten as well.

Another interesting element of this poem is the connection to Madam Sosostris’s prophecy in the first section. “With a wicked pack of cards” she pulls the card of a “drowned Phoenician Sailor”, so there seems to be correlation between the two parts of the poem, and the clairvoyant’s prophecy coming true. In conclusion, this section of the poem is a small fragment in comparison to the other sections; however, the meaning resounds and connects to earlier passages.

Poetry Appreciation

After Monday’s class I was really impressed with the way in which there are different ways of understanding a poem. Some people seem to only want to examine poetry from an academic standpoint, but I think we showed yesterday how this does not always need to be the case. In relation to academic understanding, Eliot says in the introduction to his poem, “In ‘The Waste Land’ I wasn’t even bothering whether I understood what I was saying” (473). Therefore, we can see that even Eliot wasn’t sure how his poem would be viewed academically. Yet, there are other ways to examine a poem, and I would like to talk about some of those ways.

The first and most obvious way I can think of is to gain appreciation for a poem by seeing the myriad ways people perceive it. In class I thought it was really interesting how the different groups presented their sections of the poem. Some gave dialogs, others acted out the action, and others even made their own little skits. Clearly, we all had different ways of looking at our material and presenting it, but in the end these different perspectives helped us understand the common theme in the poem about human degradation. Therefore, one way to appreciate a poem is by examining the different perspectives from which it can be viewed and seeing what can be learned from these different perspectives.

Another way to appreciate a poem is to examine its artistic merit. At many points throughout my reading I wasn’t entirely sure what Eliot’s point was, but I was still able to appreciate the fact that “The Waste Land” is very artistically written. Consider, for example, his lines which read “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,/ I had not thought death had undone so many.” (60-62). The wording is simple, but the imagery of the “brown fog” and the prospect of so many people left empty and “undone” by death creates a rather poignant, artistic portrayal of human life. Therefore, another way to appreciate a poem, even when the academic point of the poem is not clear, is to look for the places in which the poet displays artistic ability.

Do I have a deep understanding of “The Waste Land”? Certainly not. I still have a lot to learn from the study of this poem. Yet, after yesterday’s class I came away with the important understanding that a poem does not always have to be understood from the academic standpoint. Clearly, the artistic values the poem or the different ways in which it can perceived both add to an appreciation of the text. However, I’m still interested to see what we talk about tomorrow, as we continue our search for meaning in Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”

T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land

Ok.. SO. The Waste Land

When I first read this, I had no idea what was going on. There were so many voices and conversations that I couldn't understand the point. I'm not good at reading poetry in this first place so it was quite confusing for me to read this. However, after yesterdays class, I actually understood it better. I liked it, really. To me, my interpretation of the poem is the fall of humanity and all it entails. All the corruptions, the greed, the "wrong-doings", all the negative things are what is going to bring our country to its lowest point. It actually makes me think of the Book of Revelations a bit. Since the Book of Revelations warns what will happen, Eliot's The Waste Land could possibly serve as an example of what is occurring. Just a thought.

I really enjoyed our group activity and it definitely helped me understand the seconds (chosen) better. When my group was doing ours (group 2), it initially made me think of someone who was sitting in a dirty room, going crazy. I'm not sure if anyone has seen the History Channel's special series "America: The Story of Us" over the summer (or recently) but it fits in with the point of Eliot's poem. This poem was written in about the time when cities all around the country were facing deep economic concerns, famine, and death. Each city had it's "slum" area. In NYC, for example as presented by the series, was the Lower East Side. There, people were dumping their waste (including feces) out their window. People were living and dying on the streets, there was prostitution, crime, everything horrible you can think of.

I'm not positive that Eliot wrote this as a reaction to what was going on in America's cities but it definitely fits together. That's my little historical connection with this poem. Can't wait to talk about it more in class tomorrow!

T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot has not always been my favorite poet, but as we’ve discussed him in class I’ve grown to like him more and more. Although I wasn’t very fond of his essays, I enjoyed going over “The Love Song of J. ALfred Prufrock.” I think it’s very interesting because we are able to take it’s meaning in several different directions. Although he probably had a certain purpose for the words, I find them very ambiguous and, as readers, we are able to put our own thoughts and idea’s into the meaning behind the words.

I’m very excited for the “Wasteland.” Although I’ve read it at least six times, and discussed it in other class, I can’t seem to grasp the concept of it. I’m hoping that this time around my eyes will be opened up, and I’ll find enjoyment in the odd poem.

I'm beginning to like him a little more already.

The Waste Land

Eliot's "The Waste Land" is arguably the best work he ever created. However, this brilliant work is also one of the most difficult to comprehend. Scholars have been studying this particular piece for years and yet no one can definitely say they know what it means in its entirety.

The title itself could have various meanings. It could refer to the modern city, the state of the world, the darkness of human capability, the collapse of civilization and progress, or simply the idea of regeneration. The poem also has some recurrent themes such as death and rebirth which appears in lines 1-4 in the first part of the poem, "The Burial of the Dead." This death and rebirth theme can be shown in many ways: someone needs to restore our lives back to health, morality is dead, and religious meaning is dead.

Throughout the "The Waste Land," there is no coherent narrative. Eliot tries to show us this poem instead of telling us the poem. It's made up of numerous fragmented parts; each contributes to a larger meaning. I argue that Eliot wanted to break up the poem into sections because each of them are complex. By breaking them up into parts the reader is able to see the situation more clearly. As people, we try to smooth out the difficulties in life when it's too complicated. This is exactly what I believe he was going for. Every person is the same person and every journey is the same journey.

T.S. Eliot, A Genius

T.S. Eliot was an extremely talented individual. His works, though at times difficult to follow, are truly unique. Eliot could easily be named the greatest poet of his time. Personally, I admire him most for his rebellion against the norm. Eliot broke away from traditional form, rhyme, and even meter. He rejected a lot of 19th Century poetry, like the works of Wordsworth and Tennyson. T.S. Eliot believed that poetry should be an intellectual pursuit, not a romantic or emotional one. I completely agreed with his idea that poetry should be challenging. One poem in particular, The Waste Land, is still extremely challenging to even some scholars. I'm interested in our class discussions on that poem most of all.

Eliot

I’ve read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” a few times for various classes and have always thoroughly enjoyed it. Part of the reason that I love it so much is the use of imagery. There are two images that I see in this poem that really stand out.

The first is the foggy cat. In the stanza that begins on line 15, we get the image of the cat. “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes/Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.” I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams coming up with idea to personify fog as a cat. Funny enough though, it works. I can juxtapose these two images in my mind and it makes sense.

I also love how Eliot gives us a particular image of Mr. Prufrock. I think in every class that I have every read this poem, we have always all described him in the same way. He’s a nervous, middle-aged, balding kind of man. It is almost like I know him personally. I also love the way Eliot sets the tone of the poem with such a silly name.

As far as the articles are concerned, yes, they were a little dry. In general though, I do think it is interesting how Eliot takes such an intellectual approach to poetry. Poetry was something that I always thought of as coming from the heart, as deriving itself from sheer emotions (the good stuff at least). I guess I was wrong…or at least not 100 percent right.