where you’re madder than I am
Ultimately, if the society (Moloch) doesn't kill the beatnik (narrator), the beatnik is institutionalized. And the beatnik is making the point that the Doctor trying to heal him in this institution of Moloch is even madder than he is. "What a crazy world we live in" is basically how I sum up the poem.
What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
And in part II, Ginsberg is juxtaposing his ode to a beatnik (part I) with a description of the evil society that has killed the beatnik. This society, our society, is Moloch. It is very poignant how Ginsberg ties back Moloch to the times of Ancient Egypt (this evil has been around human society forever) while still keeping it grounded in modern America with use of words like "cement". And the end of the second line sums it up to a tee. Moloch is babies neglected, children abused, and old men filled with regret when faced with the reality that the peace they know is a lie.
and rose incarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio with the absolute heart of the poem butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.
I'm reading this first section as an ode to the beatnik, and this quote is why I see it that way. It's like he's putting words to how the beatniks, high and listening to jazz, are ascending to heaven after society has killed them through the imagery of ripping the "meaning" out of them in order that it be "good to eat a thousand years" which is another way of saying supported by the society that has killed the beatnik. The heart of the poem survives, ultimately, by being butchered.
I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.
The rivers are a metaphor for people in the African diaspora. And Hughes speaks of knowing the rivers that his people of known throughout their history. The identity of the people and the rivers becomes entangled.
so sweet
Frozen plums are incredibly sour, just thought I'd throw it out there.
It is only in isolate flecks that something is given off
"isolate flecks" is such a unique choice of words, and was very striking to read. It evoked a lot of images in my head, despite it being vague with descriptive imagery.
peasant traditions to give them character but flutter and flaunt
Interesting juxtaposition of peasant traditions that give character with the fluttering and flaunting. Having the word "character" separate the two descriptions is smart word placement, and thematically breaks up the stanza.
By constantly tormenting them with reminders of the lice in their children’s hair
This is the only line in the piece that actually shows how these parents/families could be poor. I still don't necessarily believe Williams based off of his title. I think the title has a deeper meaning that I am not understanding.
as if the earth under our feet were an excrement of some sky
Such a good way of illustrating the physicality of the earth with this metaphor. It also makes me think of gravity, pulling this sky excrement that is to become earth down. And the fact that he describes it as an excrement of "some" sky. I think he does this because the sky that existed when the world was formed is not the sky that we see today. And so, the sky that shat is not our sky, but some sky, that crapped the earth long ago.
and young slatterns, bathed in filth from Monday to Saturday to be tricked out that night with gauds from imaginations which have no peasant traditions to give them character but flutter and flaunt sheer rags-succumbing without emotion save numbed terror under some hedge of choke-cherry or viburnum- which they cannot express—
This is an incredible description of a "young slattern". The word choice is perfect, but especially word choice mixed with line breaks. The way (and he does this for the whole poem) he keeps the middle line of each stanza shorter sets up a rhythm that keeps the reader moving from the first line of each stanza, to the last.
I do not think I would.
I appreciate that the narrator is not 100% convinced of this answer. It might just be Millay trying to write in a sweet tone (joking with your significant other sort of a deal), or it could be that the narrator might actually still trade his memory of the night for food.
and all the riveted pride he wore, A rusted iron column whose tall core The rains have tunnelled like an aspen tree.
Excellent imagery of the water eroding the inside of this rusted piece of metal. And also, very impressive use of simile inside of a metaphor.
And must, in such a spiny land. The sikly, powdery mignonette
Great juxtaposition between the spiny land and the silky mignonette.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
I love the way the end of this poem evokes this feeling of barely keeping oneself awake with the repeating "And miles to go before I sleep," especially with the last word of the first two lines of the stanza rhyming with sleep.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
I think, even more importantly than taking the road less traveled by, it is that he resigns to tell with a sigh how he has made the right decision. Confidence is key.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
I am captivated by the way Frost uses the lack of love for this inanimate object to personify the object. Especially doing so in the first line. It is incredibly poignant, and it makes me feel very sad for the wall.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.
This. This is the message. This is what Du Bois wants us to take away from this piece. This paragraph right here.
At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,
For me, the strange experiences are the ones most worth telling about. This, therefore, is an example of Du Bois' two identities (one Black, the other American) come into the conflict. The American in Du Bois smiles and appears interested, "[reducing] the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require." In this double-identity, one identity oppresses the other. And this oppression is a mirror of the real life oppression experienced by Du Bois as a black person living in America.
a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
I think this motif of double-identity, where the two identities are in conflict with one another, is what Du Bois is trying hardest to get across in this piece.
Neither of them felt goddesses as power–only as reflected emotion, human expression, beauty, purity, taste, scarcely even as sympathy. They felt a railway train as power, yet they, and all other artists, constantly complained that the power embodied in a railway train could never be embodied in art. All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres.
Doesn't this make the goddess more powerful than the train?
were absolute, supersensual, occult
How are the economies supersensual and occult?
No more relation could he discover between the steam and the electric current than between the Cross and the cathedral. The forces were interchangeable if not reversible, but he could see only an absolute fiat in electricity as in faith.
I'm confused as to why he is saying the Cross and the cathedral are not related. This analogy makes me think that relation between steam and electric current is strong.
Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
Doesn't this depend on which direction a person is walking in relation to the Sun? Couldn't you technically walk facing away from the sunrise at morning, and your shadow would appear in front of you? And, if this is the case, is it symbolically significant to have the person walking towards the sunrise, towards the new day?
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
This line translates into english as "Empty and waste is the sea." I am so intrigued by this line. I'm wondering how it relates to the line that precede it, "Looking into the heart of light, the silence." Is the line an observation of what it is like to look into the heart of light? His description of the heart as "the silence" seems to parallel the emptiness of "das Meer".
Ballades by the score with the same old thought: The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what is love but a rose that fades?
This is getting across the same message as the ending lines of Robinson's "The Clerks". That poets are always trying to get across some aspect of the world that is beautiful and constantly at threat of being lost.
Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time, Tiering the same dull webs of discontent, Clipping the same sad alnage of the years.
This metaphor really stands out to me. It is a three tiered metaphor, which is very impressive. First, it is comparing poets and kings to "clerks of Time". A clerk is someone who keeps a record of something, so a clerk of Time would be keeping a record of what happens throughout all of time. The second tier of the metaphor says that these poets and kings, while they keep record of Time, are tiering, or ranking, "the same dull webs of discontent". Basically, that the kings and poets are trying to compare and contrast the suffering of people. And the third tier, "Clipping the same sad alnage of the years." is comparing the poems being written / kings reigning from their thrones to cloth clippings, pieces of clothing, and SAD pieces of clothing at that. The SAME SAD pieces of clothing, the alnage of the years. This whole three tiered metaphor is, I think, trying to get across the notion that basically everything a person is able to learn from reading in poetry, and everything a person is able to learn from living in society, is old news. History repeats itself. And there is no change big enough in the world that would ever allow us to escape from our history anyway. And so we are left with "the same sad alnage of the years." Sorry, sorry, I can't get over that line.
“For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out, The last word wavered, and the song was done. He raised again the jug regretfully And shook his head, and was again alone.
Utter pathos. And it is implying that while he sang, although he was singing by himself, he was not alone. That's why the previous line is "Until the whole harmonious landscape rang-" It makes the regret filled raising of the jug, the shake of the head, and the being "again alone" so poignant. I feel like we've all been to Mr. Flood's Party, at one New Year's eve or another.
This paper looks to me as if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have!
It's amazing how Gilman is able to write this woman's spiral of thought from the first personification of the blank page, all the way through to the protagonist's anger at the inanimate paper being so expressive. It's like she's angry at the paper for giving her the freedom to write, because she has been conditioned to react to that freedom as a threat.
There is a DELICIOUS garden!
Such a lovely description for a garden! And I've never heard it before! It is so fun, to get that description of taste before the vegetables have been prepared as food. Very fun!
It makes me think of English places that you read about
It is funny that the only English places we read about are the homes of the rich.
It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
From this description, it really seems to be riding that fine line between dull and pronounced, in the most irritating sort of way. Sort of like riding the knife's edge.
From my five arms and all my hands,
Why not "five hands"? Are there more than five hands, maybe more than one hand per arm?
They Lion grow.
What's the significance of "They Lion grow" instead of "The Lion grows"?
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
What is the intention behind Levine's juxtaposition of the roughly textured burlap sacks with the smooth bearing butter?
the candor of tar
very cool personification of tar