An Analysis of Brooks' First Fight.Then Fiddle
Gwendolyn Brooks' "First fight. Then Fiddle." initially seems to argue for the necessity of brutal war in order to create a space for the pursuit of beautiful art. The poem is more complex, however, because it also implies both that war cannot protect art and that art should not justify war. Yet if Brooks seems, paradoxically, to argue against art within a work of art, she does so in order create an artwork that by its very recognition of art's costs would justify itself.
Brooks initially seems to argue for the necessity of war in order to create a safe space for artistic creation. She suggests this idea quite forcefully in the paired short sentences that open the poem: "First fight. Then fiddle." One must fight before fiddling for two reasons. First, playing the violin would be a foolish distraction if an enemy were threatening one's safety; it would be, as the phrase goes, "fiddling while Rome burns." Second, fighting the war first would prepare a safe and prosperous place where one could reasonably pursue the pleasures of music. One has to "civilize a space / Wherein to play your violin with grace." It should be noted further that while Brooks writes about securing a "civilized" place to play the violin, she seems clearly to be using this playing as an image for art in general, as her more expansive references to "beauty" or "harmony" suggest.
Nonetheless, much that Brooks writes about the necessity to fight before fiddling indicates the she does not support this idea, at least not fully. For example, Brooks describes making beautiful music as being "remote / A while" from "malice and murdering." In addition to the negative way Brooks describes war in this line, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ultural prestige of violin playing. Indeed, as an emblem of Western civility (one thinks of Renaissance sonnets), the sonnet might be involved in the very justification of the destruction of other less "civilized" peoples that the poem condemns.
One might wonder why Brooks produces poetry, especially the sonnet, if she also condemns it. I would suggest that by critically reckoning the costs of sonnet-making Brooks brings to her poetry a self-awareness that might justify it after all. She creates a poetry that, like the violin playing she invokes, sounds with "hurting love." This "hurting love" reminds us of those who may have been hurt in the name of the love for poetry. But in giving recognition to that hurt, it also fulfills a promise of poetry: to be more than a superficial social "grace," to teach us something we first did not, or did not wish to, see.
The same author Gwendolyn Brooks writes the poems “Fight First, Then Fiddle” and “We Real cool”. I am about to explain to you of how the author uses social issues through of the two poems I am referring to connect to her readers.
Songs like “We Shall not be moved” represented the determination of those in the civil rights movement in the face of government and social oppression. This lines say,” Like a tree that stands by water, we shall not be moved”. Music had an enormous impact in the war because It promoted the first amendment that is the freedom of speech, it helped the American society to develop by exerting deep lasting influences on the form of popular music paving its way towards musical expressions in times of
Antigone, a story of broken family ties and conflicting motivations, can be twisted to tell two entirely different stories, and this is what happed when Anouilh rewrote Sophocles' classic. While both Sophocles and Anouilh told the story of Antigone, through subtle changes in the style of the drama, each author was able to produce a product that told a significantly different and intimate tale conducive to their personal or political situation at that time.
“Make these excuses, I will heap/ The earth over my brother’s body” (63). Although no one would help her, Antigone took a stand against injustice and honored her brother by burying him, even though Creon said this act would be punishable by death if anyone committed this act of insubordination. Especially in the age that Antigone lived in, it was considered foolish to simply go against a man’s orders, let alone the Kings. Not to mention that Antigone was related to the King, making the situation even worse. She committed a supremely precarious action, especially for a woman. Not only does she bravely follow her morals, but she does a great job of justifying them in her arguments. Antigone was a civil disobedient by disobeying Creon’s orders and accepting the consequences, but she did a great job of justifying them through her arguments throughout Antigone.
The characters in the play Antigone all suffer a downfall of some sort. The major characters suffer the most, though. In this short essay, I will document on how the two main characters, Creon and Antigone, both inevitably become tragic heroes.
In the sonnet, "Thou Blind Man's Mark," Sir Philip Sydney uses a poetic form to express desires in his mind and how it affects him. The speaker begins by insulting how bad desires are, which shows…... This contempt is most readily optically discerned when he elaborates on poetic devices such as oxymoron, repetition, and diction to convey the speaker’s complex attitude.
...e speaker admits she is worried and confused when she says, “The sonnet is the story of a woman’s struggle to make choices regarding love.” (14) Her mind is disturbed from the trials of love.
In the poem of Beat! Beat! Drums! Whitman is talking about how people react to war when they hear the drums and the bugles sound. Not all the people were happy to hear them because they knew that they were being called to go to war and they had to be ready to give up their lives and they had to commit themselves 100 percent to the war. As he mentioned “Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful farmer and peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain, So fierce you whirr and pound you drums-so shrill you bugles blow”. (5-7) In other words everything needed to stop once they heard those drums beat and those bugles blow so hard that you couldn’t even hear a father’s beg to his son not
That’s true he can get that education, but, odds are he won’t. This is not because he can’t, it is because of endless odds stacked against him. Heaps of barriers for him to climb over where an affluent child walks right around. The issue is not if education is possible, it’s if it is fair. Education starts in the home and with no role models, no money for extra help, and worries far beyond the next math test. It’s not reasonable. For some children, even if they do care, they still don’t have the money for college. Making this so called gap
The poem “Sonnet 43”, written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is an Italian Petrarchan sonnet that is written in iambic pentameter, and is filled with the poet’s strong emotions. At heart, it is a poem describing the ways of love Elizabeth has toward her husband. At the same time, the poem the divine aspect of love, how true love is everlasting and pure. (thesis) fbdisabidas
Costing $99.99 it uses 1800 watts of power and has 94 temperature settings. It comes with a 5 degree temperature increments and a 2 year warranty.
Many poems have been written during times of War, from the Civil War to World War II, many were pro-war and still just as many, if not more, were anti-war. When you look back in time, you may notice and recognize a few authors for their contributions to our colorful country's history from your studies, but two names are almost always recognized, even by the unstudied, to have offhandedly advanced our culture, changed politics, and even confronted the impact of war on communities and families in two different countries. Walt Whitman is often recognized as the founding father of American poetry, his powerful poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!” written during the start of the Civil War in 1861, is a commanding and rugged
in his poems. There is also the view that war has turned into a cycle,
In “Sonnet XVII,” the text begins by expressing the ways in which the narrator does not love, superficially. The narrator is captivated by his object of affection, and her inner beauty is of the upmost significance. The poem shows the narrator’s utter helplessness and vulnerability because it is characterized by raw emotions rather than logic. It then sculpts the image that the love created is so personal that the narrator is alone in his enchantment. Therefore, he is ultimately isolated because no one can fathom the love he is encountering. The narrator unveils his private thoughts, leaving him exposed and susceptible to ridicule and speculation. However, as the sonnet advances toward an end, it displays the true heartfelt description of love and finally shows how two people unite as one in an overwhelming intimacy.