An Analysis of Wallace Stevens' Sunday Morning
“Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens is a poem about a woman having a late breakfast and thinking about the purpose of religion. Stevens wants the readers to ask themselves the questions that the woman asks, and to explore their feelings towards Christianity. He also wants to spark an awareness of nature. The first stanza asks the first tentative questions before launching into a racy debate in the later stanzas.
Stevens uses stanza I to set the scene for the rest of the poem. The first five lines describe that the main character, known simply as “She,” skipped church, “to dissipate the holy hush of ancient sacrifice,” and have a late breakfast described as “Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, / And the green freedom of a cockatoo”(lines 2-6). Line six announces the topic and mood of the poem. “She dreams a little, and she feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe” (lines 6-7). She begins to think about the purpose and significance of the Christian religion. In lines nine through eleven, Stevens shows how the oranges and cockatoo’s wings remind her of a “procession of the dead.” In the rest of the stanza, she drifts into a more serious examination of religion by referencing “the blood and sepulchre,” the crucifixion (line 15). This discussion leads into the next stanza which questions Christian tradition.
In stanza II, she questions the purpose of going to church and offering her earnings “Why should she give her bounty to the dead”(line 16). Steven proposes several unanswerable questions in this stanza: why give money to the deceased; why does God only visit in dreams; and can nothing on earth compare to heaven? In this stanza, S...
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...st three lines are very symbolic of what is to come for all things:
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink.
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
Darkness in the context of this poem is death.
Stevens begins the poem with a woman skipping church and turns it into a discussion of the plausibility of an afterlife, religion, and the existence of souls. Stevens believes that we should look at nature and our earthly existence as a spiritual basis to measure our lives. He is also saying we should spend less time worrying about heaven, an afterlife, and following an organized religion. Mostly, he suggests that we should try to find paradise,or beauty, on earth.
Works Cited:
Stevens, Wallace. "Sunday Morning." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Editor: Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1995.
Overall, dwell on this process of changing throughout the poem, it can be understood that the poet is demonstrating a particular attitude towards life. Everyone declines and dies eventually, but it would be better to embrace an optimistic, opened mind than a pessimistic, giving-up attitude; face the approach of death unflinchingly, calmly.
under the Puritan court, the pressure to confess and atone for one's sins was immense.
For many people, the early hours of the morning can hold numerous possibilities from time for quiet reflections to beginning of the day observations to waking up and taking in the fresh air. In the instance of the poems “Five A.M.” and “Five Flights Up,” respective poets William Stafford and Elizabeth Bishop write of experiences similar to these. However, what lies different in their styles is the state of mind of the speakers. While Stafford’s speaker silently reflects on his walk at dawn from a philosophical view of facing the troubles that lie ahead in his day, Bishop’s speaker observes nature’s creations and their blissful well-being after the bad day had before and the impact these negative thoughts have on her psychological state in terms
Meinke, Peter. “Untitled” Poetry: An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s 2010. 89. Print
Moore begins the last stanza with an ambiguous “So”. Although one has a heightened awareness of mortality, one “behaves,” one keeps the ego disciplined. This is the same concept as that of the caged bird who, though held captive in a cruelly small space, continues to sing with all his heart. Despite the bird's lack of “satisfaction” because of his loss of flight and freedom, he knows “joy”.
The world’s coral reefs are quintessential to global biodiversity, so much so that they are often referred to as the "rainforests of the sea". Although their actual space occupied by reefs is relatively small, constituting less than 0.1% of the world's ocean surface, they support over 25% of all marine species on earth. They provide complex and varied marine habitats that support a wide range of other organisms including, but not limited to, fish, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, echinoderms, sponges, tunicates and other cnidarians. Some of these animals feed directly on the corals, while others graze on algae on the reef. The reef also provides a protective habitat for many of these animals.
Carruth, Hayden. "Saturday at the Border." The Making of a Poem: a Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. By Mark Strand and Eavan Boland. New York: Norton, 2001. 15. Print.
Coral reefs, which are underwater structures created by calcium carbonate secretions, are some of the richest interdependent ecosystems on Earth. According to Wikipedia, coral reefs occupy less than 0.1% of Earth’s ocean surface, yet they provide a home for 25% of all marine species. Often referred to as the “rainforests of the ocean,” coral reefs are home to thousands upon thousands of species of plants and animals (“Coral Reef”). Not only are they an important part of ocean environments, but coral reefs are also extremely important and beneficial to humans; these reefs protect shorelines and provide countless people with food, jobs, and income sources. However, coral reefs are disappearing at an extremely alarming rate. From overfishing to pollution to sedimentation, the world’s coral reefs are in grave danger and humans must actively work to protect and restore these oceanic rainforests.
...o curb the appetite that humans have to know the secrets of life and death. This, then, is the central theme of all her poems: Though she believes strongly in idea of an afterlife, even she understands that nothing is certain, but that a bit of logic and a large amount of faith will guide her through the chaotic journey towards her final resting place—wherever or whatever it may be.
Stevens, Wallace. "Sunday Morning." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Editor: Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1995. 330-331.
Oceans cover 71% of the earth’s surface. The talk of climate change can often seem to focus on what is happening in our atmosphere, but there is a lot of change going on in our oceans. The oceans have absorbed 90% of the excess heat and 28% of the carbon pollution generated by human consumption of fossil fuels (Nuccitelli 2015). The purpose of this paper is to show how the effects of climate change effect the coral reefs in our oceans, with a focus on the coral reef systems in the Caribbean and of the Great Barrier Reef. The Caribbean coral reefs are well known to have suffered more damage between the two reef systems. That’s not to say that the Great Barrier Reef has not suffered its own damage. It has and will continue to suffer in the future.
It is not uncommon in the writing world to use poetic form to reflect inner meaning. Bradstreet did an exemplary job at showing the reader poetic content that was doubtful and a form that solidified her faith. During the time this poem was written, having doubts in one’s faith was considered taboo to talk about. Bradstreet showed her courageous and brave attitude when she decided to write about questioning her own beliefs. Even though she wrote this poem for herself, the courageous act of acknowledging her own doubts spoke for those Puritans who did not have the courage to. Since she had the strong poetic form reflecting her faith, this enabled her to write about her doubts in a better light. The poem shows that even in times of external peril, internal strength is what helps a person prevail.
Mar. 1972: 86-100. pp. 86-100. Major, Clarence. American Poetry Review.
Stanza three explains what life was like at the farm he lived on, as the previous stanzas have. Line twenty describes the landscape and how beautiful it is. It describes it as Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air,” (20). Lines twenty one through twenty three use more imagery to describe the landscape. They use words such as “lovely and watery” (21) to show how pleasant it was to gaze upon the land. The word “And” is also repeated in the beginning of each of these lines which creates suspense. They also show repetition by repeating words such as “green” and it brings up the starry night again. Line twenty four talks about owls and how they are starting to come out. The day is starting to end and there is still beauty in everything. Now night has begun and all the things that made the day happy and carefree are starting to disappear. Lines twenty five through twenty seven use imagery to show that the moon is appearing and the horses and everything else is disappearing into the night. This begins to show that the youth the speaker is experiencing is starting to
The leading natural cause of destruction among the coral reefs is global warming. Global warming causes the bleaching of coral reefs to occur. Bleaching is a response to stress by the coral reef that happens when the water becomes to warm. The coral then put out a brownish zooxanthelle which causes them to lose their color. Without the zooxanthelle, the corals cannot provide nourishment for itself and th...