Memories can be beautiful or they can be difficult. Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Recuerdo," meaning "a recollection," seems to be a little bit of both. This recollection is hazy and romantic, like Millay and her unnamed partner must have felt as they "looked into a fire" (Kennedy) on the ferry they rode all night.
"Recollection" is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the action or power of recalling to one's mind. In the lives of people, the moments we recall are usually the ones that make an impression on us, or the moments that mean the most to us. Certainly this moment in the author's life holds meaning and made a lasting impression on her. She recalls being both tired and "very merry," an emotional state obviously effected or even brought on by her partner. Whether this unnamed person is a sibling, a lover, or merely a friend is unclear, but the way in which the author remembers the night suggests romance. "We were very tired, we were very merry- We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry." These are the first two lines of the poem. The author wants the reader to know that while they were drained of energy, they were still in high spirits. We know this is important to the tone of the poem because the first two lines of each stanza are these same two lines, repeated a total of three times throughout the poem. It is a testament to human will that even without sleep and exhausted, the company of another person can keep the emotions positive.
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In line three, she says the ferry "smelled like a stable." We know now that smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, so a certain smell can cause a memory to flood back to mind as if it were right there, happening right now, all over again. It is personal and ta...
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...m reads "and we gave her all our money but our subway fares." This is a profound statement. The old lady needs the money more than they do, and they gladly give it up because they have what they need- each other and a way home together.
The poem states not clearly, but profoundly that all this pair needs is each other, and that this trip or journey to give a little old lady some much needed food and money is more of a joyous occasion simply because of the company of each other. This memory, this recollection, though it includes the mother, is not about her, it is about the pair travelling together and using the time to enjoy the little things in life; a ride on a ferry, time spent laying together on a moonlit hillside, watching the sun rise after a long night of travelling. Whatever it is truly about, the one thing most important to the author is the memory itself.
The title of this piece, “Remembered Morning,” establishes what the speaker describes in the stanzas that follow as memory; this fact implies many themes that accompany works concerning the past: nostalgia, regret, and romanticism, for instance. The title, therefore, provides a lens through which to view the speaker’s observations.
The poem explains her hardships. Reading poetry is different from reading prose because you really have to dig deeper and study harder. A poem is not always straight forward like many other writings. You have to use context clues and understand imagery, tone, and sense. Summarizing a poem becomes difficult if you do not re-read several times. I learned that figurative language and lifestyle really tells a great story. Language especially helps you understand what is going on between the lines. Overall, family is always there at the end of the day. Sometimes situations get tough, but there is always a light at the end of the
Hence, the poem's tone contains elements of remorse as well as impassivity. The traveler's detached description of the mother, "...a doe, a recent killing; / she had stiffened already, almost cold" (6-7), and the wistful detail with which he depicts her unborn offspring, "...her fawn lay there waiting...
At the beginning of the poem, the audience is able to witness an event of a young boy asking his father for story. While the father was deemed a “sad” man, it is later shown that his sadness can be contributed to his fear of his son leaving him. The structure then correlated to the point of going into the future. The future was able to depict what would happen to the loving duo. The father's dreams would become a reality and the son's love and admiration would cease to exist as he is seen screaming at his father. Wanting nothing to do with him. The young, pure child can be seen trying to back lash at his father for acting like a “god” that he can “never disappoint.” The point of this structure was not really a means of clarification from the beginning point of view, but more as an intro to the end. The real relationship can be seen in line 20, where it is mentioned that the relationship between the father and son is “an emotional rather than logical equation.” The love between this father and son, and all its complexity has no real solution. But rather a means of love; the feelings a parent has for wanting to protect their child and the child itself wanting to be set free from their parents grasp. The structure alone is quite complex. Seeing the present time frame of the father and son
The poem starts out with the daughter 's visit to her father and demand for money; an old memory is haunting the daughter. feeding off her anger. The daughter calls the father "a ghost [who] stood in [her] dreams," indicating that he is dead and she is now reliving an unpleasant childhood memory as she stands in front of his
The poem is gentle and nostalgic. It seeks not only to recreate the scene for the reader, but
It gave the idea, and a clear understanding of what its discussing.It led me to imagine a dilapidated room,with elderly people eating, and using mismatched copper utensils. Their body physically there, but easily seen in their eyes , their minds are somewhere far away. I could see and feel the pearls when I read the line, “ Full of beads and receipts.” I could see them eating the beans,and imagine their back room filled with objects containing their memories. “ This old yellow pair,” and Rememberings with twinklings and tinges,” inspired the imagery of an old couple sitting together and reminiscing about their
Robert had invited Edna to go to the beach with him and at first she denied but compelled by the spell of defiance followed along allowing herself to indulge in deep self understanding. “A certain light was was beginning to dawn dimly within her,- the light which, which showing the way, forbids it.The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in it’s soft, close embrace” (Chopin 13), that night Edna had formed a fatal attraction to the sea and its seductivity for the presence of the river weighed heavy that night. Causing her to develop a great love for swimming for it gave her a reason to be wrapped up in the ocean’s smothering
Fulfilling the roles of both mother and breadwinner creates an assortment of reactions for the narrator. In the poem’s opening lines, she commences her day in the harried role as a mother, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle with balancing priorities. After saying goodbye to her children she rushes out the door, transitioning from both, one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day continues, when reflecting on
She was merely teaching her son a lesson, or maybe she was scolding him, and using that as a life lesson. Either way, she was the inspiration for the poem. I was unable to locate online the reason that the poem was initially written - however, I can only assume that he is remembering a time when his mother was right, and he’s wishing he had listened. Maybe he is now older, wiser, and faced with a decision where he wants two things equally, and needs to make a decision.
The poem becomes personal on line 10 when she uses the first person and says “I lost my mother’s watch”. She is letting the reader know what she has lost in reality. Then she gets sidetracked to mention other things she has lost; she then mentions other things she has lost of much more importance such as houses, continents, realms, and cities, but then again mentions it was not so hard to lose those things. But in the end, mention the loss that really matters. She remembers the qualities of the lover she lost.
Edna St. Vincent Millay has created complex as well as emotionally and politically charged poetry in her career. Her poetry is often considered expressive yet also indifferent by some critics. Yet, her skill with metaphor and other evocative poetic features bring us poems that are reflective of her self, and also ourselves as readers. By developing skilled metaphors for interpreting and developing her own identity as an author and for us as a reader, we are given a construction of selfhood. In this essay, I will analyze Edna St. Vincent Millay’s two poems; If I should learn, in some quite casual way, and What lips my lips have kissed in order to explain the meaning and presence of selfhood in lyric poetry. Through interpreting Millay’s poems, I will explain the construction of selfhood or identity in each poem through formal structures. Understanding selfhood comes with understanding one’s surroundings and how we are able to relate or compare ourselves to these surroundings. Edna St. Vincent Millay does a very complete job of bringing metaphor, narrative, diction and imagery to h...
Edna St. Vincent Millay repeats the first two lines of her poem, “Recuerdo” in an effort to cling to the memory. Millay stresses the emotions felt by repeating, “we were very tired,we were very merry” (1, 7, 13) three times throughout the poem. The way the line is written suggests that they were merry because they were tired as a result of going "back and forth all night on the ferry" (2, 8, 14). This line is also repeated twice more to accent it as the most persistent activity of the night. It seems that throughout the poem, the events become more sporadic, but the author is sure these are the moments worth remembering. By repeating the lines, it is like she is reminding herself of how happy she felt that night as a constant emotion in the whole whirlwind of adventures.
The main event is the death of the child, which has happened previously to the beginning of the poem. This event foreshadows the death of the marriage which will happen after the poem. The husband and wife go through the grief process in many different ways. The wife believes that her husband does not understand her or the grief in which she feels. Online 10, she shouts at him, “You couldn't care!...
The first thought that encroaches upon the woman's daydreams and darkens the atmosphere is that of a solemn "procession of the dead" to Palestine. Her interaction with the procession is interesting because it symbolizes the journey she is making in her mind and sets the tone for later religious questioning in the poem.