In the poem “Determination” written by Stephen Dobyns, the poet gives an account of a man finally beginning to prepare to write his first novel after the many “tedious years” he endured of “doing the taxes of strangers” (19-20). Typically, this would be a respected occasion, and the poet emulates this idea to some extent. However, he also strategically employs a multifaceted tone regarding the actions of the character in the poem. Looking past the deferential, celebratory tone that lies on the surface of the poem, demonstrated through the thoughts of the speaker, the tone of the poet himself is dismissive and detached. By means of certain poetic devices and other literary techniques, the poet conveys his attitude toward the character in the …show more content…
The poet conveys his attitude toward the character in a detached manner, seeing as the poem is not written in the perspective of the character or someone close to him. The speaker details the actions of the character in a sympathetic, respectful tone, but the choice of actions that the poet chooses to include seem to mock him. Perhaps most representative of this assertion is the choice to make the first word of both the novel and the poem “Cabbage,” immediately indicating that the novel the character has waited years to write will likely not be of good quality (1). Additionally, the poet uses the simile “a trophy pen, / like a trophy wife,” describing the pen that would play such an integral role in writing the novel with a negative connotation (2-3). The repetition of the phrase “not cheap” suggests that the extensive amount of resources the character has invested in the creation of his novel may have simply been a waste. Additionally, the detail that the character “dreamed in free moments at his office” and “excitingly” began writing is undercut by the first word being “cabbage” (17-21). In the event that the first word was more mellow, the tone of the poet would be very similar to that of the speaker. However, the choices in detail as well as the use of specific literary devices keep the tone of the poet and the tone of the speaker on two different
The Author to Her Book, by Emily Bradstreet is a poem in which Bradstreet is laments about the publishing of her writings without her permission. The purpose of the piece is for Bradstreet to express the love, pride and remorse she feels toward her new book and is displayed elegantly through the metaphor of a mother and child. Lines eleven and twelve contribute to the poem’s purpose; they show that Bradstreet is unsatisfied with her work, and desires to fix it. Unfortunately, the book has already been published, and it is too late for her “child” to attain perfection in its mother’s eyes.
Post. August 16, 1992, p.6 Rpt. In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Deborah A. Stanley. Vol. 97. Detroit: Gale, 1997
This shows the reader the creativeness in how she put together her chapbook. She did not stay in the conventional mode and snuck a subtle final poem into her piece of art. There were many times as I read through her words that I would utter to myself sounds of astonishment as I was taken aback by the brashness
Because her father was a studious man, Bradstreet was able to receive a good education and was well read. She enjoyed serious and religious writings and admired many of the great poets of the time, among these Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and John Donne. In fact she admired them so much that she imitated many of the literary devices that they used. " The Author to Her Book", written upon the unauthorized publication of a book of her poems, is a conceit, or extended metaphor. Bradstreet compares her book to a baby, calling it the "ill-formed offspring of [her] feeble brain." She continues this conceit by calling her book her "rambling brat (in print)" and expressing the true "affection" she has for it. Just as a mother would wash and dress an infant before taking it out of the house, Bradstreet would have enjoyed the opportunity to revise her poems before they were put on display before the literary world. Bradstreet did revise her poems for a second edition and compares this revision to cleaning a child; "I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw." Simply, the better she would make her book, the more little mistakes she would notice, just as a mother would notice any speck of dirt that was left on her virtually spotless child.
Experience is the hidden inspiration in all of literature. Every letter, word, and sentence formed, every plot imagined, and every conflict conceived has a trace amount of its creator’s past ingrained within it. But most of all, authors reflect themselves in the characters they create. The protagonist of any story embodies certain traits and qualities of his or her creator; the virtues and vices, ambitions and failures, strengths and weaknesses of an author are integral parts of their characters lives. When authors’ experiences differ, so do their characters, as seen with Welty and King. Both authors had distinct upbringings, each with their own forms of hardship. The contrasting nature of these authors’ struggles is why their characters are the antithetical. As a result of these
In the short story,’’Checkouts,’’ the author uses figurative language such as similes, imagery, and hyperboles. In structure, using figurative language allows the reader to understand the story better and make it more creative, along with it becoming interesting. For example, on (page 47), it states, ”Like a Tibetan monk in solitary medication, she calmed to a point of deep,deep happiness.” Next, there is also imagery in the short story. An example of imagery in the story is how the narrator describes when the girl and the bag boy meet for the first time. “She interested him because her hair was red and thick, and in it she had placed a huge orange bow, nearly the size of a small hat” (47). For example, there is also some hyperboles in the
Immediately in the first few pages, Pattyn, the narrator, openly asks disturbing questions to the reader such as, “Do you ever dangle your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble” (Hopkins 2). These first impressions of the protagonist allow the reader to infer that Pattyn has a damaged mentality. The reader is continuously presented with harsh narrations of her being constantly disciplined by her drunken father to care for her siblings by playing a motherly role. Pattyn’s life is continuously crushed by reality and burdened by her strict household. It is not until later in the novel- when Pattyn is forced to live with her Aunt J for the summer as a punishment- that she begins to discover happiness and self worth. She illustrates that, “Ever since [she] had been with Aunt J, [she] had learned things” (Hopkins 266). While with her Aunt, Pattyn was introduced to a whole new world of love and happiness; she has newfound relationships with her Aunt and a young boy named Ethan. For once, Pattyn feels wanted and valued. She goes from completely questioning her reason to live to having a genuine sense of self driven happiness. She was at an all time low in life and was able to find reason to live a fulfilling life. Hopkins, since the beginning of the novel, effortlessly captures the reader’s interest and presents them with an exceptional story centered on Pattyn’s overall character
It has a strong tone as well. The tone changes as the dialog begins, he starts explaining how no one understand him and the things he think is important are different than them. He says that neither of them shared his “indignation at the scandalous theft of the old miller's songs.” This selection of detail helps back up the fact that he is misunderstood. He also pointed out that neither of them seemed to care that their friend Four-Eyes was leaving the mountain or “the prospect of of losing Balzac.” All these examples of selection of detail exemplify that he doesn't share the same interests or thoughts as everyone else. He did describe though that they finally paid attention to him when he told them about pretending to be Luo. After this, the tone sort of changes. The narrator is watching the little seamstress and is mesmerized by every move she makes. Her laugh made him want to “marry her there and then.” The selection of detail shows how in love with her he is, despite the fact that she is Luo’s girlfriend. Since she's Luo’s girlfriend, he stays loyal to his best friend and does not act upon his crush. Suddenly, the tone turns around and the seamstress says “about those books of his--what if we stole them?” This is completely out of the blue, and isn't something the seamstress would normally say. This selection of detail turns the passage around and introduces a new topic of conversation as well as brings upon a new side of the Seamstress. Overall, this experience he went through brought out his true feelings and revealed his character through examples of diction, tone, and selection of
...he irony of her words. Ultimately, the scene between Emma and Leon is just as fleeting as with Lemartine and M. Charles; their happy moments fade into something darker. Just as Emma cannot understand the importance of the words she sings, she does not understand the gravity of the moment she is in. Only the reader is aware of this depth, a depth achieved through the careful maneuvering of Flaubert.
As in the lines: “And for thy mother, she alas, is poor, which caused her thus to send thee out of door” (Academy of American Poets. Lines 23-24). She is clutching to a child that had to leave before she was set to let go. Bradstreet writes that she "washed" (Bradstreet. Line 13) the face of the book, meaning she made attempts at improving its appearance and content, but in "rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw," (Bradstreet. Line 15). The use of these metaphors describing her actions upon the book certainly personify the work as a child with an "irksome" (Bradstreet. Line 10) face and "hobbling" (Bradstreet. Line 16) legs that are metaphors also for the sequence of plot events. The last line contains both personification and metaphor as the child/book is sent out of the door, meaning it is put out for
In the poems “The Author to Her Book” by Bradstreet and “The Road Not Taken” by Frost, the themes share a similarity of their speakers’ lives. While Bradstreet focused on the speaker’s writing, Frost based his poem on the speaker’s choices in life. The main focus of “The Author to Her Book” is the writing referred to as her “Book” in the title and the speaker as the “Author”. The narrator’s work of literature are compared to a child through several metaphors. Bradstreet began with “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain”(Bradstreet) to show how the speaker compared the literature as her “offspring” that she gave “birth” or actually wrote and like a helpless child, stayed with her to be cared for. Therefore the speaker would continually review her writings flaws or “ill-formed” behavior. Anne Bradstreet focused her poem on writing literature through the speaker’s perspective of the countless imperfections. Robert Frost’s theme of “The Road Not Taken” is vaguely similar with the speaker’s life as the main focus. The speaker goes on with his life till h...
When we encounter the narrator addressing the problems faced by the artist, he notes that "the ingenuity of the first novelist" lay in the realization that a simplification of characters that corresponds to the "suppression" of "'real' people" inevitably makes novels stronger, more effective in conjuring a sympathetic response from a sensitive reader. "A 'real' person," he begins, profoundly as we may sympathize with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, he remains opaque, offers a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. (83)
Abrams, M.H. and Greenblatt, Stephen eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Abrams, MH, et al. Eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
During the time-period when they authored this essay, the commonly held notion amongst people was that “In order to judge the poet’s performance, we must know what he intended.”, and this notion led to what is termed the ‘Intentional fallacy’. However, Wimsatt and Beardsley argue that the intention, i.e., the design or plan in the author’s mind, of the author is neither available nor desirable for judging the success of a work of literary art. It is not available because the author will most certainly not be beside the reader when he/she reads the text, and not desirable because intention as mentioned already is nothing but the author’s attitude towards his work, the way he felt while writing the text and what made him write that particular piece of writing and these factors might distract the reader from deciphering the meaning from the text. This method of reading a text without any biographical or historical background of either the poem or the poet practiced by the New Critics was known as ‘Closed Reading’. This stemmed from their belief in the autonomy of the text.