In the poem “The Names”, Billy Collins elaborates names throughout the night. Collins is illustrating people that died in the tragedy of September 11, 2001. This poem is complex, which is illustrated through personification, allusion, and imagery.
Collins use of personification is giving the night a human feature, to show complexity. The complexity of this poem is started off with, “palm of the night,” (1294). This quote shows that it’s the middle of the night, but it’s more complex due to the deeper meaning. The palm of a hand is in the middle of the hand, so when Collins says, “palm of the night,” (1294) which means this tragedy is waking him up in the middle of the night. There is some use of personification that can be unclear. “Names falling into place,” (1294) is another example of personification that Collins uses, but it is unclear because without reading the paragraph before the poem a reader would not know whose names are falling. Therefore, this quote is unclear to the reader. These quotes are illustrated by personification in order to show the complexity in this poem.
…show more content…
With Collins saying, “names printed on the ceiling,” (1294) it can be shown to be the ceiling in the room, but is it to show that maybe it’s the ceiling of the World Trade Centers that he’s seeing these names on as the buildings are falling. This quote carries different meanings. As well as, “names printed in the pale blue sky,” (1295) the allusion of this quote could be the next day and seeing the names or does he mean the day the tragedy happened as if he was standing there and saw the buildings fall and he is thinking of all that were in them. The allusions show to carry on the complexity due to deeper or different meanings within the
The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ...
In 102 Minutes, Chapter 7, authors Dwyer and Flynn use ethos, logos, and pathos to appeal to the readers’ consciences, minds and hearts regarding what happened to the people inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. Of particular interest are the following uses of the three appeals.
While on the surface Collins seems to want Emily Dickinson, with a close reading it becomes clear that he is actually obsessed with his mother. His displacement shows how he at least tries to hide is incestuous desires, while his anal retentiveness shows his wish to be in control. The indications that run throughout the poem reveal Collins’ true feelings, and his inability to hide them.
The fear of reading literature and not being able to comprehend the ideas presented forces readers to create a deeper meaning through annotations, as expressed through Billy Collins’ use of comparative imagery and aggressive diction in “Marginalia” and “Introduction to Poetry.” Collins’ choice to
Throughout literature and novels we can find authors who will reference history, other authors works and most often the Bible. One may ask themselves the reasoning behind allusions and how it can affect our perspective and the authors meaning when reading the novel. In the late sixties, Julia Kristeve, who studied the elements of literature and other communication systems, introduced the word “Intertextuality”. In Kristave’s essay “Word, Dialogue, and Novel” she went into deep analysis of an authors work and its text, “A literary work, then, is not simply the product of a single author, but of its relationship to other texts and to the strucutures of language itself. Any text," she argues, "is constructed of a mosaic of quotations; any text
Over the course of the cliffhanging story Billy Budd by Herman Melville, the author repeatedly uses biblical allusions to deepen the story and expand the reader's understanding of specific characters in the book. The author does this when he compares the character Billy Budd to Adam (before the fall) and even Jesus Christ to develop Billy as the quintessence of purity, perfection, and benevolence.
Born as William James Collins on March 22, 1941, to Katherine and William Collins in Queens, New York as an only child, Billy Collins grew up with an innate affinity for literature. Although he is now 73, Collins has not slowed down; he teaches as a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College, City University of New York with residencies at multiple universities around the country (“Billy Collins”). In 2001-2003, Billy Collins served as the US Poet Laureate for a total of two terms. With this office, he invoked a new program, “Poetry 180” designed to have poetry appeal high school students around the country. Collins, a teacher for over thirty years, uses his own experiences in the poem, “The History Teacher,” to create a teacher that is fully controlled by fundamentalist Christian Groups (Overview: ‘The History Teacher’).
The characters of the poem are also some very meaningful keys in showing the hidden meaning. The first stanza describes the crowd that has gathered to watch the enactment of our human lives. Lines three and four states "an angel throng, bewinged, and bedight in veils, and drowned in tears." Poe is stating that a group of angels is going to watch the spectacle put on for them, although they are already drowning in the tears from plays before. The orchestra that plays for them is another set of characters that have meaning. They represent the background in everyone's life by "playing the music of the spheres." A third set of characters that show hidden meaning is the "Mimes, in the form of God on high." They denote the people that inhabit the earth. Poe describes them as "Mere puppets they, who come and go at bidding of vast formless things." The vast formless things are the ideas that we have. Ideas like the things that we think we have to do for ourselves to survive and succeed. They also make up drama of the play. A final, prominent figure in this dramatic performance is the conqueror worm. Poe illustrates it as "a blood-red thing.
In conclusion, this whole poem has symbolic historic value because of its theme surrounding The Children’s March and The Birmingham Church Bombing. The author successfully brought the pain and impact the event made by taking Addie Mae Collins’ death. “He makes the sadness of an infamous tragedy vivid and heartfelt to everyone who reads it, whether they have connection to the tragedy or not.” (Devitt, 1) By approaching these
The Trouble with Poetry mainly focuses on time, whether it's actual time like; day and night or describing the atmosphere that is in his surroundings. Collins begins his poem with "walked along a beach.. cold Florida sand.." and ends with "poet of San Francisco.. treacherous halls of high school.." Possibly describing a time he has lived. His tone rotates throughout the poem expressing the pros and cons about poetry itself. He expresses sorrow in lines 1-24 wanting poetry to stop spreading almost like an act of selfishness, but his emotions shift in lines 25-47 to a positive tone referring to poetry being something he can escape to.
The literary journey that Collins takes his readers when they read his poetry instills an assortment of powerful emotions. While acting as the poet laureate for the United States of America in 2001, he was asked by congress to write a poem recognizing the attacks on 9/11. The name of the poem is called “The Names” and it provokes a sense patriotism, sadness, a...
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
For this assignment, I have decided to write about a famous poem of Billy Collins which is titled as ‘Introduction to Poetry’ written in 1996.
A name symbolizes what that person means and stands for. Renaming is an act of changing who you want the world to see you as. Naming and renaming is an important concept throughout Toni Morrison’s Beloved. A name is an identity that allows one to identify as a human being. A name is full of history, culture, and individuality. In Beloved, a name is both a source of freedom and a source of degrading history. Naming transforms and alters one’s future and history.
Regardless of the possibility that individuals couldn't see the reference, by utilizing the title "what's in a name", dislike a name for a story article, Gates call attention to his primary thought that bias and separation lies behind names. The writer utilizes an inquiry sentence to be a title, it appears like that writer didn't state precisely what is in a name and didn't give a response to the inquiry, however subsequent to perusing the entire exposition, everybody can give a response to the inquiry through their own