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on poetry and history
on poetry and history
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Carl Sandburg's Use of Allusion in "Grass"
Carl Sandburg's short poem "Grass" represents a metaphor for the disguise of history. The persona tells how histories that have taken place are sooner or later disregarded. The persona tells that the histories should not be disregarded, but be left the way it is as cited in the poem "I am the grass .Let me work." People should notice the events that took place and learn from their mistakes and be better people. The places that are mentioned in the poem are allusions. The allusions are indirect references that Carl Sandburg utilizes to exhibit the seriousness of the past events.
Every place that is mentioned in the poem is a well-known bloody fight in wars that claimed many lives. The opening stanza of the poem is a command from the grass to soldiers at war in Austerlitz and Waterloo to kill as many people as they can and shovel them under the grass so that it has enough history to pile under itself and wipe out all the marks of combat. Austerlitz is a village where on Dec. 2, 1805; Napoleon escorted an outnumbered French army to vic...
The first line of the last stanza “Therefore,” suggest that previous ideas of physical need and despair provide a telling prelude to the fate of the children. The following lines “their sons grow suicidally beautiful at the beginning of October…” are further telling to their destiny. As aforementioned, the phrase “suicidally beautiful” and the setting of October are indicative of a period of death and decay. Following this notion, is the line “And they gallop terribly against each other’s bodies” which literally takes the poem back to the football game, but also symbolizes the struggle of the sons. They “gallop terribly” denoting an uncontrollable rapid progression, and are doing so “against” one another as if attempting to be the hero the community dreams about. However, just as the poem begins with the setting of the stadium and ends with their struggle, their lives are ultimately determined by a cycle of poverty beginning with the idealization of a hero, failure to provide the family, and hope for the child just like the “proud fathers” in the stadium. However, the chances of escape are extremely
...are a repeat of the title, and also and added line to clarify the actual meaning of the poem. Owen mocks the idea of war being an honorable and nationalistic way to support ones country as he describes a situation in which death is detailed in gruesome detail. This poem is harsh, yet effective in displaying the acts of war and the affect the it has on all of the people involved, especially the foot soldiers who served in the front line, the trenches.
trumpets do not call. The poet is trying to make the start of war a
During this time in the poem, he gives beautiful metaphorical imagery, comparing the grass to other things and illustrating a better idea of what the grass is. Also during this speculation period, the wording becomes denser, as the ideas become complex. Whitman moves from the single-lined "childish" voice, into the adult stage of the poem. Here, he becomes surer of what the grass is and does less guessing. Around line 101, Whitman starts toward the turning point in the essay, describing the death aspect of the grass. Words like "dark" change the mood of the poem to a slower, sadder state. At line 110, the poem takes a sudden change and reads much quicker. It changes into a kind of argument and Whitman speaks more affirmatively. Now it seems as if he has been enlightened and understands what the grass is. The feeling of death changes to life and darkness changes to light.
On the surface the poem seems to be a meditation on past events and actions, a contemplative reflection about what has gone on before. Research into the poem informs us that the poem is written with a sense of irony
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
Through reading this poem several times I decided that the message from the poem is that war is full of horror and there is little or no glory. Methods which I found most effective were Full rhyme and metaphor.
At first glance the poem may appear to have no purpose other than the, describing the hash Australian outback, but the last two lines suggest some additional significance. The poet shows that this simple, pleasant memory and how it re-in-acts his childhood. The way in which the windmills squeaks and groans to bring water from the ground whereas during the period of rain they work in harmony, as the rain comes down.
...ntion of memories sweeping past, making it seem that the grass is bent by the memories like it is from wind. The grass here is a metaphor for the people, this is clear in the last line, “then learns to again to stand.” No matter what happens it always gets back up.
There are many things in this world that are impossible to understand without first hand experience.This can be especially irritating for people who have the knowledge, but see everyone else with the wrong idea. Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen show this in their poems about the common misconception of war glorification. Through imagery and the use of similes, they explain what it's really like for a person to go into battle. To outsiders, fighting in war is a noble cause worthy of envy and praise, but from the inside perspective the only thing war does is take away the innocence of
...e who are killed at war were usually buried at the battle field in which they died in. Whitman wrote, “I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket, And buried him where he fell.” (25) Overall, Whitman does a great job of portraying the honest brutality and depressive nature of war, especially the Civil War, where it was a battle between countries. The personification of the Civil War was a great touch and a fitting addition to Whitman’s poem. The gloom of the war and subject matter of course, offered the reader a glimpse of what was to come of the narrator. The war gave every soldier the stark feeling of hopelessness at times, though the bonds they made with each other were what got them through the rigors of war. Now that the narrator’s comrade was dead, the poem’s tone gave the idea to the reader that the soldier had little to fight for.
Carl Sandburg’s Use of Literary Devices Carl Sandburg has been captivating reader’s attention since his first published poem in 1920’s(Baym 763). Sandburg understood the powerful use that literary devices play in literary works. He was known for using these devices to connect with readers, and implementing deeper themes into his works. He is one of the most famous poets for using these techniques. Nina Baym wrote that “Sandburg believed that the people themselves, rather than a cadre of intellectuals acting on behalf of the people, would ultimately shape their own destiny”(763).
One of the most repeated symbols in this poem is the image of the hill. It is repeated in four stanzas. In the first stanza of the poem, the hill is mentioned as “the ideal of Virginia brochured with goldenrod and loblolly” (2-3). This hill is specifically in Virginia and is the image looks like something that is on a brochure with beautiful nature. The hill is mentioned again in the second stanza: “It is a certain hill the one I imagine when I hear the word “hill”...and this hill would be still beautiful” (1-2, 5-7). There is an obvious image of a hill that the persona is depicting. Hills in general have a top and a bottom. I believe that the hill in this poem represents the ups and downs of the persona’s life and how the persona depicts the hill as beautiful lends to him being optimistic about life. Berman writes about the hill again in the fifth part of the poem: “The hill out my window is still looking beautiful suffused in a kind of gold national park light” (300-301). The last mention of the hill is in the twenty third stanza the first two lines read: “I walked out of the hill behind our house which looks positively Alaskan today”. The hill is now mostly covered with snow due to the Alaskan mention. You cannot tell what the hill looks like with the snow covering it, which represents how the persona feels about his life. Another symbol is the persona’s dogs. Dogs are normally symbolized as being kind and loving animals, a man’s best friend. The second stanza of part five is: “I’m watching my dog have nightmares, twitching and whining on the office floor and I try to imagine what beast has cornered him in the meadow where his dreams are set”. This stanza represents that the persona as a young person. The persona feels that he has not lived out his dreams yet, but he cannot achieve them because he is not happy. The dog is again mentioned: “but I was with our young dog and he was running through the tall grass like running
Chaos and drudgery are common themes throughout the poem, displayed in its form; it is nearly iambic pentameter, but not every line fits the required pattern. This is significant because the poem’s imperfect formulation is Owen making a statement about formality, the poem breaks the typical form to show that everything is not functioning satisfactorily. The poem’s stanza’s also begin short, but become longer, like the speaker’s torment and his comrades movement away from the open fire. The rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD is one constant throughout the poem, but it serves to reinforce the nature of the cadence as the soldiers tread on. The war seems to drag on longer and longer for the speaker, and represents the prolonged suffering and agony of the soldier’s death that is described as the speaker dwells on this and is torn apart emotionally and distorts his impressions of what he experiences.
... the faces of the dead and dying, pierced the joyful heart that was Walt Whitman. These experiences Lead to a new book of poetry added to “Leaves of Grass”. “Drum Taps,” contains 43 poems of the glory and tragedy of war. When before he wrote of voices singing in unison, he now questioned, would this song of unity be stifled forever? “Year that trembled and reel’d beneath me! Your summer wind is warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me, A thin gloom fell through the sunshine and darken’d me, Must I change my triumphant song? said I to myself, Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled? And sullen hymns of defeat?(Leaves of Grass, 261)