Evaluating the quality of an author’s work can often be a topic that sparks argument or debate. What are the elements of writing that elevates an artist’s reputation from forgettable to notable? Is it the overall quality of the writing, or is it another factor entirely? This question is posed within the novel Swann by Carol Shields as the four protagonists display what an enormous influence the obscure Canadian poet Mary Swann has on their lives. Despite the fact that Mary Swann’s poetry never achieves technical perfection, her works can still be considered great due to the sheer impact her writing instills in its readers.
A good poet can make a reader stop and appreciate the words, but the reflection rarely lasts more than a moment and is
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Rose takes all Swann’s poetry at face value. During a discussion with Jimroy, who believes a poem about blood represents spirituality, she can’t help but continue to view the literal interpretation. “She was unable to utter the word menstruation” (Shields 185). However, even though Rose sees Swann as a regular, poor woman who wrote poems about her daily life, Mary Swann’s work still makes such an impact on Rose that she creates the “Mary Swann Memorial Room” (Shields 202), which she also single handedly runs. Although Rose runs the local library, she is far from a scholar in the same way Jimroy and Sarah are. Rose’s main reading pleasure lies with espionage novels, and she admits that “except for Mary Swann’s book, she has trouble understanding what [poetry] is about, and even with Mrs. Swann she isn’t always sure.” (Shields 170). The fact that Mary Swann has affected Rose is very significant, however. Even though Rose doesn’t read into the poems with the intention of finding hidden symbolism or deeper meaning, she is still deeply impacted by the poetry to a point where she simply can’t forget about Swann or her work. It is evident that Swann hasn’t only affected the scholars. Through Rose, it is shown that Swann has the power to remain with people who read her poems casually as
During the late romantic period, two of history’s most profound poets, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, emerged providing a foundation for, and a transition into Modern poetry. In its original form, their poems lacked the characteristics commonly attributed to most romantic poets of the mid to late nineteenth century who tended to utilize “highly stylized verses, having formal structures, figurative language and adorned with symbols” (worksheet). Unique and “eccentric use of punctuation” as well as “irregular use of meter and rhyme” were the steppingstones for this new and innovative style of writing (worksheet). Even though these two writers rejected the traditional approach, both remained firmly dedicated to their romantic idealism of the glass of water being “half full” opposed to “half empty.” Noted for his frequent practice of catalogs and parallelism, Whitman stirred up much controversy with his first edition of “leaves of Grass” in 1855. Many critics responded negatively to the ...
...us 75.1 (Jan. 1991): 150-159. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 58. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
Another factor that clearly brings out the theme is the fact that she claims that orderliness of family roses is her pride. However she may not necessarily be that orderly as depicted in the development of that story. The author of the story Shirley Jackson uses the author and her ambiguous cha...
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Fifth Edition. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, & Jon Stallworthy. Copyright 2005, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
...s to show the authors’ deep meaning. I always feel surprised and amazed when I read the poems which can takes advantages of the several words to either create a vivid picture in the readers’ mind or convey the deep meaning, or encourage people to do something meaningful and never waste the valuable time.A good poem should tell peoplesomethingimportant.
“: You hungry, Gabe? I was just fixing to cook Troy his breakfast,” (Wilson, 14). Rose understands her role in society as a woman. Rose also have another special talent as a woman, that many don’t have which is being powerful. Rose understands that some things she can’t change so she just maneuver herself to where she is comfortable so she won’t have to change her lifestyle. Many women today do not know how to be strong sp they just move on or stay in a place where they are stuck and unable to live their own life. “: I done tried to be everything a wife should be. Everything a wife could be. Been married eighteen years and I got to live to see the day you tell me you been seeing another woman and done fathered a child by her,”(Wilson, 33). The author wants us to understand the many things women at the time had to deal with whether it was racial or it was personal issues. Rose portrays the powerful women who won’t just stand for the
Writing is an ancient art, used from long ago to convey various characteristics, including entertainment, education, recording of history, critiquing and rebuking, writing revelations and many other purposes. There are various forms of writing, in which authors engage to put forth their feelings and intention. Additionally, history has many productive writers who made names for themselves through writing instinctively about various themes and issues. Among the writers who have revolutionized the art of writing is Flannery O’Connor, a dynamic woman who wrote her work from distinctive features and issues within the society (Gordon 31). Many lovers of her work indicate that she loved writing, and wrote from her heart, communicating clearly to her audience. Through her visible achievements, this is evidence of her success achieved through the art of writing.
Brooks, Cleanth, et al. Conversations on the Craft of Poetry. ("A transcript of the tape
Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. New York, New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2005. print.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
"Prose and Verse Criticism of Poetry." Representative Poetry On-line: Version 3.0. Ed. D. F. Theall. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. .
One thing that is very important in all forms of writing – not just poetry – is the description. When writing, an author should describe the setting and the characters thoroughly, in a way that resounds in the reader. All descriptions are written in hopes of putting an image into your head, and especially as sophomores, I believe that we are still learning how to write descriptions. Descriptions are not as easy as everyone thinks of them as – not a good description, anyway. I’ve read many descriptive sentences from peer grading essays and my trudge through numerous novels and short stories, and rarely do I find that descriptions really put an image into my head. Not to discourage the way teachers teach descriptive writing as I understand that if it’s difficult to so much as write a description, it should be very difficult to teach it.
To further appreciate the poem, it is necessary to understand the context of the poem and relevant
T.S. Eliot, in his The Metaphysical Poets, claims that it is a pity the poets since the seventeenth century have experienced a “dissociation of sensibility”, from which they have never recovered (Eliot 64). For Eliot, poetry is a union of opposites, the reconciliation of which needs a unified sensibility. By this sensibility, a poet can amalgamate desperate experiences, fuse into a single whole the varied and disparate, and synthesize the sensuous and the intellectual. This synthesis thus enables poetry to be widely read because humans are mentally chaotic. However, poets since the seventeenth century can either feel or think, and this poetic degradation to more elevated language but cruder emotions shackles the development of the modern poetry.