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Metaphor is pervasive and universal in everyday life, not only in language but also in thought and action; our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of...
The metaphor essay
The metaphor essay
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Paul Simon’s The Sound of Silence
A poem, like all other works of art, may appear as an inter-subjective truth, an intricate thread of images, a surreal yet realistic expression, and as a “creative fact” according to Virginia Woolf. In canon literature, a good poem is usually that which has fine structure, imagery, meaning and relevance; an art, which has sprung out not only of personal necessities but out of socio-cultural quagmires. Paul Simon’s The Sound of Silence transcends the mediocre. It creates a bombarding mood that runs through the whole text, thus, transforming the readers to a reality it is presenting.
The poem starts with the use of a device called apostrophe (a figure of speech where one talks to or addresses an inanimate object). Here the “I” persona talks to his “old friend.”
Hello darkness my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
Within the Sound of Silence
Apparently, this is not the first time that the speaker talks with his “old friend,” darkness. He had had “talks” with it since a time unspecified, suggesting a perpetual moments of seclusion by the speaker. Talking with silence would mean solitude, loneliness if not ennui. The reason for this resort to solitude was a vision that keeps on bothering him. He was looking for solace which he found being alone; no one seems to understand Him. Here we can see him regressing—a defensive reaction of the human psyche to flounce away, by retreating to earlier stages of life, a threatening stimuli, which in this case is the vision. The “seeds” that was bequeathed to him while unaware symbolize a burgeoning message that will soon sprout in the “fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). Nevertheless, it was still imprisoned “within the sound of silence.”
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestones
Beneath a halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light,
That split the night
And touched the Sound of Silence.
The speaker dreams of escape from this listless weariness brought about by the creeping vision. He walked the “narrow streets of cobblestones,” symbolizing oppression as was suggested by the narrowness of a street made up of cobblestones, indicative of it’s ancientness, or the “old ways.
Each literary work portrays something different, leaving a unique impression on all who read that piece of writing. Some poems or stories make one feel happy, while others are more solemn. This has very much to do with what the author is talking about in his or her writing, leaving a bit of their heart and soul in the work. F. Scott Fitzgerald, when writing The Great Gatsby, wrote about the real world, yet he didn’t paint a rosy picture for the reader. The same can be said about T.S. Eliot, whose poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” presents his interpretation of hell. Both pieces of writing have many similarities, but the most similar of them all is the tone of each one.
Michael Gray’s analysis of Dylan’s lyrics being a contrast between hackneyed expressions and “beautifully done” are exemplified in the song “Just Like a Woman.” Dylan’s lyrics “she aches just like a woman but she breaks just like a little girl” is given the harsh description of “maudlin platitude” and deemed to be a “non-statement.” If Dylan’s lyrics cannot uphold against meaningful music of the same category, how can they be expected to stand against literature written for a different field. John Lennon had his own critiques of Dylan’s works, calling out how the abstract nature of his lyrics, having loose definition, never achieved an actual point. Lennon’s definition of “poetry” referred to “stick[ing] a few images together” and “thread[ing] them” in order to create something meaningful. It once again boils down to the fact that Dylan’s music that was written and intended to be received as a live performance. The acknowledgement that “…you have to hear Dylan doing it” is a recognition of his composition’s failure to come across as a normal literary work. It’s all part of a “good game.” This in itself should disqualify Dylan as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize.
... a private matter: "all who heard" and "all should cry." It is a collective enchantment with the poet at the center of it. The magic of the final spellbinding lines -- beyond explication -- is based partly on abracadabra incantation ("Weave a circle round him thrice") and our corporate recollections of holy visionaries. The poet compels the vision of the public, but at the same time he is an outcast among them -- untouchable and even cursed ("his flashing eyes, his floating hair!") by his gift. The lines become completely suggestive in their wild blend of holiness, sensuality, prophecy, and danger. The poet and poem have have become their own "miracle of rare device," and the reader has borne witness to the creative miracle.
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 reader to think in a different mindset. By creating this mindset Hughes and Brooks communicate thousands of years of black history as the speaker of “The Weary Blues” has the singers blues echo through his head so too do we have the weary thoughts of generations past echo through ours. Their creative use of words creates connection between performer and audience through the style of communication. Hughes doesn’t just use the grief of the singer’s lyrics; he uses the moan of the piano to express sorrow. Brooks doesn’t just ponder the life choices of the young boys; she forces the reader to think from their point of view. Brooks creates a connection between the speaker and the reader through the style of communication. By using these styles Hughes and Brooks prove that creating connections is less about what is said and more about the music that drives the poetry.
Before delving any deeper into this poem and its meaning, a few basic questions must be answered first. I believe the speaker to be William Blake himself. I am able to infer this from the repeated use of the pronoun “I.” Thought the course of the poem, the speaker’s temperament changes. At the start of the poem the speaker ...
Immediately upon launching Campbell’s electronic poem, a metallic, incessant noise assaults the ears (Campbell). To describe it as “background music” is sanctimonious to the idea of music, as the word, “droning” better suits the auditory component of the poem. As a result, however, the audio creates a cold, alien, and electronic tone that is carried through out the rest of the poem (Campbell).
Sound Devices help convey the poet’s message by appealing to the reader’s ears and dr...
Though most of the poem is not dialogue, from what little speaking there is between the...
The poem begins with a first person view. It appears as if the “I” in the first line prepares the reader to step into Weld’s shoes (Grimke). In addition
..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
The youth of today are more likely to have a favourite song rather than a favourite poem. Although the feelings and hidden meanings expressed in songs are often unacknowledged by the listener, they often have qualities that resemble those of a typical poem. These qualities include word choice, mood, hidden meanings and imagery. Using the songs “Luka” by Suzanne Vega, and “April Come She Will” by Simon and Garfunkle, I am going to prove that songs can be considered a form of modern day poetry.
To begin, the sound of this poem can be proven to strongly contribute an effect to the message of this piece. This poem contains a traditional meter. All of the lines in the poem except for lines nine and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of eight syllables. This is relevant in order for the force of the poem to operate dynamically. The poem is speaking in a tenor of veiled confessions. For so long, the narrator is finally speaking up, in honesty, and not holding back. Yet, though what has been hidden is ultimately coming out, there is still this mask, a façade that is being worn. In sequence, the last words in each of the lines, again, except for lines nine and 15, are all in rhythm, “lies, eyes, guile, smile, subtleties, over-wise, sighs, cries, arise, vile...
The "I"-voice sees himself as a good spirited person. He is obviously worried because a person he cares about is shutting him out. He thinks that his "neighbor" is of a dark disposition. "He is all pine and I am apple orchard", the poem says. Pine is a dark tree while apple trees have white flowers.
The New Critics, just like Wimsatt and Beardsley put forward in their essay, also believed in the ‘organicity’ of the text. In the essay, they write, “A poem should not mean but be.” And, since the meaning of the poem or the text is the medium through which it can exist, and words, in turn, is the medium through which the meaning is expressed, the poem or the text b...