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Ralph waldo emerson and david thoreau similarities
Emerson and Thoreau similarities
Emerson and Thoreau similarities
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Discuss the relationship Walcott’s Poetry has with History. How is this demonstrated in his poetry? ‘I have Dutch, nigger and English in me, and either I am nobody, or I am a nation.’ This is a quote from ‘Shabine’, a Walcott persona. A central theme that runs through Walcott’s poetry is his search for identity. In many of his poems he focuses on an internal dissonance between established cultural heritage in his African, English and Caribbean ancestry in developing one that encompasses each one without disregarding another. He appears to be in constant pursuit of a feeling of atonement; one it seems he can only gain from returning to his pre-slave trade ancestors. Walcott also refers to the past so he can begin to understand and justify the context in which these events happen. ‘A Far Cry from Africa’ is one of Walcott’s poems that explore his feeling of identity where he explores how and if he can incorporate both African and English elements of his ancestry without feeling he has deserted either. Walcott experiences, what has been described as, ‘cultural schizophrenia’ when he explores his cultural roots. ‘The gorilla wrestles with the superman. I who am poisoned with the blood of both, where shall I turn, divided to the vein?’ His use of ‘poisoned with the blood of both’ suggests that he sees neither African or English heritage any better than the other and each representing polar opposite qualities, ‘gorilla’, being pure natural instinct, ‘superman’, signifying a superior intelligence and a kind of ‘mind over body’ mentality. The gorilla and superman wrestling could be taken in two different ways; Walcott verbalising his inner conflict, or he could be referring to the European colonisation of Africa in the late ninetee... ... middle of paper ... ...s taken with us after the fall, ‘which makes everyone guilty, or eve innocent.’ Eve is innocent because she did not know the consequences of her actions, but people today know that it is bad to betray gods law therefore making ‘everyone guilty’. This is perhaps Walcott’s attempt at justifying his promiscuous love of women; creating temptation as something unavoidable and innate within each of us or love as something that is above all rule. Walcott regularly refers to classical, biblical and slave trade history to justify previous events, gain a feeling of belonging and self from his heritage and to express his behaviour in ways people are already familiar with. His personal history is something he carries with him using it to create a sense of his own identity around it although he seems to harbour a huge amount of inner conflict in his contradictory heritage.
Poetry’s role is evaluated according to what extent it mirrors, shapes and is reshaped by historical events. In the mid-19th century, some critics viewed poetry as “an expression of the poet’s personality, a manifestation of the poet’s intuition and of the social and historical context which shaped him” ( Preminger, Warnke, Hardison 511). Analysis of the historical, social, political and cultural events at a certain time helps the reader fully grasp a given work. The historical approach is necessary in order for given allusions to be situated in their social, political and cultural background. In order to escape intentional fallacy, a poet should relate his work to universal
...did through his poems. Although the themes of slavery, past and longing were depicted in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poems, he provided a different aspect in each one; portraying ‘A Drowsy Day’ of a lonely reminiscent narrator, who was trapped in their confined home as well as their mind, being unable to escape from the constant swirl of memories. He uses ‘An Old Memory’ to convey the past as positive and full of hope, although disappointed by his present day, the past remained to have a ‘subtle charm’ – contrastingly in ‘Sympathy’, the poet describes the past as ‘cruel’, thus portraying it in a more dark and unwelcome light. Arthur Miller portrays the past as full of regret for Biff, but also of ambition for his father. All of these texts portrayed the past as a place where identity was stronger, however it could be argued that the past was where slaves had no identity.
As a final point, Phillis Wheatley may have been bought a slave but she never lost faith and ended up being one of the best known poets in the early nineteenth century. This poem illustrates how she was living in darkness in Senegal, West Africa and because of slavery she was bought and brought to America. In this poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Wheatley uses poetic devices such as similes, metaphors, hyperboles to illustrate color and darkness, multiple meanings of words, and the relationship between skin tone and salvation. This poem seems to be a narrative of her life and how slavery might have been the best thing that happened to her.
On Being Brought from Africa to America, Wheatley’s short poem reads powerfully. How could one possibly breeze past such a sharply positioned argument which directly places her race front and center?
Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential African American poets to gain a nationwide reputation. Dunbar the son of two former slaves; was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His work is truly one of a kind, known for its rich, colorful language, encompassed by the use of dialect, a conversational tune, and a brilliant rhetorical structure. The style of Dunbar’s poetry includes two distinct voices; the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn of the century black community in America. His works include a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels, and short stories. The hardships encountered by members of is race along with the efforts of African Americans to achieve equality in America were often the focus of his writings. http://www.dunbarsite.org/
Phyllis Wheatley's poem On Being Brought to America is an intimate and personal experience on being brought to America from her homeland of West Africa. The theory in which this paper focuses on is the pros and cons of Phillis Wheatley actually being brought to America, her pagan land, and in addition, the hardships that she faced being a female author in her time and age. From a feminist
...orld about the interpretation of “Black English”, but flaws in the execution of her publication could prevent her audience from grasping her claim. Her biggest problem is the pathos that oozes from the paper. Whether it is the use of outside comments or hybrid dialogue, the pathos could block the minds of literary scholars. The ethos that Smitherman tries to achieve through quotations and research does not work when the quotes are pathos-charged and are from irrelevant time period. The support to her claim that “Black English” should remain strictly to Black culture doesn’t make a lot of sense. It is illogical to think that the only solution is to stop correcting for the grammar of “Black English” and still keep it only amongst African Americans. Smitherman’s claim for better treatment of “Black English would be perceived far better without the strong use of pathos.
Wheatley’s poem, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” is part of a set of works that Henry Louis Gates Jr. recognized as a historically significant literary contribution for black Americans and black women (Baym et al. 752). Addressed to the Christians who participated in the slave trade, the poem is meant to reveal the inconsistencies between their actions and the Christian Ideal. Whether perceived as a work of sincerity or a work of irony, the poem conveys the message that an individual’s behaviors are influenced by the examples of others and that all people are equal. Understanding Phillis Wheatley’s intent in her poem, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” is gained by considering all of the aspects of her existence when analyzing her work and even though perception is based on individual perspective, analysis and explication will reveal the contrariety Phillis Wheatley observed between society and the Christian Ideal and evidence her desire for the dissolution of every inequality.
“Who am I?” (Thomas 415). Many ask themselves this relevant question in times of self-doubt or ambivalence. Leona Thomas asks this question in her essay entitled, “Black and White.” As the child of a black father and a white mother, Thomas finds herself in a racial dilemma. Society punishes Thomas for being “mixed.” Through the use of the literary techniques of pathos, logos, and inductive reasoning, Thomas effectively persuades the reader that society should look beyond one’s mixture. She shows that racial orientation should not determine how a person is perceived by society, and that the people in society should stop being racist to one another.
The clash between racial reality and idea is what is artistically shown in “on being brought from Africa to America”. Wheatley is a subtle rebel. At the beginning of her poem she shows thanks for being enslaved because it brought happiness to her life in finding Christianity, but as time goes by we start to see the true tone of Wheatley, which clearly show in the last two lines of the poem, now Wheatley begins to take a big position of power as if she already has the attention of the reader. Wheatley continues by saying that Africans may not be perfect but the Christians who enslave human beings aren’t
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
In the first part of my essay, I am going to write about Tatamkhulu Afrika?s poem, ?Nothings Changed?, in which he talks about the cultural difficulties of living in District Six, in this particular case, the difficulty of not being allowed to eat in a fancy restaurant and how this represents many aspects of their cultural existence. District Six had been under apartheid although it had now been lifted. Apartheid is a system of racial segregation and repression of non-white people in pre-democratic South Africa. The poem ?Nothing?s Changed? is wrote in first person, as it is personal to Tatamkhulu, in the sense that he is from South Africa and was once living in District Six with the apartheid in order. Afrika also writes this poem in first person as he thinks strongly about the topic, as he has been victim to racial abuse.
...struggle for dignity as a black person in the early/mid twentieth century. “Democracy” is a slightly stern and direct request to take action and fight for civil rights. “Theme for English B” is a compassionate and low-key personal anecdote that reiterates the unpracticed concept that “all men are created equal”. Despite the difference in tone and subject, all four poems relate to the central theme that dignity is something that white men may take for granted, but Langston Hughes, as a black man and a writer, sees and feels dignity as fight and a struggle that he faced and that the black community as whole faces every day.
This raises another question on how do we see blacks in Canada, in the Caribbean, in Germany and in Britain. In the essay written by Jaqueline Nassy Brown, Diaspora and Desire: Gendering “Black America” in Black Liverpool, she states, “That there is not actual space that one could call the African Diaspora…” (73). Brown argues “Diaspora” has become a buzzword for globalization discourse and that is commonly mapped space for racial formation (74). In addition, Brown contents gendered ideologies between black Liverpool and black America are social spaces that are experience, bridged, and traversed differently (75). Brown’s ethnographic research investigated black identity of black Liverpudlians beginning in World War II and the Civil Rights Movement in correlation to their relationship with black Americans. She point outs the sexist dynamics between black male and black female Liverpudlians. The black men who were predominately seaman relocated from Africa refuse to date black Liverpudlians women and married white English or Irish women. Their mulatto children produced from this union where called “half castes” (76) and struggled with their identity of blackness due to the fact their African fathers refuse to discuss Africa. Their experience and desire to understand blackness was much different from local black Liverpudlians. Interestingly, when black American GI’s came to Liverpool it created three geographical spaces: first, the introduction to black culture and music; second, the production of black hierarchy of black American GI’s; and lastly, the migration black Liverpudlians women marrying the GI’s to live the American Dream
Is this an apology or blame? In the beginning, God tells Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit. Adam disobeys God by doing so, but most people put the blame on Eve. In the poem, “Eve’s Apology,” Eve expresses her feelings toward the entire situation and shows how she is not to blame. She blames Adam for the pain we endure today. Eve eats from the forbidden tree out of curiosity. She wants to share it with Adam, so he can feel like she feels. Eve gives the fruit to Adam out of love, but she does not force him to eat it. Adam has control of his mind, so he disobeys God on his own. “Do not the thing that goes against thy heart” (Lanyer 424). Aemilia Lanyer, the author of the poem, “Eve’s Apology,” lived in the mid 1500’s and 1600’s. Living in this time period, had much influence on her writing. She published her landmark book, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, the same year that the King James Bible and three of Shakespeare’s plays were published (Wilhelm 424). Lanyer brings out the life of this poem with the poetic devices, irony, and unusual language.