Research Paper
;Inside the Gray Flannel Suit
Rationalists, wearing square hets,
hink, in square rooms,
sp;Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling,
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses-
As for example, the ellipse of the half moon-
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
"Six Significant Landscapes" (Collected Poems p.73-75)
Wallace Stevens is considerd one of the most important poets of this century. His style was unique and diffrent. The way he used words to optain the reality of something that can't be touched, is an amazing and brilant talent. Stevens was a very successful lawer and business man as well as a great peot. We usually think of peots and artists as "starving artists." Stevens was a very accommplished lawer and was still able to write beautifull peotry. His peoms useually contadicted his lifestile, but that might be were he got his insperation. He had a wife, family, and career, he had a very queit lifestyle. But, his peotry is very loud and abstract.
Wallace Stevens was born in 1879, in Reading, Pennsylvania. As a child, he started out at parochial schools, and later enrolled in public schools. Wallace's parents encourage him to read, which helped him become a better writter. In school, Wallace was an excellent student.
After high school, he continued his education at Harvard University, where
he became involved with two Harvard newspapers, first the Advocate and then
the Harvard Monthly. After leaving college, he moved to New York City. He worked as a journalist, and considered a literary career. But, his father encouraged Stevens to become a more practical career in the law business. He worked as a lawyer for a few years in New York. He worked at different firms and then at the Fidelity and Deposit Company. He finally
settled at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, where he became the vice president for the rest of his life.
It was like Stevens led two separate lives, one of a business man and one as a poet. Stevens himself once said in a New York Times interview, "I prefer to think I'm just a man, not a poet part time, business man the rest. This is a fortunate thing, considering how inconsiderate the ravens are. I don't divide my life, just go on living." Many of Stevens' fans are often surprised when they learn of Stevens' life as a business man.
As mentioned earlier, Wallace Stevens' work reflected his life in many
No one really knows for sure about William Wallace’s childhood, since he didn’t become famous until later in life. It is believed that he was born some time in the 1270s. His family wanted him to have a good education, so as a child he was sent to France, to study. While he was away, the English were attacking the southern part of Scotland, and killing off Scots.
Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20th 1978. Sinclair grew up in a broken household; his father was an alcohol salesman and killed himself drinking. While his mother would not even think about drinking alcohol. So these personalities naturally clashed. So Sinclair found some solace in books, Sinclair was a natural writer and he began publishing at the young age of fifteen years old. Sinclair started off going to school at a small college by the name of New York City College. This was just temporary as Sinclair would need time and money to move higher up to a form of better education. So as a result Sinclair took the initiative and he started writing columns on ethnic jokes and hack fiction for small magazines in New York. The money he earned writing these columns allowed him to completely pay for New York City College, and eventually enroll to attend Columbia University. Sinclair worked as hard as he possibly could to get into Columbia University and he was going to do the absolute best he could while he was attending the University. Since Sinclair needed ex...
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
After graduation in 1920, he went to Mexico to teach English for a year. While on the train to Mexico, he wrote the poem “the Negro Speaks of Rivers”, which was published in the June 1921 issue of The Crisis, a leading black publication. After his academic year at Columbia, he lived for a year in Harlem, embarked on a six-month voyage as a cabin boy on a merchant freighter bound for West Africa. After its return, he took a job on a ship sailing to Holland.
The Poet is about a search for a serial killer that the FBI names “The Poet” due to this person’s signature of forcing the victims to write suicide notes in the form of a quote from Edgar Allen Poe. Jack McEvoy, a newspaper reporter from Denver, is the brother of a victim who was killed by the Poet. In an attempt to avenge his brother’s death McEvoy, and the FBI, form a nation-wide manhunt in search of this cunning illusive killer.
...s work was always rich and full of details, complex contradictions. He appreciated everyone in his years of life. His most favorite thing while writing books and essays and poetry was using words to force his readers to rethink their own lives and obstacles creatively. He always spent his life rethinking his past and future actions, thoughts, asking questions to get a better understanding of concepts. He loved to look to nature for greater intensity and meaning for his life.
This very equality is what keeps all societies affecting each other’s individual freedom. For Wallace Stevens this is a nightmare and wishes he can escape outside the box; whereas for Walt Whitman this is a blessing to be connected in such a spiritual way and know that connection between on another will never fade. Regardless of the difference in views the fact remains that both these poems have given proof that the environment around you will always play a key role in the freedom you experience.
...Lowell and he may have been a bit crazy from the alcohol abuse but his writing has impacted everyone. His themes are used wonderfully, and he has mastered the art of poetry through his different and intriguing dark gothic genre.
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. As a boy, he grew up in a farming community, and worked on ranches. At the age of fourteen, he decided that he wanted to become a writer. He went to Stanford University, but w...
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
Then, started doing numerous jobs after that; he lost his main job by stamping goods that were suppose to be examined but weren’t. His first wife died after less then a year of marriage, and he was separated from his second wife after three years. Throughout this time he found himself going thru scandals. He landed a job in Philadelphia as a journalist making a name for himself first for a spokesman against slavery and then as the anonymous author of Common Sense.
Abraham Lincoln enjoyed reading much more than the usual working on the farm. This is where he got most of his knowledge. In the 1830’s, the Lincolns moved to Illinois where Abraham lived until 1837. In Illinois, he worked as a postmaster, a storekeeper, and he served in the Black Hawk War in 1832.
William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, as the oldest of four sons of Murray Charles Faulkner and Maud (Butler) Faulkner. While he was still a child, the family settled in Oxford in north-central Mississippi. Faulkner lived most of his life in the town. About the age of 13, he began to write poetry. At the Oxford High School he played quarterback on football team and suffered a broken nose. Before graduating he dropped out school and worked briefly in his grandfather's bank.
That is truly an amazing feat; he would just walk around looking at things and a poem would come into his head. He would write these entire inspirational poems in his head and didn’t even think that it was unusual. The best poet of the 20th century did not write rough drafts!
...he refreshing presence of a man and a writer who was entirely himself and who loved nature and his fellow men.” Today, many young and old Americans might not be familiar with the name Walt Whitman, but his influence on American society and culture remain. With his influence on the ideas and styles of writers following him, his legacy and influence will continue to endure.