Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Commentary Escape

The introduction given about the poem along with, the rhyme scheme, diction, and allusions Graves uses in this poem describe the experience of dying but coming back to life, and furthered tone.

Introduction
-"August 6, 1916.—Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R., Royal Welch Fusiliers.)"
- introduction gives the audience some information about the poem to guide the readers thoughts
- starts the reader off with the strangeness of dying and coming back to life
-from the description we also understand that it is an experience of his own

Rhyme
- AABBCCDD...
- Gives the poem a pattern (related to heart beat?)

Diction
-the diction furthers the idea that the narrator is dead
-Greek Mythology
-Christian
-Panic
-Medical

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Comparison of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "The General""

Authors

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" -Wilfred Owen
-"The General" - Siegfried Sassoon

Structure

Length & Breaks

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is short. It is 14 lines in total, with two stanzas. "The General" is also short. It is seven lines with two stanzas. Both are quite short poems which results from a very concise idea, in addition both are separated into two parts. However "Anthem for Doomed Youth" is more balanced between the stanzas while "The General" has a culminating single line stanza. Both of the final stanza however are smaller than the first stanza.

Rhyme

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" has a rhyme scheme, however it changes in the second stanza. In the first stanza it is ABABCDCD, but it changes to EFFEGG at the end. The final couplet helps wrap up the poem and at this point one of the larger ideas is described. "The General" has a more constant rhyme scheme. The entire poem is this ABABCCC. Like "Anthem for Doomed Youth" the final rhyme patter pulls the poem together and helps signal its close as well as emphasize the final idea presented. In "The General" the effect of the rhyming is that it makes the poem feel cheery which contrasts with the ideas presented. However the rhyming of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" does not have the same effect, it does however pull together some of the lines.

Allusions

"Anthem for Doomed Youth" alludes to religion. However when connecting to religion it is not in a very positive manner. EX: "No Mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells..." "holy glimmers of good-byes." "The General" alludes to a battle during WWI, the battle of Arras.

Top Ten Reasons You Want to be Jake

10. You enjoy finding flaws in others because you are that insecure
9. Bullfighting represents the dynamic relationship of your friends
8. Your favorite pass time hobby is writing news articles on your friends
7. You always have a ¨friend¨ who considers you a best friend
6. You spend time with people who are really just acquaintances
5. You abandon everything, including religion
4. You rarely have a hangover if you are always drunk
3. You don´t have a GPS for life – so you are always lost
2. You are a good shoulder to cry on for the ladies
1. Chicks dig battle scars

Created with Becca

Commentary "Trench duty"

Diction
  • Shows how awful the war was. Makes the tone sadder. Makes the audience feel how terrible the war was, and how fast situations changed (how fast things change can also be seen in how short the poem is, he wakes up and then someones dead)
  • Battle/war diction-"Trench," "Bombardment," "Raid," "Wire," "Sniper fire," "Killed," "dead,"
  • Violent/unpleasant diction- "Shaken," "numbed," "Gruff," "horror," "stiff and chilled"
  • Sudden changes "Gruff muttering voices" to "Big bombardment," and "I'm wide awake and some chaps dead"
Rhyme
  • Contrasts heavily with the diction of the poem, this makes how terrible the war was even worse because it is singsong-y.
  • AABBCCDDEFEFGG
  • This makes the poem sound like a children nursery rhyme
  • Makes it feel happy but the diction is horrifying and sad
  • Contrasts heavily with the poem
Title
  • "Trench Duty"
  • What soldiers have to do
  • Survive and live with death around them and so close to them

Comparison

When looking at "Greater Love" by Wilfred Owen and "Before the Mirror" by Algernon Swinburne one can see many similarities and differences.

Structurally
Before the Mirror is broken up into 3 major parts, while Greater Love does not have huge separation between lines. Greater love is broken into four parts how ever they flow more consistently than in Before the Mirror. Before the Mirror reflects the three paintings on exhibit while Greater Love is straight from his war experiences. Before the Mirror also has some other changes such as the beginning and the last sections beings narration almost while the center portion is being spoken. This suggests that the painting that the poem is being displayed with is the wife because the wife is the second and middle portion and refers to the woman in the mirror, namely herself.

Rhyme
While both use rhyme they are not the same. Before the mirror uses ababcccd pattern relatively consistently. Greater Love uses a aabbba pattern, which is interesting because this is a pattern developed by Swinburne.

Focus
Both focus on the differences between different types of love, while using different methods and discussing different types of love. Before the Mirror talks about the relationship with love of a mistress, wife, and prostitute. Greater Love talks about the difference between love that is required or part of an institution and love between brothers at war. Both display the differences between the different loves while both commenting that required or institutional love is not happy while other love is better.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Greater Love

Thesis:
Soldier have lost God
Soldiers have experienced violence unlike others who stayed at home
The people who stayed home don't and can't truly understand what they went through
Diction:
"God seems not to care;... Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude." - Lost God
Negative words used repeatedly - Sadness of the loss they feel
"Sings not so soft- .. wind murmuring through raftered loft" "Gentle, and evening clear..." - opposite of war, describing how they feel about God now that he has left them
"you may touch them not" - Can't understand what the soldiers have gone through
"Your hand be pale" - Grown old (people that did not go to war)
"you were never hot nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot" - the people that were full were those that went to war

Violence of war:
"Limbs knife-skewed"
"Eyes Blinded"
""
Greater Love:
Greater love better than that from god because he deserted them.
Now Greater love is more important and God is just wind in the rafters
Gods love is not longer strong has lost - "Lure" and other love has eclipsed it -"Kindness of wooed and wooer seems shame to their love pure."



Thursday, November 10, 2011

Memories

The poem “Repression of War Experiences” by Siegfried Sassoon talks about a man who is having trouble keeping the memories of war from taking over his life. The speaker, the different diction and several metaphors used in this poem enhance the tone of “Repression of War Experiences” to a point where the audience can really feel the man’s periodic panic and calm as he descends into madness.

In the poem “Repression of War Experiences” the speaker is a man who has obviously experienced war and is trying to repress it like the title suggests. Because the speaker is the man who is slowly losing it the audience experiences the raw emotion coming from the author about the pain that he is trying to repress. As a result of this onslaught of emotion the connection between the speaker and the audience is immediate and you are drawn into the poem further. As the speaker is struggling with the war experiences, it feels as if we are privy to his inner thoughts as he slowly deteriorates.

The diction in this poem changes between panicked diction and calm. The calm diction that is used gives that poem a calm that feels forced in a way because it is coupled with bursts of panic. The calm diction in this poem is predominantly in the beginning of each section. The calming diction in the first section is how they are short and not complex, “Now light the candles; one ; two…” This also appears to relax the man until the third line where the diction becomes more panicked as does the tone. The panicked diction is also darker as he begins to talk about “gagged,” going mad, “ugly thoughts,” “jabber.” All of these words make the reader feel as if the man is becoming panicked which is reflected in the tone and felt by the readers. Similar diction is used in the third section where the diction becomes more extreme. At the beginning of the third section the diction is quite calm as he focuses on the books being “jolly company” as well as “quiet and patient.” This word are quite calming as well as relatively happy, whereas near the end of the section “breathless air,” “ghosts,” “gnaw,” “ugly,” and “nasty” is darker diction as the tone of the poem gets darker and more frantic and the mad delves back into the painful memories.

The metaphors in this poem are quite interesting because the man first speaks about things literally and then suddenly flows into what they mean figuratively. For example, in the first section the Sassoon says that “Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth; what silly beggars they are to blunder in and scorch their wings with glory,” as he tells us that there is a moth he slowly trickles into its representation in the war. Because of this direct connection made by the speaker it is apparent that the war is not staying repressed as he wants it too, but rather pushing forward through common occurrences.

The tone in this poem is very important and it enhanced from many different places. The tone in “Repression of War Experiences” changes significantly throughout the poem. In the first few sections it appears to be calm to small bouts of panic and then to a forced calm that he struggles for. However by the last section of the poem it is apparent that he has slowly been losing the battle with his war memories and they are now coming back because it begins calm and reassuring and then jumps directly to extreme panic and madness.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Nonsense

"The Bough of Nonsense" by Robert Graves was written in reaction to WWI. More specifically Graves talks about the Battle of Somme. In this poem Graves talks about how immensity of the war and the damage it did, while also showing how sensitive the soldiers who did survive were afterwards. Grave achieves this predominantly through his use of imagery and metaphor.

The metaphors in "The Bough of Nonsense" emphasize the pain that the soldiers felt, and the also explain the causes of the pain. The main metaphor in the poem is that the war is nonsense in some sense. Because nonsense gives birth to “thirteen squamous young” the nonsense is negative and has caused destruction and pain. Also the “nest” that the creature has is made of “skulls and flowers,” these images help the metaphor of nonsense being war because war is focused on death, while flowers contrast with it. Further into the poem Graves introduces “temples” these temple represent different things. The first temple that is mentioned appears to describe the warfare and specifically the trench warfare, this is because the soldiers who went in seldom came back out like in the temple who “disappears from sight and leaves no trace.” The second temple appears to represent the people of authority deciding where to send soldiers. This is seen because they are first described as Galatians which are people far from where the two soldiers are at the moment. This means that Graves felt that the commanders were far away from the actual battles. And the temple built on sense was the strategies that they used against technology that made them obsolete. These changes in warfare in WWI were the walls of nonsense that held of the roof of logic. All of these references to temples generally appear to be negative, this is reflecting the feeling of many of the soldiers that felt that God had abandoned them. This feeling was a large part of what it was to be part of the lost generation.*

The diction in "The Bough of Nonsense" helps further the idea that the soldiers cannot handle the war and must push it back in their minds. However the imagery also makes it clear things that happened during the war and their effect on the soldiers. In the poem the contrasting diction makes it appear like they are actually speaking nonsensically. First they describe this impossible creature that is “hatching three eggs; and the next year… foaled thirteen squamous young…”. Because of the diction in this section we can begin to understand some of the nonsense that the soldiers are speaking. Firstly thirteen is traditionally an un-lucky number, and then the creature gives birth to scaled* young, reptiles traditionally have a negative connotation as well. Because of the diction we have a negative image. However the nonsense that the two soldiers speak in helps them keep the war at bay in their minds. This can be understood because the nonsense diction veils the war while first keeping it like a story but underneath telling the reader that the war was terrible. If we assume that some of the nonsense that they say directly relates to WWI and more specifically the Battle of Somme. The end of the poem also has some interesting diction that tells us that the author knows that the war isn’t over. “While phantom creatures with green scales scramble and roll among the trees,” displays that fear that the soldiers still have because war is still on the loose.

*"covered with or formed of squamae or scales." - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/squamous

*http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lost-gen.html


Thursday, November 3, 2011

Bulls and Steers

I think that the injured steer is supposed to represent Robert Cohn. This is because the gored steer does not "attempt to join the herd," and on top of that the "none of the other bulls came near him." From this we can see Robert because often Robert does not stay with the group, such as when we stays to wait for Brett instead of continuing with Bill and Jake. Further because the other bulls do not go to the steer this displays the attitude of the rest of Roberts "friends" toward him. While the other steer that stands with the other bulls is Jake. This is because Jake is accepted by his friends while still being a steer because of his impotence.