"though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth.
This was a really short poem but I liked it. I felt like it was one of those things that you read and you immediately try to see the deeper, philosophical meaning to it but as I read and thought about it, I thought the meaning was pretty simple. I figured that Yeats was just talking about the cycle of life and how a person grows and gains knowledge over time. He begins his poem with life and ends it with death. I believe the first part of the poem before the first semi-colon is talking about how a person may learn many different things but essentially they are still that person, who was once born knowing nothing. The next part is talking about how as children we learn many things unintentionally because our purpose is not to learn things but to just live and have fun. The last part is about dying, when we are younger we often cover the truth to make ourselves happy or to protect ourselves but I believe when we do we uncover many of those things and see certain things as they are. I read a couple analysis' of this poem and one pointed out something really interesting about the leaves and withering into truth. They said that they thought of the world as the tree and that each human being is a leaf on that tree, and they only have a certain amount of time to live before they wither away.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Disillusionment at Ten O'Clock
This poem was really confusing and I didn't like it all that much. I looked up some analysis' of this poem online to get an idea of what other people thought it was about and I agreed with some that said Wallace Stevens was talking about people are losing their ability to dream and to imagine. People get so caught up with their every day lives they forget about the dreams they once had and they forget to their goals to fulfill them.
The part where Stevens talks about the different colored night-gowns with different colored rings, he says the house is haunted by simple, plain white night-gowns and white is just ordinary, it's not exciting or imaginative, just plain. He also says, "None of them are strange," which is just saying once again that normalcy that many people accept.
I think the sailor, is a traveler that goes out and fulfills his dream. He uses a sailor because maybe not as much as today, but in earlier times, sailor's traveled the world, exploring and creating adventures. So the last part, "Catches tigers In red weather." is showing how a person willing to go out and accomplish their dreams are imaginative, and a little strange.
The part where Stevens talks about the different colored night-gowns with different colored rings, he says the house is haunted by simple, plain white night-gowns and white is just ordinary, it's not exciting or imaginative, just plain. He also says, "None of them are strange," which is just saying once again that normalcy that many people accept.
I think the sailor, is a traveler that goes out and fulfills his dream. He uses a sailor because maybe not as much as today, but in earlier times, sailor's traveled the world, exploring and creating adventures. So the last part, "Catches tigers In red weather." is showing how a person willing to go out and accomplish their dreams are imaginative, and a little strange.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Unveiling
"In the cemetery a mile away from where we used to live my aunts and mother, my father and uncle lie in two long rows almost the way they used to sit around the long blanked table at family dinners, And walking beside the graves today, down one straight path and up the next, I don't feel sad for them, just left out a bit as if they kept from the kind of grown-up secret they used to share back then, something I'm not quite ready yet to learn."
When I first read this poem I pictured it as a young girl walking in a cemetary looking at all the graves of her past family members and thought it was weird when it said she didn't feel sad but as I thought about it more I thought it could have been an old woman who has lived most of her life already and has a family of her own. Her walking in the cemetary, just visiting the graves of her already passed family members not because they died too early but because it was there time and she is just remembering the family dinners when she was a little girl and how when your little and your family won't tell you certain things because you're too young. So the last line, "I'm not quite ready yet to learn." It is talking about death, she is not quite ready to pass on and be with her family members but just like when you get older and you learn those things that your family wouldn't tell you when your younger, she will eventually die.
When I first read this poem I pictured it as a young girl walking in a cemetary looking at all the graves of her past family members and thought it was weird when it said she didn't feel sad but as I thought about it more I thought it could have been an old woman who has lived most of her life already and has a family of her own. Her walking in the cemetary, just visiting the graves of her already passed family members not because they died too early but because it was there time and she is just remembering the family dinners when she was a little girl and how when your little and your family won't tell you certain things because you're too young. So the last line, "I'm not quite ready yet to learn." It is talking about death, she is not quite ready to pass on and be with her family members but just like when you get older and you learn those things that your family wouldn't tell you when your younger, she will eventually die.
Friday, November 5, 2010
A Work of Artifice
"The bonsai tree in the attractive pot could have grown eighty feet tall on the side of a mountain till split by lightning. But a gardener carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he whittles back the branches the gardener croons, It is your nature to be small and cozy, domestic and weak:". I really liked this poem, I thought it was a great metaphor for women in time periods such as the fifties or before then. Like the bonsai tree a woman could become a great neurosurgeon, a forensic anthropologist, or a writer but in those times periods men or society told them they had to be the housewife and be, "domestic and weak," just like the gardener made the great bonsai tree into something small and weak.
The next line in the poem I felt continued with the metaphor of how women should be, "how lucky, little tree, to have a pot to grow in. With living creatures one must begin very early to dwarf their growth." Such as in the book we are reading, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', a husband, the provider for his wife felt that she should be grateful and happy that he has provided a place for her to live in. He provided a house and food so why shouldn't his wife be happy? Just like Janie's husband Jody expected her to be happy with the things he provided her and to just grow in her little pot and he would trim and prune her until she was the way he wanted her to be. The second sentence about dwarfing the tree's growth early is how a woman's mother taught her how she was supposed to act and be just like Janie's grandmother did. Girls learned from an early age of how they were supposed to be and how the were not supposed to question it.
"the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers, the hands you love to touch," the bound feet in this part of the poem reminded me of that old Chinese tradition of bounding a girl's feet to make them small because small feet was seen as beautiful which is another example of how women were forced to look and be a certain way. The crippled brain and hair in curlers represents that mentality that beauty not brains or be beautiful not natural because a woman will only be happy and loved if she is beautiful. The very last part I wasn't too sure about. I thought it might still be talking about a woman, and perhaps dancing, when she is dainty and beautiful then men would love to take her out and dance. I also thought it might be representing how a woman was dependant on a man so much, so, "the hands you love to touch," is the woman reaching out and looking for that man that will support her and provide for her.
The next line in the poem I felt continued with the metaphor of how women should be, "how lucky, little tree, to have a pot to grow in. With living creatures one must begin very early to dwarf their growth." Such as in the book we are reading, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', a husband, the provider for his wife felt that she should be grateful and happy that he has provided a place for her to live in. He provided a house and food so why shouldn't his wife be happy? Just like Janie's husband Jody expected her to be happy with the things he provided her and to just grow in her little pot and he would trim and prune her until she was the way he wanted her to be. The second sentence about dwarfing the tree's growth early is how a woman's mother taught her how she was supposed to act and be just like Janie's grandmother did. Girls learned from an early age of how they were supposed to be and how the were not supposed to question it.
"the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers, the hands you love to touch," the bound feet in this part of the poem reminded me of that old Chinese tradition of bounding a girl's feet to make them small because small feet was seen as beautiful which is another example of how women were forced to look and be a certain way. The crippled brain and hair in curlers represents that mentality that beauty not brains or be beautiful not natural because a woman will only be happy and loved if she is beautiful. The very last part I wasn't too sure about. I thought it might still be talking about a woman, and perhaps dancing, when she is dainty and beautiful then men would love to take her out and dance. I also thought it might be representing how a woman was dependant on a man so much, so, "the hands you love to touch," is the woman reaching out and looking for that man that will support her and provide for her.
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