Waking. - раздел Образование, Сучасна література країн, мова яких вивчається When A Poem Takes Dead Aim On The Eternal We Should Not Be Surprised That It ...
When a poem takes dead aim on the eternal we should not be surprised that it draws many interpretations. Neal Bowers sees the key to the cryptic opening lines of The Waking, and consequently to the entire poem, as a matter of grammar. If you read “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow” as a prepositional phrase rather than an infinitive, Bowers writes, then sleep becomes a condition, not a process, and therefore a kind of revelation or understanding (51−53). The conclusion that sleep is an awakening is true enough, but it does not account for the mystical use of the paradox that informs the poem, where sleeping and waking, living and dying, dissolve into the vision of oneness with the universe. Jay Parini perceives The Waking as evidence of the poet’s “steady movement toward self-transcendence on ‘the long journey out of the self’ ” (173). Richard Allen Blessing describes The Waking as “a world in process about a world in process” (223). This is more metaphor than statement and perhaps the only way to approach the vision of Roethke’s poem. Both Parini and Blessing sense the mystical nature of the poem. Neither, however, shows precisely how it comes about.
Roethke’s The Waking, is a villanelle, an elaborate, fixed form of five tercets and a quatrain. The villanelle is built on only two rhymes, with the two key lines of the first stanza alternately repeated as the last line of each tercet and joined together in the closing quatrain. The two key lines of the poem are “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow” and “I learn by going where I have to go.” The repetition of these lines gradually unfolds the meaning of the poem. The lines weave in and out through this short poem like an incantation. We follow the movement of waking and going, waking and going, until we feel like a leaf caught in the current of the lines and the words. Where the actual lines are not repeated, the sound pattern takes over. Except for three halfrhymes, the vowel sounds of “wake” and “go” and “fear” carry us from verse to verse, echoing the central lines in every single line of the poem. The end-stopped lines enforce the rhyme, which slows the movement only to heighten the circular sound pattern of assonance and interlocking rhyme. This effect leads us from one verse to the next in a kind of endless movement that suggests the perpetual cycle from birth to death. It is hard to imagine another form that would express this cyclical movement more effectively than the villanelle.
The meaning of the key lines of the poem adds definition to the sense created by the poem’s form. Waking to sleep, and learning by going where you have to go are both paradoxes. A paradox is a statement containing two diametrically opposite ideas, such as sleeping and waking, that ultimately join together in one meaning. The effect is circular, like traveling east as far as you can go to reach the west. Because the poem is built on a series of paradoxes, the meaning of the poem becomes as circular as its sound pattern. The effect of a circular form and a circular content adds to the mystical nature of the poem. The circle is the ultimate mystery of our lives. As the poem develops, however, the meaning of the paradoxes becomes clear.
The first verse establishes the central paradox: “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.” The precise meaning, at this point, is not clear. The next line, “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear,” is another paradox. Normally, we fear fate because it is unknown, because it cannot be felt or anticipated. By feeling fate rather than fearing it, you accept it rather than resist it. The last line of the tercet unifies the stanza’s meaning. To learn by going means to move without a specific goal, simply accepting “where [you] have to go,” which is your fate. Now the first line becomes clearer. Sleep becomes the state that the poet must reach to awake and discover this acceptance. The multilayered meanings of “wake” and “waking” can now be unraveled. Being awake is normally a more conscious state than being asleep. But in the poem, being awake is the unenlightened, pedantic state in which only logic guides us. Here is the paradox. To sleep is to acquire the vision that releases us from the involvement of our intellect and helps us drift into the acceptance of our fate. To “take my waking slow” may have at least two meanings. First, it is the speaker’s reluctance to move back from the visionary experience (sleep) into the ordinary world of the intellect, that is, to wake up slowly in the ordinary sense. As the poem develops, the visionary sense of the phrase becomes more and more dominant. To wake up slowly is to become slowly more aware of the full sense of the visionary experience, as we drift from the myopic intellectual world to the visionary world of the spirit, where we become at one with the eternal force. This is the kind of complexity that runs through the poem.
The second stanza rejects the intellect as the road to enlightenment. To “think by feeling” is another paradox. The poem asks, “What is there to know?” The implied answer is that there is nothing “to know.” Life can only be felt. From here it is one short step into ecstasy: “I hear my being dance from ear to ear.” The fusion of the senses of sight and sound and the sensation of one’s being throbbing to the rhythm of life dissolves into the repetition of the first line of the poem. This time there is no ambiguity in the meaning of this line. Waking to sleep is to dissolve into the trance. We are a part of the visionary experience.
The vision continues into the next stanza. Of “those so close beside me,” he asks − friend or lover, alive or dead, it is difficult to say − “Which are you,” the waking or the sleeping? Again Roethke plays with the paradoxical meanings of waking and sleeping. To these meanings he now adds a further layer, the living or the dead. Are the dead, being an organic part of this living world, more alive than the living? In the next line, the word ground is capitalized. The ground is not simply an object but the life force, where the dead body dissolves, nourishes new life, and continues the cycle. In this sense, the repetition of the second of the key lines (“And learn by going where I have to go”) makes clear that death is the fate that he “cannot fear.”
From the ground and death we move through the cycle to the growing things, the light of life, the “Tree,” the lowly worm climbing “the winding stair.” The imagery here is mystical and visionary. We cannot explain what drives the cycle. We can, however, sense the mystery and feel a part of it.
In the next stanza, the last tercet, we come back from the vision to this world, “Great Nature,” with the understanding of our mortality. With our new enlightenment we can see how we must live this side of the grave. We must take “the lively air” and let fate, our partner, lead us in the dance of life.
The first line of the final stanza unifies the entire poem. Within the paradox of keeping steady by shaking, we find an explanation of the seemingly opposed forces of life and death. The “shaking” is both the fear of accepting mortality and the ecstasy of absolute openness to experience. The point where fear and ecstasy meet, where logic becomes vision, where death changes to life, is the point on which we must balance. Because we are alive, we must deal with the physical part of nature. Because we are human beings, we must transcend the physical and experience the vision of our interconnection with all living things. Within this vision we perceive that “[W]hat falls away is always. And is near.” What dies is perpetuated by the cycle of life, so that the worlds of the living and the dead are never fully separate. In this last stanza is the final meaning of “The Waking.”
We are still somehow removed from the effect of Roethke’s poem. We must return to the harmony of its form and content. Ultimately, we perceive the poem as we would a piece of music, not in its themes and philosophy, but in the blending of sound, tone, movement, and recurring motifs. When we join this to the metaphor, we sense something of the beauty and complexity of Roethke’s poem. It is as vibrant and fragile and mysterious as the circle of our lives − birth and decay, life and death − that inspired this poem. [By Susan Pinkus, West Vancouver, B.C.].
Все темы данного раздела:
Передмова
Для студентів іноземного відділення факультету філології та журналістики ПДПУ імені В.Г. Короленка вивчення сучасної англомовної літератури має особливе значення, адже літературна творчість є вищим
Brooke Jocelyn. John Betjeman. – Online at : http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/brookej/btjmn/.
2) John Betjeman. – Online at : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman.
3) The Website about John Betjeman. – Online at : www.johnbetjeman.com.
3. On the Movement:
The Movem
For further reading
1. Кружков Григорий. Глазок ватерпаса (О Шеймасе Хини) / Григорий Кружков // Ностальгия обелисков : Литературные мечтания. − М. : Новое литературное обозрение, 2001. − С. 477−486.
Winter Seascape
The sea runs back against itself
With scarcely time for breaking wave
To cannonade a slated shelf
And thunder und
Love Song
He loved her and she loved him. His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to He had no other appeti
Storm on the Island
from Death of a Naturalist (1991)
We are prepared: we build our houses squat, Sink walls in rock and ro
The main characteristics of poetry.
Perhaps the oldest kind of literature known to humanity, poetry in its earliest stages was told or sung, but during its long and continuing evolution it has become part of the written tradition and
John Betjeman’s conservatism in form and theme. Winter Seascape: the poet’s brilliance at describing landscape.
John Betjeman (1906−1984) achieved huge success during his lifetime and continues to retain his “National Treasure” s
The literary analysis of the poem
Winter Seascape
The sea runs back against itself
With scarcely time for breaking wave
To cannonade a slated shelf
And thunder under in a cave.
Before the next ca
The Movement as an anti-modernist group tended towards anti-romanticism, rationality, and sobriety.
The Movement was a term coined by J. D. Scott, literary editor of The Spectator, in 1954 to describe a group of writers including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Donald Da
Philip Larkin’s hybrid style between verse and prose. Church Going as an example of his philosophical lyrics.
Philip Larkin (1922−1985) was born in Coventry in the family of Sydney and Eva Larkin. He attended the City’s King Henry VIII School between 1930 and 1940. He started writing
Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside | letting the door thud shut.
Making its very ordinariness seem sincerity:
Once I am sure there’s
Man and Woman: Love Song by Ted Hughes and Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath.
Edward James (Ted) Hughes (1930−1998) was born in Mytholmroyd, in the West Riding district of Yorkshire, on August 17, 1930. His childhood was quiet and dominantly rural. Whe
The comparative analysis of two poems
It’s quite difficult to establish a good comparison (a simple formal comparison would be easier) between these two poems, these two great works by two of the most representative writers in the Engl
Allegorical works by Seamus Heaney: Storm on the Island.
Seamus Heaney /ʃeiˈmas hi:ˈni/ was born on April 13, 1939, on a farm in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern
Literature and Resources
1. About dystopia:
Dystopia. – Online at : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia.
2. About Orwell and 1984:
1) George Orwell. –
Online at : en.wikipedia.org/wiki
Part One
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doo
Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange. (British version).
Final Chapter (21)
“What’s it going to be then, eh?”
A shot from A Clockwork Orange (1971, USA, Great Britain, dir. by Stanley Ku
Энтони Берджесс. Заводной апельсин.
Пер. В.Бошняка− Ну, что же теперь, а?Теперь представьте себе меня, вашего скромного повествователя, с тремя koreshami − Леном, Риком и Бугаем, которого так прозвали за тол
The definition of dystopian literature.
A dystopia (alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia or anti-utopia) is a fictional society that is the antithesis of utopia. It is usually characterized by an oppressive social control
George Orwell’s brief biography.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face − for ever.”
− from Nineteen Eighty-Four
The British author George Orwell
The plot and the structure of 1984.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (commonly written as 1984) is an anti-utopian novel published in 1949. The book tells the story of Winston Smith and his degradation by the totalita
The analysis of Chapter 1.
The world described in Nineteen Eighty-Four parallels the Stalinist Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. There are thematic similarities: the betrayed revolution, with which Orwell
Anthony Burgess’s life and works.
Anthony Burgess (1917−1993)was a British novelist, critic and composer. He was also active as a librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, essayist, travel write
Explanation of the novel’s title
Burgess wrote that the title was a reference to an alleged old Cockney expression “as queer as a clockwork orange”. Due to his time serving in the British Colonial Office in Malaya, Burgess thought
Part 1: Alex’s world
Set in a dystopian future, the novel opens with the introduction of protagonist, fifteen-year-old Alex (the character’s surname is never revealed in the novel) who, with his gang members (known as
Part 2: The Ludovico Technique
After being sentenced to 14 years for murder, Alex gets a job as an assistant to the prison chaplain. He feigns interest in religion, and amuses himself by reading the Bible for its lurid descripti
Part 3: After prison
Alex gets his release, but upon returning home, finds that he is not welcome: his personal belongings have been confiscated (sold, so that the money made might go towards the care of the cats of th
Structure
The novel is separated into three parts of seven chapters. Each part has a different setting or motive for the main character, but keeps to certain conventions across three parts. For example, each
The analysis of Chapter 21.
The book, narrated by Alex, contains many words in a slang dialect which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat. It is a mix of modified Slavic words, Cockney rhyming slang,
Literature and Resources
1. About the Theatre of the Absurd:
1) Culik Jan. The Theatre of Absurd. – Online at : www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/Absurd.htm.
2) The Theatre of the Absurd. – Online at : en.wikip
Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Act Two. HAMLET, ROS and GUIL talking, the continuation of the previous scene. Their conversation, on the move, is indecipherable at first. The first illegible line is HAMLET’s, co
Drama: the main characteristics.
Drama can be divided into serious drama, tragedy, comic drama, melodrama, and farce.
Drama differs from other forms of literature in that it demands a stage and performances. It can be enj
Tom Stoppard’s life and plays.
Sir Tom Stoppard (born Tomáš Straussler on July 3, 1937) is an Academy Award winning British playwright. Born in Czechoslovakia, he is famous for plays such as The Real Thing and
Works for the theatre
Stoppard’s plays are plays of ideas that deal with philosophical issues, yet he combines the philosophical ideas he presents with verbal wit and visual humor. His linguistic complexity, with its pu
Work for radio, film, and TV
In his early years Stoppard wrote extensively for BBC radio, in many cases introducing a touch of surrealism. Some of his better known radio works include: If You’re Glad, I’ll Be Frank;
The plot and the synopsis of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a humorous, absurdist, tragic and existentialist play by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe August 26, 1966.
The themes of the play
Existentialism − why are we here? Why should Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do anything unless someone asks them to? They find themselves as pawns in a gigantic game of chess,
Literature and Resources
1. About American poetry:
1) Американская поэзия в русских переводах [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://www.uspoetry.ru/poets/2/poems/.
2) Дудченко М.М. Література Вели
Harlem: A Dream Deferred
What happened to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a Raisin in the sun? or fester like a sore –
and than run?
Does it stink like rotten meat? or crust and suga
The Supermarket in California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for imag
Like a Rolling Stone
Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didnt you? Peopled call, say, beware doll, youre bound to fall You thought they were all kiddin you You u
The open form vs. closed form poetry.
Poetry in the 1950s was under the heavy influence of T. S. Eliot’s often misinterpreted idea of poetry being an escape from self and the Modernist focus on objectivity. Similar to this, and perhaps
Langston Hughes as a representative of the African-American Renaissance. Analysis of Harlem: A Dream Deferred.
Born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes (1902−1967) grew up mainly in Lawrence, Kansas, but also lived in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico. By the time Hughes enrolled at
Harlem: A Dream Deferred
The noted poet, Langston Hughes, focused primarily on race relations in America during the 1920s and 1930s. Sometimes his poetry is simplistic and degenerates into a nothing more than whining, but
The mastery of rhythm and natural imagery in Theodore Roethke’s poems. The meaning of Waking.
Theodore Huebner Roethke (RET-key) (1908–1963) was a United States poet, who published several volumes of poetry characteri
Robert Lowell’s psychological lyricism.
Robert Lowell (1917–1977), born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, IV, was an American poet whose works, confess
The main ideas of The Supermarket in California.
Allen Ginsberg (1926−1997) was born in Newark, New Jersey, on June 3, 1926. The son of Louis and Naomi Ginsberg, two
Rock-poetry as a cultural phenomenon.
Rock is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and often bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, p
Playing with the MEANINGS of words
Simile: a comparison using “like” or “as.”
Ex. He’s as dumb as an ox.
Metaphor: a direct comparison.
Ex. He’s an zero.
Playing with the IMAGES of words
Imagery: the use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke emotion via the five senses.
Examples:
· Sight: Smoked mysteriously puffed out
The life and poetry of Jim Morrison. The main ideas of People Are Strange.
James Douglas Morrison (1943–1971) was an American singer, songwriter, writer, and poet. He was best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the popular American rock band The
James Baldwin. Sonny’s Blues.
I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again. Then perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name,
James Baldwin’s biography and major works.
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924–November 30, 1987) was a novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, and essayist,
The plot overview.
“Sonny’s Blues” is narrated in the first-person by an unnamed character, Sonny’s brother. An algebra teacher in a high school in Harlem, this narrator is a stable family man with a wife and two son
The socio-historical setting of Sonny’s Blues and characterization of brothers within that context.
a. Growing up in Harlem:
“Sonny’s Blues” takes place during the mid-20th century, probably during the early 1950s. The action of the story occurs prior to the g
The characterization.
Like with so many other stories, in “Sonny’s Blues,” the dramatic action mainly concerns the characters’ changes or lack of them. The character changes in “Sonny’s Blues” are particularly interesti
The imagery.
Following a story’s prevailing imagery can help us to understand an author’s focus or concerns. A story can have a pattern of recurring imagery as well as sentences which describe in figurative or
The themes.
A story’s themes are best and most specifically expressed as complete sentences. Thus, rather than saying “one theme of Sonny’s Blues is suffering” or even “coping with suffering” we should
The biography and works of Richard Bach.
Richard David Bach (b. June 23, 1936, Oak Park, Illinois) is an American writer. He claims to be a direct descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach. Richard Bach is widely known as the a
The seventies: the social context of his works.
Following the social cataclysm of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, Americans turned inward − initiating a decade of “self-help” and healing that some critics have called the “Me decade.” Richar
The main aspects of New Age philosophy and cosmology
Theism
There is a general and abstract idea of God, which can be understood in many ways; seen as a superseding of the need to anthropomorphize deity. Not to be confused with panth
Religion and science
Eclecticism
New Age writers argue people should follow their own individual path to spirituality instead of dogma.
Anti-patriarchy
Feminine forms of spiri
The plot of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
The novel tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food and seized by a passion for flight. He pushes himself, learning everything he can
The main themes and symbols.
Several early commentators, focusing mainly on the first part of the book, see it as part of the American self-help and positive thinking culture, epitomized by Norman Vincent Peale and by the New
Ursula Le Guin. She Unnames Them
MOST OF THEM ACCEPTED NAMELESSNESS with the perfect indifference with which they had so long accepted and ignored their names. Whales and dolphins, seals and sea otters consented wi
The appearance of soft science fiction.
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used
The main themes of her books.
As it was mentioned abovethey areTaoist, anarchist, feminist, psychological and sociological themes.
Much of Le Guin’s science fiction places a strong emphasis on
Changing the fantasy canon: Earthsea series.
The world of Earthsea is one of sea and islands: a vast archipelago of hundreds of islands surrounded by uncharted ocean. It is uncertain wh
The feminist aspects of She Unnames Them.
“She Unnames Them” is a mâshâl (mâshâl − a Hebrew word for a linguistic construct like a parable, satire or prophecy, but in the ancient
Новости и инфо для студентов