Formalistic Approach Applied to the Poem “Order for Masks” First and foremost this paper endeavors to appreciate the piece of poetry written by Virginia Moreno. Without having any knowledge regarding the author’s life and time, this paper will try to stand on its own as an entity in itself. It is worthy to note that, a lot of patience for the critic as well as for the evaluator is needed to fully understand the meaning of this poem. After the first reading of the poem, I could only grasp how ambiguous the poem could get. This narrative poem written in free verse speaks about a persona who wears a mask to portray certain as a task to the three men in her life. The narration of the female persona talks to Billiken which is actually a …show more content…
19 When my father comes 20 Make me one so like 21 His child once eating his white bread in trance 22 Philomela before she was raped The second mask of the persona is for her father. From lines 19 to 22, the desire to have the mask designed with a face of innocence, naïve and childlike. However, line 21 could mean that the child is in a state of complete mental absorption or deep musing. Seemingly in line 22, Philomela is used again as an allusion to represent the personality that the persona wanted to be like. In Greek Mythology, Philomela was raped by her sister’s husband, Tereus. The Philomela being referred to in the poem is the one that is virginal, pure and unadulterated. 23 I hope by likeness 24 To make him believe this is the same kind
25 The chaste face he made
26 And my blind Lear will walk me out 27 Without a word
28 Fearing to peer behind
In lines 23-25, the persona expresses her yearning towards being like a child she once was. And on line 26, the father this time is compared to King Lear from Shakespeare’s drama—an aging King of Britain whose downfall was caused by his daughters. That is why, in lines 26-28, we can see that her father fears to peer behind because he is afraid that his child would also cause his downfall. Again line 26 shows the phrase ‘will walk me out’ which portends that the persona’s attempt to please her father is futile.
.29 If my lover comes
30
The aim of this essay is to present the different ways E.E. Cummings and Pablo Neruda in their poems “It May Not Always Be So” and “Always” respectively deal with the issue of love affairs. It will also seek to examine the similarities and differences in the poetic devices they use, and in the way the idea of prospective change, namely the possibility of unfaithfulness in the first, and the past of the speaker’s lover in the second poem is encountered by each speaker. The two poets have their speakers to express their feelings addressing the women they love in order to emphasize the theme of the poems, which they perceive in two utterly different ways: cummings’s speaker views the end of his
Ten year after her second marriage happiness surprised Julia, she knew the man who became her third husband. The true companero for the women she had become. The “first Muse” by Julia Alvarez show us that we have to overcome our obstacle in order to get successful. Julia had to deal with a dictatorship and bullying at her school but that didn’t stop
The voice of the poem gets harsh after a while. It explores the things of today’s taboo headlines such as abortion. This means, if the man girl choses don’t work out, there is a remedy for
The lyric poem “We wear the mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a poem about the African American race, and how they had to conceal their unhappiness and anger from whites. This poem was written in 1895, which is around the era when slavery was abolished. Dunbar, living in this time period, was able to experience the gruesome effects of racism, hatred and prejudice against blacks at its worst. Using literary techniques such as: alliteration, metaphor, persona, cacophony, apostrophe and paradox, Paul Dunbar’s poem suggests blacks of his time wore masks of smiling faces to hide their true feelings.
Poetry has always been a mirror to see unseen emotions and to hear unheard thoughts. Magical words used in an artistic way allows the reader to feel what the poet is feeling, to listen what the poet is listening and to share what the poet is going through. The two poems “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” by Emily Dickinson, and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar are two classical works of poetry. While Dunbar shares agonizing experience of an entire community, Dickinson shares her thoughts about individual characteristic and personality; in fact, she cleverly wins the case of an introvert. Both these poems are independent of each other in terms of thought as well as from literary perspective.
The second essay, titled Brenda Gutierrez (2013), also speaks about Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 30” and Millay’s “Sonnet”. Gutierrez’s essay and Similarity and Differences in Shakespeare and Millay Sonnets, talk about the same theme, making it easier to see the similarities and differences between the two essays. The common idea of the two essays is that the speaker in “Sonnet 30,” “does not rely on something like time to end his sorrows but rather the simple thought of his ‘dear friend’”. Gutierrez’s idea that both speakers, “mention their troubles though one goes into more detail than the other” is defended clearly in the essay through the meaning and theme of “Sonnet” and “Sonnet 30”. Gutierrez's essay shows once again the absence in quoted material to support the claim and the absence in the ability to see things in a new and bigger perspective.
Poetry is often used as a form of writing to express emotions or tell a story. The poems “LA Nocturne: The Angels”, by Xavier Villaurrutia and “Meditations on the South Valley: Poem IX” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, are two distinctive poems. In Baca’s poem he expresses the disbelief and the sorrow of the death of a boy named Eddie. While, in Villaurrutia’s poem reveals an expression of secret desire men have. Baca and Villaurrutia’s poems, both use repetition, imagery and metaphors in their poems to convey their message.
The daughter is bored with her mother's dreams and lets her pride take over. She often questions her self-worth, and she decides that she respects herself as nothing more than the normal girl that she is and always will be. Her mother is trying to mold her into something that she can never be, she believes, and only by her futile attempts to rebel can she hold on to the respect that she has for herself. The daughter is motivated only to fail so that she may continue on her quest to be normal. Her only motivation for success derives from her own vanity; although she cannot admit it to herself or her mother, she wants the audience to see her as that something that she is not, that same something that her mother hopes she could be.
Throughout history poetry has been written since earlier 2000 B.C. and it was not until the late sixteen centuries, that poetry for Chicanos, (Mexican-American), were getting written. During and after the Mexican-American War of 1848, is when the Mexican-American poetry became popular. However, the real popularity and the creative literature activity among Chicano authors was in the 1960 through the 70’s; l this era being called the Renaissance Era. Chicano's often shape their poetry and solidify their cultural and the struggles of their minority culture. In this paper I am going to compare and contrast two Mexican-American poets. Telling the reader about the different types of poetry each one used, along with ways that they expressed themselves.
Through expert use of diction, sensory images, and tautology Mora establishes a vivid depiction of the formal and bland atmosphere of the corporate environment, and the warm, noisy, and exciting home experience. Then through a unique poetic structure, Mora juxtaposes her description of the two worlds both physically on the page and figuratively in the reader’s mind, emphasizing the differences between the workplace and the speaker’s home. Mora elegantly uses symbols two represent her focus points and then through symmetry of structure and information enhances the distinction between the world of work and world of home. “Sonrisas”, though told from the perspective of a Mexican, clearly depicts and smoothly contrasts a reality that almost everyone can relate to. The poem needs no deeper meaning, or message; it simply stands as a doorway that gives the reader a view of two
Throughout Julia Alvarez’s, On Not Stealing the Blue Estuaries, the speaker makes a self discovery about herself and what it is she is going to do with her life after this moment. This poem is an unearthing for the speaker and is full of other discoveries about what it is she finds she is destined for. The author uses imagery, figurative language and selection of detail in order to describe her discoveries, which to her is discovering that she wants to be a write poetry.
Rivera begins her paper by simply giving the reader a list of many of the works Denise Chavez has written during her literary career. It is through this list
When you look and read the book cover and back cover of this collection of poems, you instantly think of the visions of poems and the strength and activism of this woman. In the whole course from the beginning to the end of this book, this collection enforces the beauty and the fierce character of the author, as I will try to show you in this essay. It also brings to life past, present, and possible future of the women presented by Sonia Sanchez.
First the explanation of the poem would be the starting ground into really analyzing what this is about. Do Not Go Gentle
Love makes people become selfish, but it is also makes the world greater. In this poem, the world that the speaker lives and loves is not limited in “my North, my South, my East and West / my working week and my Sunday rest” (9-10), it spreads to “My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song (11). The poem’s imagery dominates most of the third stanza giving readers an image of a peaceful world in which everything is in order. However, the last sentence of the stanza is the decisive element. This element not only destroys the inner world of the speaker, but it also sends out the message that love or life is mortal.