From Goldstein’s review, she mentions, “Komunyakaa has spoken interviews about how these poems have Iraq as their reference point (Goldstein1368)” to give a connection on how Komunyakaa “helps us make sense of the present (1368)” by using historical context references. Throughout a sonnet in ‘Love in the Time of War’, and two poems from ‘Heavy Metal’, they demonstrates and uses historic references that helps the readers to relate to the present.
“Tribe. Clan. Valley & riverbank. Country. Continent. Interstellar (Komunyakaa10)” gives fragments of war related terms. Goldstein argues, “ [these words are] in no particular order (1369)”, which is not true in the first stanza because “Tribe. Clan…Country. Continent…/ Squad. Platoon. Company. Battalion… (10)” seems to be in a “particular order”; to be more precise, squad, platoon, company, battalion is from a small group to a larger group. Addition to the first stanza, “… Esprit de corps…”(10) from Goldstein’s point of view “ is transfigured into the boldly force of sexuality…” (1369). In the second stanza of this sonnet, Komunyakaa writes “… Sometimes I hold you like Archilles’ shield…”
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As a background reference, “In the Illiad the shield of Archilles is decorated with images that figure the pastoral values at the heart of the warrior’s
During the early 1940’s during the World War II era. The Supreme Court held the Korematsu v. United States, which became one of the biggest Supreme Court cases. The United States. Supreme Court held the conviction of Fred Korematsu, who was an American citizen born in Oakland, California but was also of Japanese descent from Japanese immigrants. Korematsu violated an exclusion order requiring him to submit a forced relocation during the World War II. After the bombing of the Pearl Harbor in the Pacific Ocean by Japan’s military against the United States and the United States entry to World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order on February 19, 1942, the Executive Order 9066 gave authorization to the Secretary of War and the United States as military areas. The issue ,mainly applied to one-third of the land area of the United States and was used against those with “Foreign Enemy Ancestry” which mainly include Japanese, Italians, and Germans. The issue also gave the authority to hold certain people in internment camps, mainly the Japanese. This action by the United States were seen as a form of discrimination. The people who were held in internment camps were forced to leave their homes and were no longer able to work at their jobs, this became a huge impact on the economy as being not being able to work at your
Both uses are functional in this poem. The physical chimera the enemy represents, gives way to the chimera in the mind of the soldiers: We hugged bamboo & leaned against a breeze off the river,slow-dragging with ghosts from Saigon to Bangkok, with women left in doorways reaching from America The feared images of the past and promise for the future is that which can't be camouflaged. It is forced to the fore of ones thoughts.The fight about to be commenced is a focused vision," a world revolvedunder each man's eyelid."is an alternate expression of life passing before ones eyes. This vision prompts the realization that the soldiers don't belong here and their demise would be senseless under such circumstances.This is a statement about the war itself. The word "Chimera" also serves as political commentary. The use of words and phrases familiar to one in order to fully express the nature of the Vietnam experience carries on. The poem "You and I are Disappearing" is a series of similes that repeats in an unrealized effort to find an image that describes the image of a Vietnamese girl engulfed in flames: She burns like foxfire in a thigh-shaped valley A skirt of flames dances around her at dusk The similes are truly unable to visualize the incoherent morality of the image."Komunyakaa uses several images to display the horror before him."3 The vision is beautiful and horrible. The inability to find a fitting simile
Honor is defined as a high respect given to an individual that brings credit. To receive honor is paralleled to being crowned with jewels and being regarded as a role model to all. The society that the Iliad portrays is “centered on the battlefield of achievement and its rewards” (Homer, xxi). The figures in Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, partake in events that will allow them to “receive more honor and more material rewards” even if it means that they must indulge themselves in heightened risks that could end in death (xxiii). Hector, one of the most pivotal characters in the poem, illustrates the lust for glory and ignorance of everything else that holds just as much importance. As his character is strengthened, it can be seen that every
The relationships between parents and their sons in the Iliad are not relationships we expect to see in today’s society. The Iliad portrays the relationships between fathers and sons as something more than just physical and emotional. It is based on pride and respect for one another. The expectations of their son are more so to pass on their fathers reputable name and to follow in their father’s footsteps of being noble warriors. These relationships are the driving forces in the Iliad, making each son in the Iliad identifiable first by their father’s name. An outcome of the father–son relationships is ancestral loyalty among the characters which play a prominent role in war. Therefore, not only does the Iliad share a major war story, but
The soldiers who had attended the war were shown to have died brutally, like “cattle”, yet when reaching the home front, it is seen that they are laid to rest in a much more civil and dignified manner. The concept of this can be seen as an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem, with the battle front seen as a world filled with violence, fear and destruction, where as the home front is perceived as a place marked by order and ritual, a civilized world. The second sonnet opens with “What candles may be held to speed them all?”, invoking a more softer and compassionate tone towards the audience, more specifically through Owen’s use of a rhetorical question. It captures the readers’ attention, engaging them to feel empathetic and notice the shift of energy from anger and bitterness to a sadder and more somber tone. Owen’s use of descriptive language, as simple as it seems, such as ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ provokes the audience to view the horrors of the war as if they had been placed onto children, because in reality the ‘men; who had signed themselves into war to fight in glory for their country had really only just been boys themselves.
And there were young men on it and young girls, sought for their beauty with gifts of oxen, dancing, and holding hands at the wrist” (Il., 18.590-594). In fact, the majority of the shield depicts common Greek life; this being a quality that distinguishes Achilles’ shield from those of other famous warriors and heroes. Epics and their heroes usually involve gods and god-like feats, which are still true in the Iliad, yet the engravings on this shield are an oxymoron of that style. Edwards best describes this in stating, “Like an enormous simile, the scenes on the shield hold the narrative still for a while as we gaze at them; and the content is like that of a simile, too – it is the ordinary life of mankind that we observe, not that of heroes or gods” (278).
Lovelace’s diction helps to develop the theme that war requires a passionate commitment from soldiers and can be as consuming as a relationship with a person the poet uses many dictions throughout the poem that suggests going to war such as ‘chaste, mistress, embrace, inconstancy, adore and love’. Likewise, Tennyson’s diction helps to develop the themes that war places soldiers under extreme stress, and soldiers can fight bravely and honorably even if the result of the battle is unsuccessful. In contrast, the word choices in Owen’s poem supports the theme that war is destructive, bitter, and violent, not the romantic efforts praised by those outside of it. Diction that has a strong impact on Borden’s poem is ‘satin, ermine, chic’, or words that have strong negative connotations such as ‘obscene, putrid, monstrous’. Equally important, The Diction in Borden’s poem support the theme that war is indifferent to human life. Words that display The Diction in “The Song of the Mud” are ‘cursed, sludge, haunting, trudge, blood-shod’. Whereas The tone of Lovelace’s poem is romantic and slightly playful along with Tennyson tone, which establishes a serious and respectful tone that also acknowledges the stress and confusion of war. Unlike the tone in the first set of poems, A great example of irony in Owen’s poem is “Ecstasy” (line 9), which usually associated with positive feelings of joy or intense
The importance of honor is shown when characters in the Illiad have chosen the glory of fighting, over their own lives. Two main examples are shown in Hektor and Achilles. Hektor is displayed
The article in titled Between Lions and Men, Images of the Hero in the Iliad by Michael Clarke is a very innovate piece of work. In the article Clarke puts forward the idea of how the referencing of wild animals in the Iliad is symbolic and highly significant to the ethical and psychological problems of heroism within Homer’s Iliad. The focus that Clarke is placing in relation to the animal similes within the Iliad is the lion similes. As the Iliad is focused on Achilles and his death, it is no wonder that the lion similes are associated with this so called hero. Achilles and how he associates himself with the wolf and particularly the lion is the focal point of this article. In this essay I will analyse and comment on the argument put forward by Clarke in his article Between Lions and Men, Images of the Hero in the Iliad.
As long as there is thought there will always be debate as to the relevance and applications of any figure that has potential symbolism deeper than its appearance. We see it with the Bible, with its accompanying fundamentalism, literalism, interpretationalism, and its downright detractors. Attention given to an object for such a prolonged time is bound to foster battleground for linguists, philosophers, and literary scholars. Additionally, we see it with the Shield of Achilles in Homer's The Iliad. The Shield is a literary figure of beauty which the world has enjoyed, despised, and revered for several millennia. Its lengthy and detailed description forces any reader to, if not look past it for higher meaning, at least imagine and
Para-rhymes, in Owen’s poetry, generate a sense of incompleteness while creating a pessimistic, gloomy effect to give an impression of sombreness. Strong rhyming schemes are often interrupted unexpectedly with a para-rhyme to incorporate doubt to every aspect of this Great War. Who are the real villains and why are hundreds of thousands of lives being wasted in a war with no meaning? In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, the consistent sonnet rhyming scheme is disturbed by a half rhyme, “guns … orisons”, to show how the soldiers all died alone with only the weapons that killed them by their side, and a visual rhyme, “all … pall” to indicate that the reality of war is entirely the opposite to what it seems - no glory, no joy and no heroism, but only death and destruction. Owen occasionally works with this technique in a reverse approach to create similar thought. For instance, the assonance, consonance and half rhyme based poem, ‘The Last Laugh’, contains an unforeseen full rhyme, “moaned … groaned”, to emphasise that nothing is ever fixed in war except the ghastly fact that the weapons are the true winners. Different forms of Para rhymes often work together with common schemes to ably bring out the main ideas of Owen’s poetry.
As I was viewing multiple artwork at Contemporary Art Institute, this piece, Relief of a Falling Warrior stood out from the rest of the Greek sculptures due to its sense of drama the sculptor attempted to create. This depiction would have constantly reminded the Ancient Greek people of the patriotic warriors that died for their empire.
Nowhere in the Iliad is Hector's superiority more obvious than when he is contrasted with his brother Paris, the man who bears the sole responsibility for the chaos and terror that engulfs Troy. Hector finds Paris "polishing (and) fondling his splendid battle-gear, his shield and breastplate, turning over and over his long curved bow" (VI, 243-245).
When faced with the countless problems of war including death, disease, sorrow, and loss, soldiers develop and intense bond between one another as they seek support in one another. A brotherhood is formed among these soldiers who rely on one another for protection and companionship amid a time in their lives where they are faced with the constant threat of death and violence everyday of their lives. But what happens to them after the war? In After the War, poet brings awareness to how the war-torn soldier attempts to reestablish their self in a society they have been isolated from for so many years through use of free verse and repetitive phrases, which further reinforces the theme throughout the poem.
The Iliad, by Homer, is an epic poem set in the era of the Trojan War, accounting the battle logs during the time of conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles, the text’s tragic protagonist. The heroic outlook on life, in Iliadic terms, is exemplified through the construction of one’s honor through hard work. Being an aspect of the heroic outlook of life, this value is demonstrated through his contribution and dedication to the Trojan War, his experience with neglect from the deities, Achilles’ overall disdain towards Agamemnon, and, lastly, his longingness towards Briseis, his dear lover.