Wallace Stevens and Emile Durkheim Essay example

“The Sound of the Sea” is a sonnet by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, describing the sounds of the sea and relating it to human inspiration. Through only auditory images of the sea and other powerful natural forces, Longfellow effectively alludes to the nature of human inspiration. Through detailed and sensory imagery, Longfellow communicates the subtle details of the human soul and how inspiration functions.

We humans are a crafty. Since the dawn of time immemorial, we have labored to make sense of an existence that, by and large, defies comprehension. There have been some successes; science, philosophy, love, and religion have all been forged and wielded in this struggle to offer the occasional light of truth. The problem is that they all deal in the definitive, but in a world without absolutes there might only be one human convention capable of truly answering the biggest questions of life: poetry. All teasing aside, the poem is indeed best suited to deal with matters of the unknown because poems are intrinsically left open to interpretation. In the simplest terms, Matthew Arnold’s 18th century poem “Dover Beach” is about the unknown.

To elaborate, the reader can not truly hear what is taking place in the poem, but does get a sense of being able to hear what they are reading. For instance when the speaker says “While his gills were breathing in” (22), the reader can almost hear the fish breathing. The speaker again stimulates the auditory senses when she says “and a fine black thread, / still crimped from the strain and snap” (58-59). Again the reader can virtually hear the sound of the line snapping. The next aspect of imagery that needs to be examined is the sensory imagery. An excellent example of sensory imagery is found when reading the lines “It was more like the tipping, / of an object toward light” (43-44). These lines can give an almost unbalanced feeling to the reader as they conceptualize these words. Imagery is not the only important element used in this poem. As stated earlier, irony is an important component involved in “The Fish”.

Throughout the poem the reader is exposed to adjectives that are more vivid than those you would expect to find in traditional speech. This is due to the fact that in poetry the author often has the need to express emotional sensations to the reader. The adjectives allow the reader to become more closely connected to the events and characters in the story by emphasizing the key points in the mental imagery that the author wishes them to see. In the poem Bishop predominately uses this tool to negatively describe objects or representations of objects. This gives the reader the feeling of sympathy for the fish because these objects seem to cause or represent pain felt by the fish. For example on lines 22-23 of the poem we experience the narrator?s first real sense of sympathy for the fish when they speak of his gills ?breathing in / the terrible oxygen?. We can then relate the fish breathing oxygen more closely to a human experience such as drowning.

The poem contains two stanzas with two different settings. One might not know much about the first stanza; however, in the second one the speaker is next to an ocean, perhaps, at a beach. So, while the first stanza symbolizes the mindset of the speaker, the inner dream, the second stanza symbolizes the outer dream which is what we see; life. The poem

Beginning at the line “Of any misery in the sound of wind” (8), the poem shifts from an ocular to an auditory manner. But towards the end of the poem, the repetition of words such as “sound,” “wind,” “listen,” “same,” and “nothing” play a prominent role in creating an empty ambiance for the poem. In both significance and sound, Stevens narrows the broadness of his poem into essentially a “Tabula Rasa,” which creates a neutral perspective for Stevens. But through this ordeal, Stevens creates a paradox that resonates through the second half of the poem. It is highly unlikely that the outcome of this ideological trial is feasible, let alone realizable, by an existent human being: it is logical to conclude that this entire procedure has taken place in the theoretical “conscience of winter” of a “snow man,” a being that is so overwhelmingly unemotional that it is immune to all human partiality. This paradox emphasizes the valuable aspect of the poem, as reading through the poem multiple times causes the reader to ponder questions that delves deeper into their psyche and the mind of Stevens. It also has a magical quality to it, as it provides a pleasant outcome that allows the reader to experience something that isn’t in the realm of reality, but more of an imaginative

The style of syntax she uses when constructing the found poem supports the efficacy to getting her message through to the reader. The structure of her poem leads the reader towards her goal of understanding the process of expanding their mind. The main body of the poem, excluding the first and last stanza, can be dissected into three consecutive distinct parts: commands, observations, and questions the author provides. The poem first introduces observations and follows with the metaphysical question: “And why have not / The currents of the sea worn away its bottom?” (Dillard 7). This first stanza serves as a signpost to how Dillard structured the rest of the poem, and it gives the reader a vignette of what will come after. After that stanza, Dillard provides four commands concerning interacting the sky and the sea. This begins the path she sets out for the reader. After presenting the commands, Dillard moves on to provide descriptions about the skies and seas, including observations such as the “Aurora Borealis” and “the height and velocity of waves.” She finally concludes the path she set for the reader with yet another metaphysical question: “If the water which now lies on the floor / Of the deep sea has to lie there forever, / Why was it made fluid instead of solid?” The final stanza of the poem serves as a reminder of the path the

“Where what breathes, breathes / and what drinks, drinks,” the persona says (3,5). Natures relationships depicted in the first stanza are beautiful. At first, something as simple as the “islands” may seem unimportant (1). Once analyzed, its purposed is defined by providing a warm home for life to sustain. Without the “restless wind” and “incoming tide,” the animals could not sustain (4,6). Everything in the universe is interconnected.

“This poem dramatizes the conflict between appearance and reality, particularly as this conflict relates to what the speaker seems to say and what the speaker really says. Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, The Fish displays her relationship between her and the fish. From the boat the speaker is looking at the fish, she explains that she caught a tremendous fish and she held him beside the boat. Lines (1-2). The speaker notes that the fish is half out of water, she points to several specific descriptions about the fish.

Marianne puts an image into the minds of the readers. For example, “Of the crow blue mussel shells, one keeps adjusting the ash heaps; opening and shutting itself like an injured fan” (McMichael 1510). She paints a picture with her words, and the picture she paints is a blue mussel shell closing in on itself like a broken fan. I imagine a medium-sized blue mussel shell constantly shifting and moving to fold in on itself. She also describes objects and things with extreme detail. For instance, “whereupon the stars pink rice grains, ink bespattered jelly-fish, crabs like green lilies and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other” (McMichael 1510). She compares the stars in the sky to little pink rice grains. Moreover, the jelly-fish have splashes of ink on them. She allows the readers to allow their imagination to imagine the color of ink as a dark blue or black. Thus, the jellyfish has spots of blue or black ink on their body. Then, she describes the crabs are like green lilies possibly because the crabs are green. Marianne creates detailed images in her reader’s mind in her poems. Furthermore, she compares the creatures of the ocean to odd objects like pink rice grains, fans, and toadstools. Marianne Moore’s work focuses more on images than themes due to her detailed writing and writing style. Moreover, she describes objects and sea creatures in The Fish. Thus, she wants to create a setting (in the ocean)

The poem by Samuel Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner depicts a strong belief and interest in nature and how the natural world can be a place where God can be found. The contrast between the language of the quotes ‘slimy things’ and ‘O happy living things’ demonstrates this change in perspective as the narrator realises the beauty of nature. During his punishment, the Mariner was able to see the real beauty of nature and as a result, he had the ability to rejoice and pray about what he was seeing. By recognising the elegance in the environment that surrounded him, it enabled the Mariner to be free from his imprisonment. Like the belief in God, the Mariner first feared but finally loved the natural elements of the world. Throughout the journey, the wonder and beauty of nature and how it can be a spiritual finding is brought into focus.

“Deep as an Ocean” is a poem regarding the complexity of human beings. Shepherd discusses the different aspects of her life that aren’t visible to most. She explains how she is always working through the struggles she encounters, and how many people are unaware of the complicated thoughts that are found inside her brain. In “Deep as an Ocean,” the writer utilizes a simile and metaphors to suggest that people must look deeper in order to discover a person’s concealed emotions.

The harshness of live out at sea compared to on land reflects the stress The Seafarer faces in trying to find oneself, whereas life on land can be associated with enclosure which in turn brings comfort compared to life on the sea, which inflicts discomfort due to the unpredictability of nature. Waller (27-56) writes about how The Wanderer is strongly focused on the mind as a traumatic place due to the exile it recounts. Waller suggests that the mind leaves the body in The Seafarer. This reinforces the idea of the sea as a metaphor for the mind, as it moves away from the body causing chaos and destruction as one is disconnected. He suggests how during the Anglo Saxon period poems uses a wide range of vocabulary as a metaphor for the mind, how the mind was a place to store unhappy thoughts, and also refers to lines of the poem where the speaker “expresses a strong desire to keep his thoughts to himself as he struggles with the miserable condition of exile” (Waller, 30), thus suggests the mind can be associated with physical attachment. Thus the journey through the sea is an example of

The poem, “Apostrophe to the Ocean” written by George Gordon Byron expresses his love for the ocean and nature through numerous different writing styles and techniques. The poem is dedicated to the mighty ocean, and the main subject of this poem is about humans versus nature. Byron’s view of humans versus nature is revealed through his belief that the power of nature is inseparable and that it is greater than any human or civilization. Bryon depicts his love for the ocean through, literary techniques, his thoughts about industrialization and romantic writing styles.

The poet starts with “The poem of the mind... what will suffice”, he believes that the poem starts with the mind, its a creation of the mind and the mind is looking something that it would be interesting to the mind and is going to contempt him. He continues “Then the theatre... a souvenir” he allegories the theatre with the poetry, in which the world of poetry changed in modernity, the previous poetry now is a memory of the past. He makes an allegory, the poet is like the actor “And, like an insatiable actor... repeat” as the actor is repeating his speech so as to find the right tone and feeling as the poet should look for the quality. Also, he claims that the poet should be part of the audience and to expose the right emotions, to be a person of the world in which he lives “ Exactly... becoming one.”. Additional with that “the emotion becomes one” with that W. Stevens in a way enhance the idea of modernism because in modernity the personality is turning out. The actor is also a metaphysician “The actor... in the dark”, so the poet is someone who is looking for the essence of reality. It is also compared with a musician “An instrument... rightness”, it's not as described a skillful musician, with that line W. Stevens wants to demonstrate that poetry does not have to follow the prettiness of the past, poetry has to be presented with embellishment. He concludes his thoughts with “ It