Monday, September 15, 2014
Bonus H.D. Blog post
In the H.D. document, some poems, Cassandra, Fragment Forty One 3, and We Two clearly demonstrate Carson's theme: the duality of love. However, many express a sense of doubt rather than bittersweet. For example Fragment Thirty-six describes love as two opposing wrestlers grappling with each other. I interpret this as a conflict of the mind rather than an inherent aspect of love. The author says nothing about paint or pleasure, but rather emphasizes her confusion by repeating the phrases, "I know not what to do"and variations of "my mind is divided". Though the author may hint at unhappiness or happiness, ambivalence continually surfaces as the predominant theme. Similarly, in Fragment Forty 2 the author employs repetition so confusion resonates with the reader. Here, the author repeats,"Could Eros Be kept?". Every time she asks this question, she follows it with a negative statement. Still, she returns to the question, for one moment her mind settles on an answer and the next doubts her reasoning. In Fragment Sixty Eight, the author asks "What is beauty?","What is left", "What can death mar in me that you have not". In truth, this poem reflects the love's painful quality, but I don't think it successfully expresses Carson's theme, for she leaves out love's pleasure. However, again, this poem emphasizes the confusion the author feels resulting from her love.
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You're paying attention to just the right things, though the writing here is especially compressed. The repeated refrain, "Could Eros be kept?" could be enough to examine at length. Take your approach to unpacking images and see how you might apply it to the structural and rhetorical aspects of the poetry you read - how might phrase structure and rhetorical conceit (who speaks, who is addressed, and so on) be analyzed with the same level of detail? Look to these, and slow yourself down, and you'll find your analysis becoming much more fluid.
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