Blaser

I believe the poem, //Landscape with the Fall of Icarus//, by William Carlos Williams, shows that false hope ultimately leads to demise, and the provider is rarely in the position to witness, or even be concerned with the recipient’s downfall. Williams is describing his perception of a landscape painting by Brueghel, which he alludes to in the first line. The famous painting depicts a Greek myth, in which Icarus’s father makes him wings held together by wax. Icarus then flies close to the sun, which melts the wax, sending Icarus to splash into the sea where he drowns. Williams portrays the cold and apathetic point of view coming from the coast, symbolizing where Icarus came from. I believe that the wings symbolize hope instilled in Icarus, by his father, that he can “fly” as high and far as he can imagine in life. However, the fact that the wings were resurrected with wax, instead of something sturdier, shows that Icarus’s father did not give him sufficient material, or life tools, to fly with. When Williams moves on in the poem to the second and third stanzas, he describes the setting from where Icarus flew. Icarus’s father is very much awake and working. Like the crops the father is introverted and self concerned. He feels no remorse or even worry about his son. Furthermore, I feel that when Williams says, “sweating in the sun that melted the wings’ wax,” he implies that the wings made for Icarus were intended to fail. Williams then, in the last two stanzas, describes the insignificance of Icarus’s death. In my opinion, Williams works throughout this poem to show the importance that not only does false hope lead to demise, but by showing the insignificance of the downfall from the prospective of its origin, Williams is able to show the reader that the responsibility for one’s future lies in himself, and that dependence on others should not be trusted.

//A Pact//, by Ezra Pound, describes the author’s re-unification with American literature and its advancement. As a writer who supported himself through teaching, Pound saw himself as a poetic revolutionary. Pound was fired from his job at as a professor at Wabash College in Indiana in 1908, which in addition to other things, led him to see American poetry as a narrow and unoriginal entity. Walt Whitman was Pound’s representation of the constricted American poetic mind, which can explain the first line of the poem, “I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman.” Pound recognizes that although he has traditionally spoke out against American society, “I have detested you long enough,” that it still was ground-breaking in revolutionizing poetry, “It was you that broke the new wood.” Pound uses the symbol of sharing “one sap and one root” to show that it is possible to “commence between us.” Throughout Pound’s life he continuously struggled with traditionalism and breaking its barriers that it presented to his revolutionary philosophies of imagism, in which he attempted to utilize ambiguity as a function to produce original thought in his reader, as well as vorticism, which was an evolved imagism that created more energy in the reader. The fact that these poetic forms often thrived on the loss of grammatical structure, meant even more negative criticism for Pound. Pound saw the narrowness of American art as his enemy, leading to his move to England. In this poem, I believe Pound is reconciling with both himself and American poetry. The line, “I come to you as a grown child… I am old enough now to make friends,” signals that Pound recognizes his own maturity as an artist and recognizes that collaboration can be a powerful thing. I feel that Pound is attempting to merge his own nuances with those to traditional American poetry in an effort to create something bigger.

//Note on Commercial Theatre//, by Langston Hughes, is about his disgust for the numerous ways in which he feels black culture has been stripped from the people that it embodies. Hughes feels cheated that the blues style songs have been plucked from his culture, and injected into mediums that commercial culture can enjoy. He creates a feeling that the integrity of his blues have been compromised when he says, “And you sing ‘em in Hollywood Bowl, And you mixed ‘em up with symphonies.” Not only is Hughes insulted by the fact that commercial culture is mimicking the style of the Harlem Renaissance, but he also feels insulted that the style and work is passed off as white, which is shown in the next three lines, “And you fixed ‘em So they don’t sound like me Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.” In this, Hughes shows the prospective of the black culture, which created the Harlem Renaissance, which has to watch the commercial success of their work without reaping the benefits. Furthermore, Hughes proposes that the spirituals of black culture have also been stripped and implanted into acts like Macbeth, Carmen Jones, and Swing Mikados, all of which are completely different from what they represent. Hughes tone shows that he feels swindled from all of this. It upsets Hughes that everything that black culture has created, in order to show their poverty stricken culture in effort to fix it, has been passed off as something non-representative of it. However, Hughes sees an end to the issue and proclaims, “But someday somebody’ll stand up and talk about me, And write about me, Black and Beautiful, And sing about me, And put on plays about me!” Hughes feels that it is his duty to represent black culture, and feels that it is in black culture to take responsibility over representing itself to show its own beauty. This is reflected in the last three lines that read, “I reckon it’ll be Me myself! Yes, it’ll be me.”

Robert Frost was an American writer who identified himself with the New England area. As in this poem //Design// Frost often wrote about his philosophies as they appeared in nature. In //Design//, Frost writes about a white spider that blends in with a white flower, to capture and kill the white moth. The color white is used to represent the perception of purity. The moth, being the harmless victim, and flower, being the natural heal-all are used to represent naturally pure things, in unison with their “whiteness”. The spider, however, is used to show how perception can be used to produce evil results. Frost, assuming the occurrence is a result of God’s design. He compares the “ingredients” put into place by God to be equivalent to a concoction produced by a witch, giving the concept of God and religion all together a negative connotation. Furthermore, he shows the lack of value given to death by God, when he compares the remaining wings that the moth leaves behind to be “paper kites”. In the second stanza Frost brings his questioning of God to the forefront. He begs for answers, as if talking straight to God, “What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?” Through questioning, as if he were a lawyer, Frost inductively reasons that the only reason for this occurrence is at the hand of God. By using nature and this specific instance of the spider using purity as its disguise and killing an innocent moth, as a microcosm of reality, Frost is able to produce a pessimistic view on life by coming to the conclusion that design governs life, and its evil nature.

Emily Dickinson grew up in Massachusetts, and lived an extremely introverted life. Her poems utilized short lines as well as unanticipated punctuation. As an introvert, she looked at public and society from an outsider’s perspective, often judging norms, and challenging the status quo. Few of her poems were published during her lifetime, so many are titled by number. This has great significance in interpreting her poem //260 [288]//. This poem shows her perception of how people act in society. Dickinson proposes that people are better off to be “themselves” instead of what people perceive you to be. She starts out the poem proclaiming, “I’m Nobody!” showing that she embraces herself as an outcast. She then moves on saying, “Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!” In these line Dickinson shows the ironic importance of “Nobody” not only by its capitalization, but “they” is left in lower case even though it is at the beginning of a sentence. In doing this Dickinson is showing that by being “Nobody” someone is able to embrace their true identity. Secrecy is also emphasized because she knows if people find out they will “advertise” and take her individuality away from her. In the next stanza Dickinson moves on to say, “How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring bog!” This stanza reveals how vulnerable you become when you reveal yourself to society. Dickinson feels that keeping a guard up and only existing introvertically allows the individual to flourish, instead of becoming susceptible to the dangers of society. In this poem, Dickinson is able to show how being “Nobody” not only separates the individual from the inevitable socialization into “they”, or society, but that joining society strips the individual of everything essential and important to her.