Blog #15

Today we finished our class discussion of Hamlet’s first soliloquy. The points that we touched on were very interesting however because this is of course the revered “AP Lit” class these points inevitability lead me to more questions than answers. Of course I thought of no better place to discuss these questions than on my very own blog!

            At the end of class on Friday we were asked to state what we, as readers, thought Hamlet’s state of mind was as he’s giving his first soliloquy. I viewed this question from a purely observational standpoint. I considered the situation that Hamlet was in and based my interpretation on how I would feel in that sort of situation. If my father had just very recently passed away and my mother had just married my uncle, I would be very bitter and angry at the world. So naturally that is exactly what I put on my response to the question of Hamlet’s state of mind.

            However, upon closer reading of this text and of course Mrs. Clinch’s words of wisdom, I came to formulate a decision on Hamlet’s state of mind based solely on his soliloquy and not my personal feelings toward the situation. (I feel this similar process will also help me to “go deeper” within my essays!)

            My real solid conclusion that I came to based on the text alone was that Hamlet viewed himself as weak and helpless. Near the end of the soliloquy he compares himself to Hercules in the same way that he compares his father to his uncle. The parallel that he draws is that his uncle is “no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules”. While this statement is certainly a testament to the reverence that Hamlet places on his father, it is sort of an indirect degradation to Hamlet’s own abilities.

            By saying that his father and uncle are complete opposites, he is also stating that he and Hercules are complete opposites. Hercules is a Greek hero known for his courage and strength. This innate statement expresses to me Hamlet’s extremely low self-worth. Essentially Hamlet expresses in this soliloquy that he feel the complete opposite of courageous and strong. Hamlet feels weak, helpless; he has had no say in the matter of the marriage of his mother and uncle. He has no influence over the death of his father, he is essentially unable to control any of the recent tragedies of his life. This leaves him feeling weak and unable to fulfill his own expectations. 

Blog #14

This poetry segment that we have been doing in class has really opened my eyes to the inner workings of a poem. I never before have been exposed to the inner gears and springs that make a poem effective or even popular. Prior to this class and this poetry segment, I regarded poems as merely a bunch of words thrown on a page, while I still find this true for some poems, I realize now that there is truly a “rhyme and reason” to the poems.

 One of the elements of poetry that fascinates me the most is how the simple structure of a poem can affect the entire meaning of it. What I thought to be a random combination of spaces, line breaks, or even capital letters is actually a delicate combination that results in the frame of the poem. What I mean by frame is that when you are deciding what kind of frame to put a piece of art work in, you are essentially deciding the subtle accent or message you want to give the observer. I feel that it is the same way for a poet.

 When John Hollander decided to use concrete poetry and make a physical image of a swan and its reflection when writing the poem “Swan and Shadow” he used his artistic license to make a decision regarding the way in which he wanted his words to be perceived. He did so by conveying the literal concept with his words through the figurative concept of the picture his words made.

 Not all poems are as blatant in the “picture” their words make. As we were researching poems that we were to use in our upcoming poetry project, I came across another type of poem structure that I found particularly interesting. These poems are called acrostics, where the first word of each line, or the capitalized word of each line comes together to spell out a hidden message or an underlying theme to the poem. While these kinds of poems may not seem as “professional” as some others we have looked at, I find them particularly intriguing.

While I still come across some poems and think to myself “How can these possibly be famous?” I do have a new found appreciation for the secret world of poetry. I still would pick a science fiction novel over a poem any day, but from what I have learned recently about the techniques behind the poetry and how to dig deeper into them, I can honestly say that I do not hate poetry. It is just not one of my favorite things. 

Blog #13

After our class discussion of the poem “in Just” by e. e. cummings, I still had more questions than answers. Due to the fact that there is no right answer when analyzing a poem, I should get used to the fact that I will never completely know whether I am right or wrong therefore I am always left with answers.For example in class we discussed the possibility of the balloonMan in the e. e. cummings poem as being representative of Pan or the devil. We came to this conclusion based on the fact that this man is described as “queer” and “goat-footed” within the poem. These words are usually correlated with an image that shouldn’t be combined with an image of children as it is in the poem. However, I feel that the balloonman could possibly be correlated with something, if not completely positive, neutral. E.e. cummings also describes the balloonman as someone who is “little” and “old”. When these words are put into focus, a neutral if not positive correlation is perceived. A little old man who sells balloons for the enjoyment of children is a perfectly acceptable character, so why is it that we focus on the negative aspects describing this man?An additional question I formulated both from my own reading of the poem as well as our class discussion is in regards to the children described in the poem. E. e. cummings doesn’t use any sort of spacing or punctuation when he mentions the two children that respond to the call of the balloonman. These two children are called “eddieandbill” and “bettyandisbel”. Why did he squeeze these two names together? Was he trying to make the reader rush them together when reciting the poem? If so, what purpose does this formatting have in the entirety of the poem? While I of course do not have the correct answer to this question, if there is one, I have been able to reflect upon it after our class discussion when I was pondering what to blog about this week. The complete lack of spacing between the names could perhaps be for the purpose of attempting to blend the nouns together. This would force the reader to say them quicker when reading due to the lack of spacing. This coupled with the lack of capitalization suggests an informal tone. But what does that say about the overall meaning, or “so what?” If one considers the lack of spacing and punctuation as an attempt to generalize the names of the children, it could suggest a widespread effect. As if e.e. cummings wanted to communicate to the reader that it’s not just “betty and isbel” who are attracted to the siren call of the balloonman, but rather that all children respond to the call. When this is joined with the idea that the poem communicates the effect of sexual transformation, it makes sense that e.e. cummings is trying to convey the fact of a generalization of children because all children go through that transformation.