2 страница

iv. Carl Sandburg. Grass.

Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967) was virtually unknown to the literary world when, in 1914, a group of his poems appeared in the nationally circulated Poetry magazine. Two years later his book Chicago Poems was published, and the thirty-eight-year-old author found himself on the brink of a career that would bring him international acclaim. Sandburg published another volume of poems, Cornhuskers, in 1918, and wrote a searching analysis of the 1919 Chicago race riots.

Carl Sandburg's Grass is a three-stanza poem in free verse with simple words expressing a profound message. Free verse ignores standard rules of meter in favor of the rhythms of ordinary conversation. In effect, free verse liberates poetry from conformity to rigid metrical rules that dictate stress patterns and the number of syllables per line. French poets originated free verse (or vers libre) in the 1880s, although earlier poems of Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and other writers exhibited characteristics of free verse.

Henry Holt and Company first published "Grass" in New York in 1918 in a collection of 103 poems entitled Cornhuskers. Sandburg won a Pulitzer Prize for this collection and another one for his Complete Poems, published in 1950.

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?

Where are we now?

I am the grass.

Let me work.

This poem reveals several themes:

Theme 1: After humans kill one another in recurring wars, they let nature cover up their dirty work.

Theme 2: People forget the lessons of history. Consequently, they repeat the mistakes that caused the wars of the past.

Theme 3: People forget the fallen heroes of war after several years pass and grass repairs battlefield scars.

Theme 4: Nature goes about its business dispassionately and ineluctably even in wartime.

Nature—specifically grass—narrates the poem in first-person point of view. The words and repeated phrases suggest a sarcastic tone. Nature seems frustrated that humankind cannot learn from its mistakes and instead allows the grass simply to cover them up. People pay so little heed to their tragic errors of the past that they do not even recognize a battlefield site when they see it. ("What place is this? Where are we now?") Another interpretation suggests that the tone is objective and impassive: Grass has a job to do, and as surely as rivers flow and thunder rumbles, it does what it has to do.

The dominant figure of speech in the poem is personification, which turns the grass into a person who observes wars and cleans up after them. An implied metaphor equates grass with time, which erases memories of war. The battles referred to call up images of great carnage, as indicated in the following details about the battles:

Austerlitz: Major battle of the Napoleonic wars, fought on December 2, 1805. Nearly 25,000 men died. Napoleon Bonaparte and his army of nearly 70,000 soldiers defeated a force of Russians and Austrians numbering about 90,000. Austerlitz is in the present-day Czech Republic.

Waterloo: The final battle of the Napoleonic wars, fought near Waterloo, Belgium, on June 18, 1815, and resulting in more than 60,000 casualties. British forces under the Duke of Wellington, General Arthur Wellesley, and Prussian forces under Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher combined to defeat Napoleon.

Gettysburg: Major battle of the U.S. Civil War in which Union forces of General George G. Meade defeated Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee near the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1-3, 1863, resulting in 45,000 to 50,000 casualties. The battle turned the tide of the war in favor of the Union.

Ypres (pronounced E pruh): Town in Belgium that was the site of three major World War I battles (October-November 1914, April-May 1915, and July-November 1917) that resulted in more than 850,000 German and allied casualties.

Verdun: Indecisive World War I battle between the French and the Germans fought at Verdun, France, from February to December, 1916. Total casualties numbered more than 700,000.

v. E.E.Cummings. Pity This Busy Monster. Manunkind.

Edward Estlin Cummings (1894 – 1962) commonly known as e.e. cummings, wrote attractive, innovative verse distinguished for its humor, grace, celebration of love and eroticism, and experimentation with punctuation and visual format on the page. A painter, he was the first American poet to recognize that poetry had become primarily a visual, not an oral, art; his poems used much unusual spacing and indentation, as well as dropping all use of capital letters.

Pity this busy monster, manunkind begins by first stating the main subject that is being analyzed, which is all of humanity. The first line states, “Pity this busy monster, manunkind”. In this sentence, the “busy monster” is actually all of humanity. The term itself would be humankind; however, the poet has created a new word to describe what man is and what are its intentions. Manunkind is a fabricated word, however it is written in such context that it becomes a word which describes how man is unkind. It is describing a humanity has come to be so fully exhausted and hectic, that it has turned into a collection of pathetic monstrosities. It is evident that the poet has a negative outlook toward what humanity has come to be. He is inferring that over a period of time man is progressed so far in every aspect of life, including technology, medicine, and thought that it has turned into a monster without stop.

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:

your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness

– electrons deify one razorblade

into a mountainrange; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish

returns on its unself.

A world of made

is not a world of born – pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this

fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if – listen: there's a hell

of a good universe next door; let's go

This poem is an important look at humanity because of its central theme; man sets himself above all others, no matter the cost. When man does this, he is opening the path of indifference to ignoring the "little people" who then become disposable, thus a monster is born.

In the next line he states, “Progress is a comfortable disease…” In this line he is stating how humanity has only one will on this planet and it is survival and progression. Cummings puts these words into such context that it makes humanity seem as if the only thing that it is concerned with are its own advancement on this planet, such as an obsessed beast. Here he is stating the reason why mankind should not be pities for it is bringing these circumstances upon itself, therefore it does not deserve any sympathy.

In the next line Cummings states, “… your victim (death and life safely beyond)” This line is meant to be described as a barrier which man has faced countless times which both helps and yet restrains it from progression. This line implies that death is the one enemy which mankind has not completely ended. It is what causes us from progressing at an even faster rate. However without death there would be no life, so it is symbolic that something which slows down progression, at the same time it is the fuel behind it occurring at all. Death and life are kept at a certain balance, for they are the beginning and end of everything living. Progression might cause the line between the two to completely vanish, turning humanity into a truly horrific creature with no stop to what its single purpose on the Earth is.

In the next line Cummings states, “…plays with the bigness of his littleness.” Here Cummings is implying that humanity sees itself to be far more than it really is. This line describes how humanity has come to see itself as all powerful and superior in the entire universe. It sees itself to be the only means of existence for the entire universe. However, it is ignorant to the fact that it is only a tiny speck in the middle of endlessness.

When Cummings states, “lenses extend unwish through curving where when till unwish returns on its unself.” Here Cummings uses the lenses of telescopes or cameras where the lenses create a distorted view of what is actually being seen. Cummings is using lenses in metaphorical terms to describe humanity as a single giant organism which has distorted itself, such as what lenses do, causing it to look at itself in a vague way, unaware of its actual appearance. The lenses has disillusioned mankind into perceiving who they are and where they live to be something that does not exist. This statement makes the existence of humanity seem nonexistent, through the sue of the prefix “un” Cummings is creating a sense of everything that humanity desires or strives to gain or achieve was and is not actually there. Humanity perceives through a lenses thus creating a disillusioned means of existence.

When Cummings states, “A world of made is not a world of born-pity poor flesh and trees, poor stars and stones…” Here the poet is implying that the things which man has created are unnatural. Through the means of the natural resources of the planet, man has molded these natural resources into poor and pitiful inventions and technologies. At this point the tone of the poem begins to change, into a depressed and slightly angered voice. Cummings is implying that everything man has made is unnatural and therefore it is not “good.” He is stating how that ever since humanity has inhabited the planet, everything has become poorer and has declined in its

condition. Humanity is a poison which is distorting and destroying everything that is natural and therefore good. Thus implying that humanity is evil and it is what should be blamed and everything that has fallen under its “reign” should not be held responsible but pitied for its condition.

vi. Langston Hughes. The Negro Speaks of Rivers.

James Hughes (1902 – 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "Harlem was in vogue."

Throughout Langston Hughes’ poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers the theme of roots is prominent and this theme gives rise to the ultimate meaning of the poem, even though the word “roots” itself is not used in the text. The textual details of the poem invoke strong imagery related to veins, rivers, and the roots of trees and give the reader a sense of the timelessness of these objects. Furthermore, through his use of language and images, Langston Hughes is able to create two meanings for the theme of roots since on the one hand they refer to the deep roots like trees have as well as “roots” in the historical and familial sense.

Through these images and details, the reader begins to understand the complexity of the poem and it is clear that it addresses themes that are much larger than simply rivers or human veins—it is a statement on the whole of African-American history as it has flourished along rivers, which gave life and allowed “human veins” and firm historical roots.

In the short first stanza, the speaker in the poem by Langston Hughes states that he has “known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.” From this early point in the point in the poem, images of the canals of veins that run throughout the human body as well as similar images of rivers that wind around and are shaped like veins form our understanding that this poem is about more than blood or water, it is about roots and circuits. Like veins or rivers, roots run deep and twist irregularly through the medium in which they are planted. The ancient rivers the speaker talks of are like the blood in veins or the roots under trees because they provide sustenance and can give and support life.

It is important to point out that after the first stanza there is a sentence that stands by itself for emphasis that simply states in one of the more important lines in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” This stand-alone line prefaces the issues that will be discussed in the following lines and makes the reader see that rivers are not like the long probing roots of a tree or human veins, but rivers are similar to the soul. When the speaker says that his soul is deep like the rivers, he is saying that because of this almost organic connection with the earth, he thrives and can understand. It is also significant that he says his soul has “grown” deep like the rivers since the idea that it “grows” further emphasizes the organic nature of knowledge and one’s soul. Like tree roots that extend far into the earth, the speaker is “nourished” by roots, both in physical terms (the rivers and human veins) as well as in the metaphorical sense.

The third section changes the tone of the poem since it reverts to the first-person perspective. Although the reader knows it is impossible for one person to have lived in so many places and time periods at once, it is understood that the “I” being used is meant to represent hundreds of thousands of voices from the past to the present. The speaker says, “I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young / I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled it me to sleep” which makes the reader aware that the “ancient rivers” spoken of before are the “roots” both in terms of history as well as physically. The theme of rivers is continued in the following lines where the speaker details looking along the Nile and then hearing singing in Mississippi and New Orleans and it is clear that these are locations of particular importance in African and African-American history.

After the speaker has highlighted the many rivers important to the “roots” of the souls of people, there is another line break, which seems to be separated for added emphasis. The speaker states, “I’ve known rivers / Ancient, dusky rivers” and the whole theme of the roots of knowing and understanding are brought full circle. Just as when the speaker said his soul had “grown” deep, in this separated section when he says, “I’ve known” rivers he is making a reference to the roots of knowledge. Trees have been associated with knowledge from as early on as the Bible (the Tree of Knowledge) and the theme of roots he invokes here not only addresses the roots of history, circuits, and the soul, but also of knowledge and understanding. This knowledge he refers to is more akin to omniscient cultural knowledge and identity and the roots, which are fed by the metaphorical river and maintained by the human veins and bloodlines of generations. The speaker ends the poem with the repeated phrase, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” and after reading the stanzas that followed after the first time he stated it, the meaning is both clearer and more complex since we realize so many issues of history, the soul, culture, and understanding are being discussed.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world

and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

5. 1939 +: The Contemporary Period

5.1 Jerome David Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye.

JEROME DAVID SALINGER (1919 – 2010).

A herald of things to come in the 1960s, Salinger has portrayed attempts to drop out of society. Born in New York City, he achieved huge literary success with the publication of his novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), centered on a sensitive 16-year-old, Holden Caulfield, who flees his elite boarding school for the outside world of adulthood, only to become disillusioned by its materialism and falsity (фальшь).

When asked what he would like to be, Caulfield answers "the catcher in the rye," misquoting a poem by Robert Burns. In his vision, he is a modern version of a white knight, the sole preserver of innocence (единственный хранитель невинности). He imagines a big field of rye so tall that a group of young children cannot see where they are running as they play their games. He is the only big person there. "I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff." The fall over the cliff is equated with the loss of childhood and (especially sexual) innocence -- a persistent theme of the era. Other works by this reclusive (recluse – затворник, отшельник), spare writer include Nine Stories (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters (1963), a collection of stories from The New Yorker. Since the appearance of one story in 1965, Salinger -- who lives in New Hampshire -- has been absent from the American literary scene.

He wrote: "I almost always write about very young people," a statement which is his credo. Adolescents are featured or appear in all of Salinger's work, from his first published short story, "The Young Folks," to The Catcher in the Rye and his Glass family stories. One critic explained that Salinger's choice of teenagers as a subject matter was one reason for his appeal to young readers, but another was "a consciousness [among youths] that he speaks for them and virtually to them, in a language that is peculiarly honest and their own, with a vision of things that capture their most secret judgments of the world." Salinger's language, especially his energetic, realistically sparse (редкий, разбросанный) dialogue, was revolutionary at the time his first stories were published, and was seen by several critics as "the most special thing" about his work.

Salinger identified closely with his characters, and used techniques such as interior monologue, letters, and extended telephone calls to display his gift for dialogue. Such style elements also "[gave] him the illusion of having, as it were, delivered his characters' destinies into their own keeping." Recurring themes in Salinger's stories also connect to the ideas of innocence and adolescence, including the "corrupting influence of Hollywood and the world at large," the disconnect between teenagers and "phony" adults, and the perceptive, precocious intelligence of children.

Another critic wrote that rereading “Zooey” and its companion piece "Franny" is no less rewarding than rereading “The Great Gatsby”.

“THE CATCHER IN THE RYE” was originally published for adults, but it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. The novel's protagonist and antihero, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage rebellion.

PLOT: the 17-year-old narrator and protagonist of the novel, Holden Caulfield, is in the hospital and recalls in his memory one crazy story that happened with him last Christmas. According to him, after this story he nearly died, he was ill for a long time, but now he undergoes some treatment and hopes to return home soon.

His recollection starts from the day he runs away from his public school. He leaves it not by his own will – he is sent down for academic failure. This school is not the first one he leaves. He left the previous one because he felt false, sham and show all around him. Actually, he feels this all the time. Adults, as well as his peers, annoy him, but at the same time he can’t stand loneliness.

The last day in school is filled with conflicts. For example, when his roommate asks Holden to write him a composition about a house or a room, Holden writes about his late brother’s baseball glove that was all covered with this brother’s poems. The roommate reads it and becomes angry that Holden strayed and did the dirty on him. Holden is also angry because this roommate had a date with the girl Holden liked. They start a fight that finishes with Holden’s broken nose.

Holden runs away from school and comes to New York. He can’t go home and tell his parents that he was expelled from school that is why he takes a taxi and rides to a hotel. He also asks the taxi driver his favorite question: “Where do the ducks in Central Park go when the water in the pond freezes over?” The taxi driver is surprised and thinks that the passenger pokes fun at him. But this question is most likely the display of the boy’s confusion, not his wish to mock at somebody or his interest in biology.

This world oppresses him and attracts him at the same time. He feels hard with people and he feels hard without them. In New York he has adventures. He tries to have fun in the night club, but nothing good happens and the waiter refuses to bring him some alcohol. Then he takes a prostitute with the help of the lift boy, but he can’t find the strength to have sex, to give up his innocence. The next day he meets his friend Sally and spends time with her. But he’s not happy. Everything makes him angry, sad and annoyed. As his friend doesn’t share his negative attitude to everything, she starts to annoy him as well. When he suggests taking a car and riding somewhere for a couple of weeks, she refuses, saying that they are only children. Holden sees red and spells out a lot of rude words. Sally cries and leaves him.

When he finally comes home, his parents are absent. He talks to his little sister Phoebe who is young, but very understanding. Holden talks to his sister and tells her about his dream. It is to look after little playing children in the rye and to ensure that they don’t fall off the brink. Holden believes that to be a "catcher in the rye" means to save children from losing their innocence.

Holden is not ready to meet his parents and Phoebe gives him some money. He takes it and goes to his old teacher. The teacher tries to give him advice, but Holden is too tired to listen to reasonable sayings. He falls asleep, but wakes up and finds his teacher patting his head in a way that he regards as "flitty." He thinks that the teacher has some filthy intentions and runs away. He later wonders if his interpretation of teacher's actions was actually correct.

He thinks what to do next in his life and decides to rise west and to try to start all over again. This is by the way an old American tradition. He wants to meet his sister and give her money back, but she wants to follow Holden in his journey. She acts just like Holden himself: refuses to go to school, claims that she is sick and tired of this life. At that moment Holden has to accept the common sense and to forget about his denial of everything. He shows himself as a prudent and responsible young man and promises little sister that he stays with her and they both don’t go anywhere.

The story ends when Holden takes Phoebe to the zoo, she rides a carousel and he admires her.

5.2 Ray Bradbury. From “Martian Chronicles”/Farenheit 451.

Some biography:

Ray Douglas Bradbury, the author of more than 500 published literary works, was born in Waukegan, Illinois, on August 22, 1920. Hey guys, he is still alive and he lives in America!

In 1934, when Bradbury was 14, the family moved permanently to Los Angeles, California. Mr. Bradbury still resides in Los Angeles, but regards Waukegan as his hometown and has used it as the setting of two of his novels, under the pseudonym of Green Town.

In his youth, Bradbury developed a love of magic and aspired to become a magician. Encouraged in his creativity by his family, Bradbury turned to writing at a young age, a profession at which many would argue he has worked quite a bit of magic. In 1937, at the age of 17, Bradbury became a member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, through which he published his first work, a short lived science fiction fan magazine. Bradbury's first short story was published in Weird Tales when he was 20. In addition to his numerous books and short stories, Bradbury wrote for years for both Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. He has written two musicals, produced dramatic presentations of a number of his novels, and wrote the screenplay for 1953's Moby Dick. His cable television show, The Ray Bradbury Theater, has won numerous cable awards, and five of his novels (Fahrenheit 451, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Outer Space, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes) have been made into major motion pictures.

Genre and topics:

Ray Bradbury is most widely regarded as a science fiction writer, he has not limited himself to that genre, having also produced works of drama and psychological realism. It would be unfair to classify much of Bradbury's more philosophical science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 included, within the genre of science fiction. Fahrenheit 451 is as much a work of social criticism, comparable to Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, as a work of science fiction. Bradbury has also written works of horror, fantasy, and mystery, and many of his works - particularly his short stories - reject the supernatural entirely for themes of childhood wonder, love, nostalgia, and hope. Bradbury's work has contributed to American literature on many levels, and he remains one of a very few authors who entertains both young and old alike.Mr.

Today’s life and curious facts:

Bradbury, father of four daughters, Susan, Ramona, Bettina, and Alexandra, and grandfather of many, currently resides in Los Angeles, where he continues to write and speak, enjoys painting, and collects Mexican artwork. He suffered a stroke in 1999 but has continued to publish books at a prodigious clip. His more recent works include The Homecoming (2006), Let's All Kill Constance (2002), and One More for the Road (2002), a collection of short stories.

Though he is one of the preeminent science fiction writers of his generation, he is also a noted technophobe: he has never driven a car, and he distrusts the internet, computers, and ATM machines.

Farenheit 451 summary: http://www.gradesaver.com/fahrenheit-451/study-guide/short-summary/

Main themes:

Censorship

In Fahrenheit 451, owning and reading books is illegal. Members of society focus only on entertainment, immediate gratification and speeding through life.

In the book, Bradbury doesn't give a clear explanation of why censorship has become so great in this futuristic society. He alludes to a variety of causes. Fast cars, loud music, and massive advertisements… Bradbury gives the reader a brief description of how society slowly lost interest in books, first condensing them, then relying simply on titles, and finally forgetting about them all together.

In the Afterword Bradbury clearly expresses his own sensitivity to attempts to restrict his writing. He feels censored by letters suggesting he should give stronger roles to women or black men. Bradbury sees such suggestions and interventions as the first step towards censorship and book burning.

Ignorance/Knowledge

Throughout the novel, the reader is presented with a conflict between knowledge and ignorance. What does true happiness consist of? Is ignorance bliss, or do knowledge and learning provide true happiness? Montag, in his belief that knowledge reigns, fights against a society that embraces and celebrates ignorance.

Life/Death

Throughout the novel, Bradbury presents paradoxes between life and death. For example, Montag's wife Millie attempts suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. Montag discovers her, calls for emergency medical assistance and saves her life. During the time while the medical team is reviving Millie, it is unclear whether she will live or die. Montag learns through the medics that reviving suicide attempts is a very common act. The commonality of suicide attempts and saves blurs the line between life and death in this futuristic society. Upon realizing this, Montag begins to wonder what life truly is and why it feels so empty and dead.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14