Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help

3. What is not a symbol in this poem?

Blake used such symbols because he saw a richness of implication in them that linked him to God. He thus shared in a minor way the creative act with God and helped others understand the world in terms of symbolic meaningfulness. For most other writers, the symbol is used more modestly to expand meaning, encompassing deep ranges of suggestion. The symbol has been compared with a stone dropped into the still waters of a lake: The stone itself is very small, but the effects radiate from its center to the edges of the lake. The symbol is dropped into our imagina- tions, and it, too, radiates with meaning. But the marvelous thing about the symbol is that it tends to be permanently expansive: Who knows where the meaningfulness of Blake’s rose ends? Blake does not tell us that his rose and worm are symbolic, but we readily realize that the poem says very little worth listening to if we do not begin to go beyond its literal meaning. The fact that worms kill roses is more important to gardeners than it is to readers of poetry. But that there is a secret evil that travels mysteriously to kill beautiful things is not as important to gardeners as to readers of poetry. prose fiction has made extensive use of the symbol. In Melville’s Moby-Dick, the white whale is a symbol, but so, too, is Ahab. The quest for Moby-Dick is itself a symbolic quest. The albatross in Samuel Coleridge’s “The Ancient Mariner” is a symbol, and so is the Ancient Mariner’s stopping one of the wedding guests to make him hear the entire narrative. In these cases, the symbols operate both struc- turally, in the entire narrative, and in the details. In those instances in which there is no evident context to guide us, we should interpret symbols with extreme care and tentativeness. Symbolic objects usually have a well-understood range of meaning that authors such as Blake depend on. For instance, the rose is often thought of in connection with beauty, romance, and love. The worm is often thought of in connection with death, the grave, and—if we include the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Blake had read Milton’s Paradise Lost)— the worm also suggests evil, sin, and perversion. Most of us know these things. Thus, the act of interpreting the symbol is usually an act of bringing this knowl- edge to the forefront of our minds so that we can use it in our interpretations. jac16871_ch07_163-195.indd 188 12/11/17 11:53 AM 189

LITERATURE

Irony Irony implies contradiction of some kind. It may be a contradiction of expectation or a contradiction of intention. For example, much sarcasm is ironic. Apparent compliments are occasionally digs intended to be wickedly amusing. In litera- ture, irony can be one of the most potent of devices. For example, in Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex, the prophecy is that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. What Oedipus does not know is that he has been adopted and taken to another country, so when he learns his fate he determines to leave home in order not to harm his parents. Ironically, he heads to Thebes and unknowingly chal- lenges his true father, a king, at a crossroads and kills him. He then answers the riddle of the Sphinx, lifting the curse from the land—apparently a good outcome— but is then wed to the wife of the man he has killed. That woman is his mother. These events are part of a pattern of tragic irony, and in narrative literature this is a powerful device. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory” is marked by regular meter, simple rhyme, and a basic pattern of four four-line stanzas. There is very little if any imagery in the poem, very little metaphor, and possibly no symbol, unless Richard Cory is the symbol. What gives the poem its force is the use of irony.

RICHARD CORY

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king— And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head. Source: Edwing Arlington Robinson, “Richard Cory,” The Children of the Night, 1897. The irony lies in the contrast between the wealthy, accomplished, polished Richard Cory, and the struggling efforts of his admirers to keep up with him. Ultimately the most powerful irony is that the man everyone idolized did not love himself enough to live. For an admired person to have everything and then “put a bullet through his head” simply does not seem reasonable. And yet, that is what happened. jac16871_ch07_163-195.indd 189 12/11/17 11:53 AM 190 CHApTER 7 Diction Diction refers to the choice of words. But because the entire act of writing involves the choice of words, the term “diction” is usually reserved for literary acts (speech as well as the written word) that use words chosen especially carefully for their impact. The diction of a work of literature will sometimes make that work seem inevitable, as if there were no other way of saying the same thing, as in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be.” Try saying that in other words. In Robert Herrick’s poem, we see an interesting example of the poet calculating the effect of specific words in their context. Most of the words in “Upon Julia’s Clothes” are single-syllable words, such as “then.” But the few polysyllables—“vibra- tion” with three syllables and the most unusual four-syllable word “liquefaction”— lend an air of intensity and special meaning to themselves by means of their syllabic contrast. There may also be an unusual sense in which those words act out or imi- tate what they describe. UpON JULIA’S CLOTHES Whenas in silks my Julia goes, Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes. Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see That brave vibration, each way free, O, how that glittering taketh me! Source: Herrick, Robert, “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” Works of Robert Herrick, Alfred Pollard, ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen 1891, pg.77. PERCEPTION KEY “Upon Julia’s Clothes” 1. The implications of the polysyllabic words in this poem may be quite different for different people. Read the poem aloud with a few people. Ask for suggestions about what the polysyllables do for the reader. Does their complexity enhance what is said about Julia? Their sounds? Their rhythms?