I should probably not take everything in this poem literally.

"Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light" ("Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," 18-19 and half of the other lines).

I'd first like to point out that we wrote villanelles last year in English, and I wrote mine about an old man telling kids to get off his lawn. The benefit of the villanelle is presumably the repetition of two refrains over and over again, connecting all of the ideas throughout the poem.

Going "gentle into that good night" is probably a euphemism-y metaphor for a quiet death like our friend Tennyson described in "Crossing the Bar." However, as the speaker addresses his father, he is making a case against a quiet death. Question two is staring me down, so I'm going to try to tackle the speaker's view of the various types of men toward death.

The speaker argues that they all have relatively calamitous deaths for separate reasons:

• Wise men: because their words "forked no lightning" (5), which presents a bunch of confusing images to me, most of which end in electrocution. I think it means that the words of the wise aren't received as well as they would like them to be.
• Good men: because their "frail deeds" did not "dance" as they would have liked them to (8)? Maybe the deeds of good men seem unsubstantial and ineffective in retrospect.
• Wild men: because they "grieved" the sun as the "caught and sang" it (10-11). This is a little bit too metaphorical for my taste. It's a metaphor for . . . being ashamed of their lives, perhaps.
• Grave men: because they see with "blinding sight" (13). They have a very good understanding of life and death.

That was a lot of speculation on my part. My point is that the speaker doesn't want his father to go "gently" because none of those other guys in the four groups go gently for whatever reasons.

Ooh.

"Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."

"Now let us sport us while we may, / And now, like amorous birds of prey, / Rather at once our time devour / Than languish in his slow-chapped power" ("To His Coy Mistress," 37-40).

I like identifying and creating arguments, and my favorite essay last year was the argument essay, so I'm going to answer question three. "Outline the speaker's argument in three sentences that begin with the words If, But, and Therefore. Is the argument valid?

If we had all the time in the world, we could develop our love slowly, but we are immortal; therefore, we must utilize our time well.

I think that the speaker is a little bit extreme in comparing playing "coy" (title) to developing love from the "Flood" to the "conversion of the Jews" (8-10) and to admiring each other for "thirty thousand" years (16). Personally, I think the speaker is just trying to get into his mistress's pants as he refers to her "long-preserved virginity" (28). But they're overstatements, so I guess it makes sense rhetorically. The truth behind it is that the speaker and his lover cannot wait to love each other -- they must "devour" their time now (39).

Carpe diem, right?

I think it's a valid argument, though the comparisons are a little bit extreme. Being shy and flirtatious is nice to an extent, but it can't become the extent. We need to be "like amorous bird of prey" and such. Similes are good.

We Will All Go Together When We Go

"And may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea" ("Crossing the Bar," 3-4).

I distinctly remember reading this in Channel 1 today and getting "We Will All Go Together When We Go" stuck in my head. Tom Lehrer sings, "We will all char together when we char, and let there be no moaning of the bar." Good allusion, Mr. Lehrer -- he's so smart!

I'm going to dissect the meaning of this metaphor here. "When I put out to sea" (4) is a metaphor for death. Later, "When I have crossed the bar" (16) serves as another metaphor for death, but what about "no moaning of the bar"?

Looking at it in the context of Tom Lehrer's song (which I know I'm not supposed to do, Perrine, but bear with me), we must accept that we're all going to "char" when the bomb drops on all of us. Lehrer sings about why dying together is a good thing -- it's a "comforting fact" that we're all going to be glowing with radiation when we all die, and there's no reason to "moan."

I'm going to use the definition of "bar" in my AHD that says "attorneys considered as a group." A "bar" defined thus is a group of attorneys, who state someone's case on behalf of him. The speaker does not want the "bar" -- those metaphorical "attorneys" -- to mourn his death on his behalf. Rather, he wants a quiet, subdued, and peaceful death.

You're not all that special, but you are.

"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare" ("My mistress' eyes," 13-14).

In the first twelve lines of Shakespeare's sonnet, the speaker identifies a handful of love cliches and disproves that his mistress exemplifies them. For example, the first line identifies the cliche "your eyes are like the sun," but the speaker denies this simile -- his love's eyes are "nothing like the sun" (1). The speaker is viewing his lover from a very literal standpoint, and relative to other poets, he is humbling his lover. I would say that the tone in the first twelve lines is judicious and condescending.

I quoted the final two lines at the beginning of this post; they mark a shift in tone, as observed in question three in the textbook. It's a "yet" kind of deal, so the speaker is saying, "My lover isn't as great as other guys claim there lovers are, buuut . . ." something. He thinks his love is as "rare" (13) as all of those other women whose lovers have lied to them. Even though he spends twelve lines describing the ways in which his mistress is not special, he still calls her special in the last two lines. I'd call that a passionate and admiring tone.

You know whose eyes are kind of actually like the sun?

next to of course sharp cheddar coherent poems i

"centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb" ("next to of course god america i," 4-6).

as i read this poem i wondered if i was allowed to write in punctuation in the above quote i would probably add a period after more a question mark after it and a dash after language lack of capitalization i can deal with but punctuation matters so says the poster in mr costello's wall will you let me be yours gloria

i can say a few things for certain that jingoism is extreme nationalism and that the first few lines recite patriotic songs for instance question four asks if cummings admires the dead who did not stop to think based on the fact that this question was asked and we're on a unit of irony i will say no

the last line does little more for me than establish a speaker who drinks rapidly a glass of water after reading this poem i'd like to rapidly throw it against the wall that split infinitive was definitely necessary however i feel like i'm going to have to answer multiple choice questions about it

Folding Laundry: Metaphor for Love? Or the Black Plauge?

"A mountain of unsorted wash / could not fill / the empty side of the bed" ("Sorting Laundry," 49-51).

I think this poem is pretty adorable. (You know, until we discuss it in class and I find out it's actually a metaphor for the Black Plague. I don't . . . think it is. Nope. I just wanted to consider that idea.)

The first three lines establish a metaphor. As the speaker folds clothes, she thinks of folding her lover into her life. When I fold clothes, I think of how horrible I am at folding shirts -- they just never look good once I'm finished. I need one of those shirt folders. Maybe I'll try to think of something more philosophical next time. I'll get back to you on that one.

For most of the duration of the poem, the speaker describes in detail all of the clothes, towels, and sheets she folds as she does the laundry, and how they are connected to her and her lover. "So many shirts and skirts and pants / recycling week after week, head over heals / recapitulating themselves" (16-18). It's just very nice!

The last three lines (quoted above) contain an overstatement, "a mountain of unsorted wash," which is supported by the continuous and lengthy description in the poem of all of the laundry the speaker was folding. What the speaker is saying at the end is that a mountain of just her own clothes would not be able to fill the empty side of the "bed." Her lover is an integral part of her life.

"Why, Professor Dumbledore, you look absolutely ravishing!"

"Take me to you, imprison me, for I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, / Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me" ("Batter my heart, three-personed God," 12-14).

In this poem, the speaker is addressing God, asking Him to "batter" him so that he can "rise and stand" (1-3). That paradox is nice and everything, but I'm going to focus on the last three lines, which contain two paradoxes. Both paradoxes are resolved by the double meanings of certain words (like "batter" in this first example). Okay, the last two paradoxes . . .

The speaker asks God to "imprison" him, for unless God "enthralls" him, he cannot be "free." At first glance, that makes no sense because one who is imprisoned is not free. However, the word "enthrall" can mean to captivate in a charming way or in a slavery-y way. The speaker is suggesting that it would be oh-so-charming if God were to enslave him; that would make him free of evil.

Then, the speaker asks God to "ravish" him, for unless God ravishes him, he cannot be chaste. If we just use one definition of "ravish" -- to rape -- this statement seems contradictory. Rape is not chaste. However, "ravish" can also mean to fill with joy, which is more of what the speaker is requesting.

My argument here is that the speaker wants to be figuratively imprisoned and raped, and he literally wants to be charmed and filled with joy. Iiii sincerely hope it's not the other way around.

"Water, water, everywhere" but not a "drop to drink"

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' / Nothing beside remains" ("Ozymandias," 10-12).

This is irony of the situational variety. King Ozymandias is "mighty," "cold," and "wrinkled"; those conceptions of him have survived for centuries since he ruled Ancient Egypt. Simultaneously, the words on the pedestal recall Ozymandias's "mighty works"; those works are nowhere to be seen. We expect Ozymandias's mighty works to remain because of his aforementioned power and might, but instead, the sand around his crumbled statue is "boundless and bare" (13).

In Ozymandias's case, people remembered the "despair" of his cruel tyranny longer than his "mighty works" lasted. It's a nice reminder that though our attitudes are not exactly immortal, our material accomplishments are certainly more mortal.

So, I was reading the introduction to situational irony, and I came across the example "water, water, everywhere" but not a "drop to drink." Like what happened with Ozymandias, this is the opposite of what we would expect to happen. I felt pretty cool because I knew exactly where this reference originated -- in Hank Green's song "This is Not Harry Potter."

(There was some verbal irony in that last sentence.)

"We sit down in our Thinking Chair and think, think, thiiiink."

"Much Madness is divinest Sense -- / To a discerning Eye -- / Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --" ("Much Madness is divinest Sense," 1-3).

My new strategy is to blog about the weirdest poems of the unit, so I'll naturally begin with Emily Dickinson.

That quote up there is a paradox, which I know because equating madness and sense is an apparent contradiction and because the first question in the book told me so. Since it's a paradox, there must be some sort of truth behind it. Let's investigate.

"To a discerning eye" (2) suggests that the speaker sides with those who equate insanity and good sense. Dickinson also writes that those who "demur" are viewed as dangerous and are "handled with a chain" (7-8), so she is not with the majority. "Handled with a chain" sounds like an understatement to me; "handled" is a very light way of saying "imprisoned" or "strangled." Let's keep investigating.

"Madness" is a fairly ambiguous word -- insanity has many interpretations -- but that word "demur" shrinks the area of interpretation to some kind of objection. Here's what I have written in my Handy Dandy Notebook (ding!):

• The speaker sees a connection between insanity and sense.
• The majority sees a connection between compliance and sense.
• When a person objects, the majority suppresses them.

This poem gives me the idea that the speaker doesn't think that locking up all the crazy rebels is such a good idea. (I mean, they're probably going to escape, anyway.)

The Joy of Cooking (in your pants)

"Best with horseradish / and economical -- it will probably grow back" ("The Joy of Cooking," 5-6).

There was a speck on my computer screen to the right of that closing parenthesis, and I thought it was a period, so I kept clicking to the right of the speck but my cursor would never get to the other side of it! Man. Poetry is hard.

This poem is definitely metaphorical, but I also think it's amusing -- I laughed a little bit about the quote I quoted. We'll get to that a little bit more later. What's happening in this poem, though, is that the speaker is judging her sister's talkativity (don't tell me that's not a word) and her brother's heartlessness.

Her sister's tongue has a lot of parts to it -- the skin, roots, and bones -- and it will probably "grow back." That suggests to me that she talks too much and is unyielding in whatever she says. Her brother's heart is firm, dry, and not interesting, and it barely feeds two people. I can interpret that as a brother who is kind of callous and boring, and he has little love to offer.

I haven't gone through the funniest poem titles for "in your pants" yet, so I'll do that now:

• "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" in your pants
• "The Convergence of the Twain" in your pants
• "I taste a liquor never brewed" in your pants
• "The Joy of Cooking" in your pants

EXPLOSION!

"Or does it explode?" ("Dream Deferred," 11).

The basic structure of Hughes's poem is this:

• First stanza: four rhetorical questions, each presenting one simile
• Second stanza: one declarative sentence, presenting one simile
• Third stanza: one rhetorical question, presenting one metaphor

The speaker begins by comparing a dream deferred to a dried-up raisin, an oozing sore, smelly meat, and crusty candy. All of these comparisons suggest that an abandoned dream deteriorates and pesters us. The second stanza compares it to a heavy load, suggesting that it drags us down.

There's nothing wrong with those comparisons because they all have truth to them, but they aren't as vivid as the final metaphor, directly comparing a deferred dream to an "explosion." When we abandon a dream, the results are sudden, sharp, and violent -- this image makes abandoning a dream less appealing.

The speaker uses his first four rhetorical questions to deny that things like raisins and meat are not vivid enough comparisons for a deferred dream. The second stanza's declarative sentence is a detached resignation -- maybe it's just something that drags us down like a load. Then, the third stanza's rhetorical question is an assertion that a deferred dream and an explosion have the same effects. The metaphor and the italics single out that image as the most significant one.

Dying and Journeying are Very Different Things

"And though it in the center sit, / Yet when the other far doth roam, / It leans, and hearkens after it, / And grows erect, as that comes home" ("A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," 29-32).

Donne's poem presents images of both death and journeying. It seems to me like the speaker is using figurative images of death to compare them to his journey in which he will depart from his love -- in other words, I don't think he's going to die soon.

The initial stanza is a simile -- "as virtuous men pass mildly away" (1) -- to introduce a figurative image of death. The title also presents a picture of mourning, public grief over someone's death. However, details in the poem suggest to me that the speaker is not pondering his impending death.

The "priests," or the true lovers in the poem, engage in "refined" love that is "inter-assured of the mind" (17-20), and when they depart, their souls behave in a special way. Their souls endure an "expansion," hearkening after each other, and even if they are two different souls, they are like "compasses" because they spin in the same direction (25-28). Then, there are implications of those lovers reuniting -- "as that comes home" (32) and "makes me end where I begun" (36).

I suppose they could be reuniting in the afterlife, but the images of a journey -- the compass and the longing for company -- seem to be predominant.

Toad on the Road

"For something sufficiently toad-like / Squats in me, too; / Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck, / And cold as snow" ("Toads," 25-28).

It's like a more elegant version of "The Lazy Song." I despise that song.

My goal in this post is to identify the two metaphorical toads described in the poem. The first one is easy because it's explicit: "the toad work" (1). That first toad represents the speaker's questioning view of work as he ponders a bunch of alliterative lifestyles -- "Lecturers, lispers, / Losels, loblolly-men, louts" (10-11). Those people "don't end as paupers," "seem to like" their lives," and do not actually "starve." So essentially, the first toad (work) restrains the author who doesn't understand the necessity of it.

I'm going to say that the second toad is the speaker's pragmatic and positive view of work. The similes I quoted at the beginning of the post suggest that this toad is steady and unyielding. With a pun on the word "stuff" in the sixth stanza, the speaker develops his point that work and pensions are "stuff" that form dreams (which apparently happened in The Tempest -- I don't recall). The second toad won't allow the speaker to "blarney" or get everything he wants "at one sitting" (32). He has a steady conscience (the second toad) that reminds him that work creates dreams, which require patience and effort to achieve. That's a more uplifting and reasonable view of work than the one presented in the first half of the poem with the restrictive toad.

Has anyone else read Toad on the Road? It's a classic.

I'll drink to that!

"Inebriate of Air -- am I -- / And Debauchee of Dew -- / Reeling -- thro endless summer days -- / From inns of Molten Blue --" ("I taste a liquor never brewed," 5-8).

The second question in the book makes it explicit that this poem is an extended metaphor -- a conceit, if you will. I'm pretty cool with accepting that because the speaker is obviously not just talking about drinking alcohol; there is a deeper meaning.

Literally in the poem, the speaker begins to "taste a liquor" (1). She is an "Inebriate" (5) and a "Debauchee" (6), and by the end of the poem, she is a leaning "Tippler" (15). However, certain phrases suggest a figurative meaning.

Firstly, the alcohol is "never brewed" (1), so I know it can't be real alcohol. The things which she is figuratively drinking are listed in the second stanza -- "Air," "dew," and "inns of Molten Blue." All of those things are beautiful components of nature. Air is fresh and crisp, dew settles in drops on plants in the morning, and "Molten Blue" seems like a sky (but I could also see it as water). The speaker is not drinking liquor but is appreciating the world to such an extent that she can compare it to intoxication.

Sometimes I'm kind of delirious when I'm extremely happy. I'm not sure if I can compare it to alcohol or not; from what I know about alcohol, it makes people less in touch with their consciousness and inhibitions. People do crazy things when they're drunk, so I guess they can do crazy things when they're admiring the world around them! I blame my title on being tired.

London . . . in your pants?

"In every cry of every man, / In every Infant's cry of fear, / In every voice, in every ban, / The mind-forged manacles I hear" ("London," 5-8).

I had the most trouble understanding Blake's poem out of all of them, so I'm going to embrace that and blog about my confusion. First of all, I did notice a few things that are probably key -- the dark, somber tone and the woeful motif of crying. Essentially, what I know for sure is that London is not such a happy place in this poem (litotes).

The third question asks for the meaning of line eight, which I quoted at the top. My best guess is that every person and infant in London is full of sorrow because they're restrained in some way. The only thing I can think of that would restrain them is the monarchy, which is kind of mentioned in the twelfth line. Speaking of which . . .

I don't understand the subsequent stanza at all. "And the hapless Soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls" (11-12). The figurative "Soldier" is apparently unlucky and frustrated about something that has to do with the "Palace," which I think could be the crown, which has a lot of power to restrain (hence the "manacles").

And what about that last part? All I see is that there are prostitutes who "blast" the Infant's tear. So in addition to blaming the crown for London's woe, I think that Blake could also be blaming anyone (mostly prostitutes) who "blights" (16) the family.

I'm trying to be very honest with the things I don't understand about this poem. I think it's working. I'll add the label "ambiguity" because I think that could be going on here.