Tag Archives: Poetry

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“I saw a man pursuing the horizon” by Stephen Crane Analysis

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In the literary realism movement, we have a great deal of authors and their novels doing some heavy lifting. In today’s post, a poem titled “I saw a man pursuing the horizon” by Stephen Crane will do the work.

Analysis of “I saw a man pursuing the horizon”

In the first stanza of the poem, Crane discusses seeing a man “pursuing the horizon.” For what purpose, we are yet to be sure. But, we know that as he watched the man, he goes “round and round,” speeding toward the destination.

Yet, the man’s strange pursuit “disturbed” the speaker. So, he engages the man. He tells him, “‘It is futile,'” I said, / ‘You can never–‘” Then the man cries, “You lie!” and runs on toward the horizon.

In this brief poem, Crane epitomizes a few things as it relates to human error. First, the poem addresses humanity’s fascination with futility. That is to say, even if something is not worth pursuing because it is hopeless, humanity has a way to strive straight for it head first. Second, Crane points out that no matter if humanity is confronted by their own ignorance, there narrowmindedness is so strident that even the obvious could not deter them.

Crane writes “round and round” not because the man is making a beeline toward the horizon. Rather that he is trapped in a desert loop, forever hunting for the horizon. It is in this realization that we understand the mocking nature that man must presume he is near when laboring under delusions. In “I saw a man pursuing the horizon,” Crane is letting his cynicism outward into the light. In other words, humanity will have their joyous ending whether it is there or not, and whether it kills them in following it or not.

The poem fits the literary realism only in its pessimistic view of humanity. It is certainly a view fellow literary realist writer Mark Twain would agree with. The desperate nature for humans to get what they want is unquenchable in Crane’s eyes. That does ring true if one considers historical accounts of bad decisions and outright irrational behavior for something as grand as catching the horizon.

Works Cited

Crane, Stephen. “I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon.” The Red Badge of Courage, Dover Publications, 1997, pp. 171-172.

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The Trial Surrounding “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg

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Society is capable of strange evils, like burning books or banning them from curriculum. Society can also convict people of thought crimes, because words have a great deal of power. Today, we are going to look at the trial of the poem “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg.

Poetry Readings: “Cops Don’t Allow No Renaissance Here”

Allen Ginsberg hadn’t even started his career as an influential Beat poet (the post-war Baby Boomer radicals) when he got himself into trouble. After giving a reading of his poem “Howl” at the art house Six Gallery in North Beach, San Francisco on Oct. 7 ,1955, Ginsberg was accused of obscenity.

Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti had read “Howl” before Ginsberg presented it at the gallery that night, and he knew it was a transformative piece. As such, “Howl” is a poem that is technically challenging and impressive in its message. Ginsberg was able to adeptly use his influence with Whitman and Blake and use an amalgamated style to convey new themes. This newness resonated with people of the age.”

“… I knew the world had been waiting for this poem, for this apocalyptic message to be articulated. It was in the air, waiting to be captured in speech. The repressive, conformist, racist, homophobic world of the 1950s cried out for it.”

Ferlinghetti

The reading event featured other notable poets and was a smashing success for the San Francisco poetry scene. It also launched Ginsberg’s career. According to Ferlinghetti, after hearing the poem, and in mimicking Ralph Waldo Emerson’s message to Walt Whitman after hearing “Leaves of Grass,” he sent Ginsberg a Western Union telegram that read: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do we get the manuscript?” (Found SF).

Ferlinghetti called the 29-year-old Beat poet soon after to publish “Howl” in City Lights in 1956. After the poem’s publication in paperback, authorities promptly arrested Ferlinghetti and book seller Shigeyoshi Murao on obscenity charges. The book featured explicit four-letter-words and homosexual overtones, which the moral sensors of the 1950s disliked. After the police made their arrests, one local newspaper headline read: “Cops Don’t Allow No Renaissance Here.”

Opinions on the Poem’s Impact

Ferlinghetti wrote that “Howl” was targeted for more than just being “obscene by cops.” He said that it was because, “it attacked the bare roots of our dominant culture, the very Moloch heart of our consumer society.” As stated by Andrew Spacey in his analysis of “Howl”: the poem is a “game-changer” because it adequately captured the feelings of the era. He writes: “… it expressed for the first time a modern psychological angst, an urban existence fueled by drugs, jazz, travel and expansion,” Spacey writes (Spacey).

The poem was a departure from what most writers and poetry consumers considered verse. It revolutionized an approach to writing. While some wrote letters criticizing Ginsberg’s poem, writers, poets, and artists unanimously criticized the trial. They said it was unnecessary censorship because the court was dealing with a true work of art.

“Mark S. Wittenberg, in the San Francisco Chronicle, represented this perspective. He stated: ‘I should say that when (Federal Collector of Customs) saw too many four letter words, he neither saw nor read anything else. Allen Ginsberg’s poem may be a lot of things…but it is not obscene” (Rehlaender).

The Trial of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”

The trial began in Aug. 1957, and the defense had some support. Lawyer Jake Ehrlich, and Lawrence Speiser and Albert Bendich of the ACLU defended Ferlinghetti and Murao. Meanwhile, Ginsberg, free from arrest, wrote letters of support from outside the judicial circus.

The overall argument from The State of California, represented by Ralph McIntosh, was that the words would harm the American people in mediums other than poetry. Thus, the poetry must be banned, because if it appeared on the radio then it would be inappropriate. Both sets of lawyers brought up expert witnesses to discuss the poem as art or as offensive material.

“Ehrlich closed by arguing the poem is only obscene if you purposefully read it that way; he argued that just because the words may be vulgar, does not mean the message is, so this should not detract from the literature’s value. Ginsberg wrote this way to detail HIS life, HIS experiences, and it is not intended to corrupt readers.”

Howl and Beyond

After spending time in consideration, Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem could not be obscene because such a ruling with tamper with the First Amendment. Horn’s ruling was important because it made way for the publication of previously censored works, such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

Works Cited

Rehlaender, Jamie. “A Howl of Free Expression: the 1957 Howl Obscenity Trial and Sexual Liberation.” Portland State University. March 19, 2015.

Spacey, Andrew. “Analysis of Poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg.” Owlcation. Jan. 10, 2020. Web.

“Howl and Beyond.” URL: https://howlandbeyond.weebly.com/the-obscenity-trial.html

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“Howl” as Read by Allen Ginsberg

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In today’s post, we listen to Allen Ginsberg read his infamous poem “Howl.” While accused of being obscene, this poem conveys a changing dynamic in American culture. The freedom and breakaway from the 1950s-1960s culture was becoming apparent, and this poem embodies that message. There are many universal themes in poetry, but “Howl” tapped into the minds and feelings of a generation.

“Howl” discusses many themes, but relies on its outside approach to conveying themes and messages. It is considered a significant work of the Beat Generation, which was already in full swing against the establishment. The poem has three sections, and each one critiques different aspects of society, discussing personal freedom, mental illness, and oppressive society.

The poem also discuss disillusionment with 1950s culture, and the nature of capitalism as a negative principle. It often refers to “Moloch” within the poem as a monstrous force. Similarly, it discusses how those with different ideas do not fit within the confines of a stratified society. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” Ginsberg writes. In addition, Ginsberg talks about sexuality in varying degrees, from homosexuality to heterosexuality. Lastly, the poem discusses Ginsberg’s outlook on the holy and the reverent by mixing mystical and theological imagery.

“Howl” as Read by Allen Ginsberg

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Claude McKay, writer, poet, and political activist

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The Harlem Renaissance writers had skill and audacity, and they were committed to writing transcendent work to show history and community. Similarly, their works were politically-minded and spoke to a generation of marginalized Americans. In this post, we examine Claude McKay, a writer who wrote from his moral center.

Biography

Claude McKay was born Festus Claudius McKay on Sept. 15, 1889, in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. As a youth, McKay was instantly attracted to British poetry even though his parents had utmost pride in their Malagasy and Ashanti Heritage. McKay would blend both cultures together to form a strong writing voice with the help of a few friends:

“Under the tutelage of his brother, schoolteacher Uriah Thephilus McKay, and a neighboring Englishman, Walter Jekyll, McKay studied the British masters, including John Milton, Alexander Pope, and the later Romantics—and European philosophers …” (poetryfoundation.org)

McKay’s Writing Life

With education under his belt, McKay explored other aspects of culture and civilization. He wrote about the life of poorer Jamaicans and explored inequality. In 1912, McKay published Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads under a London publisher. Afterward, he moved to the US to study at the Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College. He remained at the institute for a few short months.

Two years later, in 1914, he moved to Harlem, New York. In 1917, McKay published more poems in Pearson’s Magazine and Liberator, which featured his poem “If We Must Die.” The poem details the lengths that people should strive in order to see themselves vindicated in the eyes of the establishment.

Here’s the poem in its entirety:

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

“If We Must Die” by Claude McKay

Political Activism

McKay would leave the US for a few years and publish Spring in New Hampshire in 1920 during his European travels. After returning to the US, McKay began his journey into political activism. He involved himself with communists and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He would leave the US again to travel to Europe and North Africa, where he stayed for over 10 years, publishing a few notable works, including Home to Harlem and Banjo.

While he had dabbled in communism, he later began to dismiss the idea. After he returned to the US once more, he started engaging in more spiritual pursuits with the theologians in Harlem. Eventually, he converted to Catholicism, and toward the end of his life, he worked as an educator for a Catholic organization.

He died of a heart attack in Chicago on May 22, 1948.

Conclusion

Due to his monumental literary and political pursuits in life, he left a lasting impression.

“McKay’s viewpoints and poetic achievements in the earlier part of the twentieth century set the tone for the Harlem Renaissance and gained the deep respect of younger black poets of the time, including Langston Hughes.”

Poets.org

Notable Works

  • Songs of Jamaica
  • Constab Ballads
  • Spring in New Hampshire, and Other Poems
  • Harlem: Negro Metropollis
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Analysis of Tony Hoagland’s Poem ‘Jet’ and Its Themes

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Tony Hoagland wrote a poem titled “Jet,” and it is an important poem. While it speaks to me, it is far more universal and discuss themes regarding aging and reflection. Hoagland’s poem is about being young, under the stars, and imbibing in the spirits of your youth. In this way, art is cathartic—even if it’s just warm nostalgia.

“Jet” by Tony Hoagland

Stanzas One-Three

In stanza one, Hoagland writes about hanging out on a back porch, consuming “jet fuel” with his friends. His description of alcohol is apt as most people can agree that the first sips of alcohol are bitter. This revelry is “with the boys, getting louder and louder / as the empty cans drop out of our paws / like booster rockets falling back to Earth.” Of course, the parallels between “jet fuel” and “booster rockets,” is clear. One feels as though they are lifting off into space as drunkenness sets into your minds.

In stanzas two and three, Hoagland continues the theme of letting go and festivity. He writes about heading into the “summer stars” under the dark sky. The stars, asteroids, and “space suits with skeletons inside” fly overhead. The people below continue their “hairiness” and through the “effervescence gush” of drinking.

Stanza Four-Five

In stanza four, Hoagland states that the night sets upon the merrymakers while “fireflies flash.” Those imbibing tell grand stories and “untrue tales of sex.” In a group of men drinking, the chest thumping sometimes gets overly loud.

The final stanza is the most profound. In reflecting on those younger days, we can identify perfectly thoughtful moments. These include lying on car hoods or out in dew-covered grass. In this way, we wonder about our place in the universe. As it is important, the final stanza of the poem is here in its entirety:

no one really hears. We gaze into the night
as if remembering the bright unbroken planet
we once came from,
to which we will never
be permitted to return.
We are amazed how hurt we are.
We would give anything for what we have.

While there is chest thumping and untrue tales of sex, there is a great admiration for the universe. The contrast between youthful exuberance, binge drinking, and existential considerations.

Conclusion

In social circles, there is a great admiration for who we are and where we are in galaxy. And now, in looking back, such evenings don’t last forever and thus have an importance. As Hoagland states, there are few who would exchange those early, alcohol-infused nights just before the sun rose and when night, and celebration, is at its fullest.

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The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson crafted phenomenal poetry and led an interesting life, albeit a quiet one. Her poems, such as “Faith” and “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” give credence to her ability to craft verse, and her body of work is more than exceptional in the face of modern literary studies. Nevertheless, the mark of a good artist is someone whose art is worth talking about and someone whose life is worth discussing (e.g. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein). This is regardless of their interest in abstaining from the broader culture. For today’s post, we will examine Dickinson’s life and a few of her achievements.

Dickinson’s Biography

Early Years

Dickinson was born on Dec. 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was the middle child of three children and grew up in a strongly devout area of New England. She was close with her two siblings and by all accounts experienced a lovely childhood under the roof of her lawyer father and housekeeper mother.

Dickinson went to Amherst Academy and was an excellent student and later attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; however, according to researchers, she may have left school for a variety of reasons.

“… theories offered say that her fragile emotional state may have played a role and/or that her father decided to pull her from the school. Dickenson ultimately never joined a particular church or denomination, steadfastly going against the religious norms of the time.”

(biography.com)

Other research claims that her leaving school was due to Holyoke’s “strict rules and invasive religious practices, along with her own homesickness and growing rebelliousness, help explain why she did not return for a second year” (Britannica.com).

Budding Poet

In her youth, Dickinson was writing and crafting hundreds of poems, which explored ideas of the burlesque (“Valentines”) and viewing the world through a more altruistic lens. She was also a letter writer and had crafted a great deal in her youth, with a few letters from as early as age 11 still in existence. By the age of 35, Dickinson had written more than 1,100 poems about a variety of subjects, from grief to nature. Many of these poems were put down in fascicles, or handmade booklets.

Here is an example of a short poem titled “Faith is a fine invention” that was penned by Dickinson in 1891:

“Faith”is a fine invention

For Gentlemen who see!

But Microscopes are prudent

In an Emergency!


Poetryfoundation.org

And, while Dickinson didn’t share many poems through publication, she certainly sent a great deal to friends and family, sending her mother Susan “more than 250 poems” and to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson “about 100 poems”(emilydickinsonmuseum.org).

I don’t even think I’ve sent that many emails in my life.

Later Years and Seclusion

Dickinson’s hermit lifestyle in her late years is almost as famous as her poetry. She lived a quiet life (always had seemingly) with her sister and extended family—her brother even bought the lot next door to the family home to raise his own children. Speculation is somewhat rampant as to why Dickinson decided to dive deeper into isolation in her later years.

“Scholars have thought that she suffered from conditions such as agoraphobia, depression and/or anxiety, or may have been sequestered due to her responsibilities as guardian of her sick mother. Dickinson was also treated for a painful ailment of her eyes.”

(biography.com)

Emily Dickinson died of kidney disease in Amherst on May 15, 1886.

Notable Works

  • Success is counted sweetest (1859)
  • Hope is the thing with feathers (1861)
  • I felt a funeral in my brain (1861)
  • Wild Nights! – Wild Nights! (1861)
  • Because I could not stop for death (1863)
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The Impact of Romanticism on Modern Literature

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Many literary movements have changed the face of writing forever. Some of them only stick around for a short while, while other carry on in many iterations. The Romantic Movement is an influential literary movement as it would later spawn many complimentary genres. In this post, we are going to take a closer look at the Romantic Movement.

History of the Romanticism Movement

Catalysts and Causes

The Neoclassical-era ended around 1798 with the ending of the French and American Revolutions and the publication of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth. These were a few of the major factors moving society away from the classics. From this style, we see a relaxed view of complex diction and a need to convey literature to the common man. Therefore, complex styles were turned down for more approachable voices.

Other contributing factors to the Romantic Movement included immigration, which helped create an “American” identity due to the massive amount of foreign cultures entering the country. This was a sort of “melting pot” idea of new literature arising from the mix.

This movement challenged the ideas of the Age of Reason. That is to say, it strayed from the cold and calculating thought process in regards to man and nature. With the Romantics, we see a great reverence for nature itself and for man. Even if humanity is flawed in many ways. As society moved away from reason, order, and scientific rationalism, the artists dug deep into the human factor and who we are as a people.

Heroes of the Romantic Movement

There were many authors during the Romantic Movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for instance, discussed ideas of personal sovereignty in Self-Reliance (1841). Likewise, we have William Wordsworth, who published Lyrical Ballads (1798), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who published The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798). Furthermore, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote and published Ode to the West Wind and John Keats wrote and published Ode to a Nightingale.

Keats also wrote the poem “To Autumn” which does well to encapsulate the movement in application.

Here’s an excerpt:

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

We can also look at the female authors of this time and the women in books for an understanding of the movement. We have the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, and Mary Shelley—all who contributed great works to the movement even though they had to publish under male pseudonyms to get published.

Characters of the Romantics

In addition to authors, their characters came to life as well. One might think of James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumpo, from The Last of the Mohicans, and his intuitive, ethical nature. In literature, women were often treated as the goal or pinnacle men’s passions, from Edgar Allen Poe’s lost Lenore, to Dr. Frankenstein’s wife, Elizabeth Lavenza, and so on. This era is definitely potent for feminist critique and appraisal.

Conclusion

The Romanticism movement created fertile ground for other movements to grow from. Gothic literature would supersede this movement and would have huge impact on many types of literature. Likewise, the Transcendentalists, modernists, and existentialists, all took ideas of personality and emotion from this movement. While evolved into separate genres now, it was once an important movement in writing history.

Literary Bios

Maya Angelou, author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

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Maya Angelou had many experiences in life are both damaging and uplifting. She endured great trauma and hardship only to persevere in the end. She has also contributed to literary history with her engaging, heart-wrenching stories. Similarly, her verse about the Black American experience has been transformative. In this post, we will look at her life and times and how these difficulties shaped her history.

Biography of Maya Angelou

Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Lois, Missouri. When she turned three years old, her parents sent she and her brother to live with her grandparents in Stamps, Arkansas. There, she experienced some first-hand racism that shaped her outlook for the rest of her life. Because of her treatment, she wrote that she would feel less like a person and gravely inferior for a long time.

Eventually, Angelou moved to St. Lois with her father, who returned to take care of her. Yet, she found more hardships along the way, including experiencing rape and guilt over the rapist’s eventual murder. These experiences left her nearly mute for many years.

Later, she moved back to Stamps as a young girl and then out to San Francisco, California. There she worked a variety of odd jobs until she moved to New York City in the 1950s. In Harlem, she began writing at the Harlem Writers Guild. Moving back to California, she wrote the 10-part television series Black, Blues, Black about African American culture. She continued acting and appeared in multiple films, including Poetic Justice (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), and also appeared in the television series Roots (1977).

Additionally, Angelou was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie. And, she received a Tony Award nomination for the 1973 play Look Away. In addition to this, she won multiple Grammy awards for spoken word albums. She also read poetry at former President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. President Barack Obama also presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Angelou passed away on May 28, 2014 at her home in North Carolina.

Analysis “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography, detailing Angelou’s life and experiences. More specifically, the novel details her parents divorce, the sexual assault that changed her life, and the countless times she experienced racial discrimination while living in the South.

The book ends with an optimistic feeling that perhaps she can persevere in life after all. Through a difficult childhood and care for a newborn child, she looks to rise from the ashes of a stormy life.

In it, she writes this bit of verse:

The caged bird sings   
with a fearful trill   
of things unknown   
but longed for still   
and his tune is heard   
on the distant hill   
for the caged bird   
sings of freedom.

Maya Angelou

The book was nominated for a National Book Award and received critical acclaim from readers and critics alike.

Angelou’s Other Works

  • Just Give Me a Cool drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie (1971)
  • Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987)
  • I shall Not be Moved (1990)
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Voices of Change: The Harlem Renaissance

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It is hard to imagine the pain and sorrow a marginalized group of Americans must have felt emerging from the slavery of the South. Their palatable hope of Northern emancipation dissolved into similar racism and ostracism, too. But, from the ashes the phoenix does rise. In this post, we are going to talk about an important artistic movement known as The Harlem Renaissance. This movement pushed Black voices into the spotlight, and highlighted their artistic endeavors, from music to writing.

The Catalyst of a Cultural Movement and Renaissance

The Jim Crow laws of the post-Civil War American South did damage to Black Americans mentally and physically. These laws were the “system of segregation and discrimination in the South” by “legal segregation” (National Geographic). For example, these types of laws kept Black from eating in the same restaurants. They also could not drink from the same drinking fountains, going to the same theaters as whites. Likewise, exclusion can have the adverse effect of keeping people from feeling human.

It would stand to reason then, that many Blacks wanted to find a way out of the South.

As sources state, the disparity between Blacks and Whites in the South caused a turbulent rift to grow larger. The poison in the veins of these trodden Americans “led many African Americans to hope for a new life up north.” As Black Americans hid and dodged “hate groups” and “hate crimes” in the Deep South, they wondered about the “promise of owning land.” This promise never “materialized” (US History).

As it relates to our topic, the Harlem Renaissance grew out of Black Americans moving North. Here, they doubled-down on their cultures and histories in the segregated communities they were relegated to toil. Similarly, such innovation in the arts matched marginalized groups in the past. This includes the Native Americans who fought to maintain their own languages against the aggressions of European integration.

What was the Harlem Renaissance?

The Harlem Renaissance was a period between 1910 and the mid-1930s. The movement saw a large amount of Black Americans generating art from Harlem in New York City.

History states that “ … this period is considered a golden age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance and art.” The convergence of Black Americans on the Harlem area stemmed from The Great Migration from the South to the North. The migration was spurred by the aforementioned Jim Crow laws that actively worked to undermine Black power.

Other factors that led to this migration included, “natural disasters.” Likewise, little immigration to the United States and recruitment from Northern companies led to Black Americans heading North.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance author, wrote a great deal about the Black experience. Biography states, “Hughes broke new ground in poetry when he began to write verse that incorporated how Black people talked and the jazz and blues music they played. He led the way in harnessing the blues form in poetry with ‘The Weary Blues,’ which was written in 1923 and appeared in his 1926 collection The Weary Blues.”


The Major Players in the Renaissance?

The Harlem Renaissance would see the likes of W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer emerge as powerful writing voices. McKay would produce a collection of poems titled Harlem Shadows in 1922, which was a breakthrough for Black writers. He would go on to write more prominent works, such as the poem “America” and “If We Must Die.”

Countee Cullen, who had published volumes of poetry including Color, Copper Sun, and The Ballad of the Brown Girl, innovated in the Harlem happenings. He married W.E.B. DuBois’ daughter Nina Yolande. The public saw their marraige as a “major social event in Harlem.” It “marked the joining of the Cullen and Du Bois lineages, two of its most notable families” (Poetry Foundation).

Furthermore authors like Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison would contribute defining pieces of literature regarding the identify of Black Americans.

Conclusion

While this is a small picture of the Harlem Renaissance, it is important to recognize its lasting legacy on writing (and other art forms). Due to the large volume and publication of many important voices in Black literature, this movement gave levity and authority to Black culture. It also staked a claim for Black literature, poetry, music, and art, and showed white Americans that there was more than one voice in the country.

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To His Coy Mistress: Satire and Love in Marvell’s Poetry

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Andrew Marvell, the poet and satirist behind the poem “To His Coy Mistress.” Led a remarkably interesting life, and his contributions are numerous. So much so that there is one defining poem that has kept ageless and universal in its appeal into the modern era.

Who was Andrew Marvell?

Andrew Marvell was a “metaphysical” poet and satirist who wrote “To His Coy Mistress,” somewhere between 1650 and 1652. Marvelll went to Trinity College in Cambridge. He wrote a variety of “political verse satires’ from The Last Instructions to a Painter, to The Rehearsal Transpros’d. Marvell was born March 31, 1621 and died August 18, 1678. His housekeeper eventually saw the publication of the aforementioned piece in 1681.

Defining a Metaphysical Poet

As Britannica writes, a “metaphysical poet” is a writer in 17th-century England. Their work “… is a blend of emotion and intellectual ingenuity, characterized by conceit or ‘wit'” (Britannica). The poetry is often a contrast between a few things that pushes the reader into thinking about the poet’s perspective. There are more modern maetphysical poets as well, including H.D.

In other words, the poet is interested in “exploring the recesses of his consciousness.” The metaphysical poets . These poets have a grandiose, sarcastic interpretation of the world, and they paint this picture with satire and wit.

Marvel’s “To His Coy Mistress”

In Marvel’s “To His Coy Mistress,” the author pokes fun at the conventions of love. He asserts a sort of carpe diem attitude toward the subject of the poem. The virginal woman who is the focus of Marvell’s lust is object of his affections. As such, Marvell is trying to get her to give into her baser desires rather than waiting another day.

He spends time praising the subject’s body, including “Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze” and “each breast.” In addition, he warns her that time marches onward. Therefore, her beauty will fade: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” According to Marvell, she should relent to his wants before she loses her appeal.

Conclusion

In his poem, Marvell wants experience his love’s carnal pleasures before they both get older. The boorish nature of this request is a satirical poke at the chasteness of society (or lack thereof). It is also lampooning the hastiness of love for baser desire. His sentiment certainly critiques courting lovers and how sex is often viewed in society. Similarly, during the time of society, marriage was sacrosanct, therefore lust was frowned upon. One wedded for honor and dignity. In this way, intercourse before marriage was a brutish desire.