Friday, May 18, 2012

Criticial 5-18-12


Several of the poems we read all talk about memory. So for my final paper I want to focus on the topic of memory and the different types of memory portrayed in the poems we have read this quarter. In Virginia Woolf’s essay “From a Sketch of the Past”, it talks about a very early memory that she experienced. W.H. Auden writes about a specific day and the memory of how it felt on that day in his “September 1, 1939” poem. In Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room”, she is talking about the memory of going with her aunt to the dentist. “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence was about how a women singing sparked a memory of his childhood with a piano.

1 comment:

  1. Megan,

    I think this can be really good. I especially like your inclusion of Woolf, Lawrence, and Bishop. I question your inclusion of Auden since that poem seems to be from the perspective of a man experience a day presently and not of him remembering it. Read through that one again and if you disagree, feel free to use it.

    More importantly, I;ll want you to do much more than just point out that poetry can be about memories. That's true of course, but so can fiction and nonfiction engage memory.

    How do poets make specifically create the feeling of nostalgia? Why is poetry particularly suited to the topic of memory? Is it? What formal techniques do poets use to make us feel like they're writing about their pasts, feeling their pasts?

    We can talk more about this.

    Good start.

    Dave

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