Monday, April 23, 2012

Rukeyser's Book of the Dead

I think Rukeyser is allowing the reader to become the one she is writing about. She wants the reader in the shoes of the ones she is talking about or have the ability to be in the position. 
She says,
 "These roads will take you into your own country" this line has the ability to relate to anyone, she is pointing out that this poem has regards to the reader.




I feel that in Whitman's, When Lilacs, he wants the reader close and to have a good view but not in the shoes of himself, Whitman I feel, likes to show and illuminate what he sees so that you will see it. He kind of tells you what you're doing, 
"as you drooped from the sky, low down as if to my side"


She uses you, to point to everyone reading the poem, to make the reader realize this poem is for them. 
"and you young, you who finishing the poem" She is speaking to the reader.


Whitman uses "you" as a sort of invitation, or to feel what he is doing or feeling.
 "I saw on the rim of the west how you were full of woe"


The ending of each poem holds a sense of the ability to carry on, though tragedy.Both poets give homage to the people involved to the memory and the way it will remain. 
"comrades mine and I in the midst and their memory ever to keep in the dead I loved so well"


Whtitman ends with " Lilac, and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul"
It is forever twined within him, not soon to be forgotten.


Rukeyser ends with a sort of calling for those that are living to commemorate the people,


"Carry abroad the urgent need, the scene,
to photograph and to extend the voice,to speak this meaning.
Voices to speak to us directly. As we move.As we enrich, growing in larger motion,this word, this power.

Communication to these many menas epilogue, seeds of unending love. "





From this tragedy we grow, we can enrich ourselves and be able to be the epilogue.

2 comments:

  1. I really like your interpretation of M.R.'s use of the "you" and your explanation of its appearance in the opening line in "The Book of The Dead". You seem to fully grasp the duality of speaking directly to the individual as a way of including them in a communal experience.

    Also, interesting reading of W.W's "you" as a metaphoric invitation to view his jouney through the grief process. What are your thoughts on the "you" morphing into "thee" in the acceptance phase as he addresses death directly

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  2. I agree with Matt. I really like your analogy of placing the reader into the shoes of the speaker as a means of distance between the poet and the reader. Rukeyser wants the reader right there, as close as they can get in the experience of the death, bonding them together. Whitman wants them kind of close, but far enough to not make any of their own judgments, to just take Whitman's word for it of what he sees.

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