Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Second Coming



The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats is a powerful poem depicting an apocalyptic vision.  The poem was written after The Great War, or WWI, as it was known then.  It was fought by nearly every major world power and was meant to be the "war to end all wars."  Now, we can see this was not the case.  However, the poem was meant to signify that the world would be forever changed after this war which wiped out a large portion of the world's infrastructures and populations.  To Yeats, the current global situation did not hold and there was good reason to believe in the coming of a new world order.

On My Birthday



Written in the last year of his life Rabindranath Tagore's On My Birthday is a dream of a world where words do not have rules or structure.  The words he imagines are in different from the words of his day, which he feels are simple being used to "pass on his message to the distant lands of the future."  Artistic creations, to Tagore, are more important than documentation.

Punishment

Rabindranath Tagore's Punishment is the story of the complex relationship between a low-caste family in India.  When Dukhiram murders his own wife Radha his brother Chidam asks his wife Chandara to take the blame.


Even the "pillar of the village" Ramlochan agrees that if he loses his wife he can replace her but he cannot replace his brother.  Chandara is shocked by her husbands request.  At this point all she wants is to no longer be with her husband.  The only way she can accomplish this is to go along with her husbands story and accept the punishment.


At the time of the trial the conscience of Chidam and Dukhiram got the better of them and admitted to the real story.  However, Chandara continued to proclaim that she was the one who killed Radha.  She was convicted and sentenced to die.


Punishment says a lot about the way that women were oppressed at the time.  Choosing death over your husband is a dramatic statement.  It is difficult to imagine a situation where death is the best option.

The Power of Words To Explain a Few Things

Pablo Neruda's poetry is well known for its ability to bring out basic human emotions.  He believed that words have the power to explain reality.


Neruda's poem I'm Explaining a Few Things advocates for his political beliefs.  At first glance, the poem paints a beautiful and surreal picture of Spain.  It describes poppy-petalled metaphysics, bells, clocks, trees, an ocean, houses covered in flowers, dogs, and children.  After reading this picturesque description I was reminded of Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas where the utopian city was not as perfect as it seemed on the surface.  I was not surprised when the tone of the poem began to change after the mention of Neruda's friend and fellow poet Federico Garcia Lorca who was murdered the year before by Spanish Fascists.  The poem then goes on to describe the hellish war zone that Spain was at the time.


Going back to the beginning of the poem, I learned that a certain poppy flower can create opium.  An often devastating and addictive drug.  Neruda used the image of the poppy to show that that things are not always exactly as they appear.




Saturday, April 14, 2012

America From Under the Lens of 1904 Latin America

Ruben Dario is widely thought to be one of the greatest Spanish-language poets of the twentieth century.  He was the leading figure in Modernismo, a Spanish literary movement.  The movement shifted away from lengthy rhetorical developments of Realism to a view of "art for arts sake."






However, Dario used his poem To Roosevelt as a political statement to the United States and then president Theodore Roosevelt about their expansionist policies.  It was written in 1904, the year after the Hays-Varilla Treat, after Dario had seen how the United States muscled its way into the region for the creation of the Panama Canal.  The poem begins by explaining that Dario will address the president in a biblical, or straight forward, manner.  To Roosevelt matter-of-factly states throughout that the United States is a powerful, aggressive, and greedy country that should tread softly because Spanish America will one day be a powerful region.


Dario's poem gives us a perspective that would be hard for the average American to capture in the early 1900s.  It is sometimes difficult to see how our actions affect others, especially on a large world scale.  The same qualities of American identity that we often see as good such as assertiveness and ambition could be viewed as negatives by others who might value other characteristics like simplicity and spiritual nobility.