POETRY CLOSE READING I - ESSAY | “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.” ― T.S. Eliot
Before I say anything about the poetry you analyzed I want to comment that I thought it was very clever the way you organized your presentation into nine chapters like the book (and you lacked a conclusion on your powerpoint which was brilliant). I think it is really cool that you found such a strong connection between a poem and the book you read. The fact that the main character in the poem and the main character in the book both had their idol appear to them in their dream really solidified the themes from each work in my mind.
ReplyDeleteTo further your analysis of this poem (which was very thorough, by the way) we could look more into what Lennon said in the novel. You mention in your essay that Lennon says “‘The meaning of the ninth dream begins after all meanings appear to be dead and gone...’”, and I think you could have more closely connected this to the poem. In the poem, the character cuts the phoenix into nine pieces and cooks them. We all know that when something is cooked it becomes something completely new: something with a new meaning. Only when what we have with our life right now is cooked down to our dreams can we find meaning in new beginnings.