Informal Journal: Graves
The poem "The Naked and the Nude" by Robert Graves immediately creates a contrast between the different connotations of words. For example, the word "naked" sounds very harsh. This is why Graves say that the naked "know defeat." The phrase "the naked and the dead" comes to mind, or in Graves' phrase the naked tread the "briary pastures of the dead." When someone is naked, they are stripped bare of everything, not just their clothing, but often their dignity and personal identity as well. A "nude" has much more positive and human connotations. For example, the famous statue of "Venus" is called the study of a "nude." Venus is beautiful, and not stripped of her dignity, rather the sculptor pays homage to her form by removing her clothing.
In contemporary society, which has a less respectful view of the unclothed body, the words "nude beach" often brings people to giggle. But no one would ever say a "naked beach," because the word...
or, as Graves writes: "The nude are bold, the nude are sly," because they have an unconcealed (no pun intended) pride about their lack of clothing and open sensuality and defiance of convention.
Graves writes these synonyms "should express/the same deficiency of dress" but the adjectives naked and nude clearly do not because of their cultural and linguistic associations, like 'naked as the day he was born,' or a 'study of a nude.' Other words that have similar cultural associations are "sex" and "lovemaking." Sex sounds like something clinical, because it also refers to the anatomical differences between men and women, but lovemaking sounds passionate, as it refers to an emotion of intense feeling. But one can engage in lovemaking with someone whom one does not love, or one can love a friend or love to play golf without any erotic desire for the friend or without associating the activity with one's sexuality.
