Metaphysical Poetry Journal Exercise 3.1A:

Metaphysical Poetry

Journal Exercise 3.1A: Addressing Love and Loss

I have left someone without knowing when I would see them again. It was a relationship that was very important to me, but it was, ultimately, one that I knew was not going to work in the long run. I still loved this person. I felt so sad to know that I might not see them again, but I felt that there was no other way. They asked me to reconsider the relationships, to give it another chance -- which was the most painful part. I wanted them to see things like I did. I wanted them to be okay with what was happening, because then, in some way, I would feel better.

To leave someone you love very much is hard and there are no words that can adequately express how you're feeling. Nothing will make that person feel better and so it's like anything you say will sting. Perhaps just letting the person know that you love them too, that everything is hard for you too, is the way to go. For the person being left, it's probably not much consolation. I would want to hear that they loved me and that their heart was broken. There is something about those words, "broken heart," that is just so…well, heart breaking.

Journal Exercise 3.1B Responding to Literature:

I do think that metaphysical conceits work -- at least they do in the case of Donne's "Death Be Not Proud." In this poem, Donne has made death out to be a character, which is the conceit, and it works in the poem. There is a connection to be made between dissimiliar things -- death and living are complete opposites, but Donne is able to make us understand what death is if we think of it in terms of a character. Donne says, "Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me." These are dissimiliar because how can death die? Isn't death already dead?

Donne's poem, "Death Be Not Proud," makes me feel less afraid of death because the poem states that death is nothing more than just a little sleep. Dying is actually going to sleep and when we wake up we are no eternal. "One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, / and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die."

I think that Donne's "Meditation XVII" is quite spiritual. It is contemplative and it is comforting because Donne explains that when a person dies, when the bell tolls, it is not just that person dying, but in a way it is a piece of mankind dying. He says, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." The bells are symbolic for the moments of each of our lives both individually as well as a whole. When the bell tolls, someone dies, but it is also a moment of our own lives being taken away. Eventually the bell will toll for us -- one last time.

Journal Exercise 3.2A Prewriting a Modern Parable:

Situation #1: Walking past the dog adoption on Saturdays. The first time I walked by, I ended up with a little terrier named Ralphie. I wasn't looking for a dog. The second time I walked past, I ended up with another terrier named Lilly. I vowed not to walk past that place again because one more dog and dogs would outnumber people. I walked by a third time, however, and found a beautiful puppy -- the only one to survive her litter of 9. While I can't keep her, I decided to foster her until she finds a home. Lesson: There are powers higher than us that direct us where we need to be at a given time. Even if I think something is wrong for me, there is something out there that believes I am right for something else.

Situation #2: For exercise, I walk two miles every day around my neighborhood. Every day I see a lady with two dogs walking and she always looks miserable. This made me feel miserable too. I thought, "Why doesn't she ever smile?" It made me mad, so I grimaced, and was one my way. This went on for weeks and then one day, I was having a particularly nice day, I, without realizing it was her, smiled and said "hi." Her face lit up like the sun and she smiled and said, "Hi! How are you! " I couldn't believe that this woman looked so different smiling than frowning. But then I thought that I probably looked the same to her. Now we always say hi to each other in the street. We sometimes even walk a bit together. Lesson: Don't rely on other people to make you feel something. If you feel like somebody else should be doing something, maybe you should be doing it too.

Situation #3: Road rage is common these days. While I don't go out with a gun shooting people who cut me off on the freeway, I tend to get frustrated. I sweat and grip the wheel as I curse the drivers who cannot drive. "Maybe I should be more like them?" I thought one day. Maybe I should drive as fast as they do and cut them off. Maybe I should not signal and cut into the carpool lane even though I am only one person in my car. So one day, I did this. I went into the carpool lane to get ahead of everyone else and -- I got a ticket. Lesson: Just because other people are behaving badly, doesn't mean you should too. Be the example you want to see in the world.

Journal Exercise 3.2B King James Bible:

One example of parallelism in Psalm 23 is, "I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." This is a good example of parallelism because "for thou art with me" expands on "I will fear no evil," and "thy rod and thy staff" expands on "they comfort me." Essentially speaking, they second part of the line is simply reaffirming or repeating what has already been said. It is used for emphasis. In Psalm 127, an example of parallelism is, "Unless the Lord builds the house, / those who build it labor in vain." This, again, reiterates the statement -- no one else but the Lord builds the house.

The King James version of Psalm 23 is a much more eloquent and clear version of the Psalm when compared to the Bay Psalm Book version. The syntax of the Bay Psalm Book feels backward and slightly awkward to read. The King James version is easier to understand because of the syntax. The Bay Psalm version feels as if it is trying to hard to be different and the syntax distances the reader. The King James version is a better overall version of Psalm 23 because it uses better syntax, has nicer imagery, and is easier, in general, for the reader to understand as there isn't any distancing from the material.

I prefer the King James Version of Psalm 23 to the Bay Psalm version. There are different images used, for example, in the Bay version, "tender grass" as opposed to "green pastures" and "waters calm" versus "still waters." I feel like the King James version is more eloquent, but perhaps that is because I know this version better. (in fact, I had never read the other version until this class.)

Journal 3.3A the Best Advice I've Ever Received:

The best advice I ever received was to put things in an "oh, well" drawer. There are plenty of things to get upset about in the day-ins-and-outs of daily life. Someone once told me that there are certain things that should just be tossed aside and shouldn't bother me. Once they are in the drawer, I can no longer fuss about them.

The best statement I ever heard was similar to the best advice. My mother always told me to pick my fights and this is one of the best statements ever because it gives a person some freedom. Knowing that I don't have to get upset or take things personally, unless I decide to, has made life easier. There are some things that aren't worth fighting for and this statement helps me put things in perspective.

Journal Exercise 3.3B Words of Wisdom:

Psalm 23 is didactic in nature as it tells one how one can find comfort within the Lord. While I am not overly religious, but rather spiritual, I find comfort in this anyway as it makes one want to trust in something higher. In contrast, however, Psalm 127 is not comforting, but rather more condescending.

Psalm 23's first two lines state, "The Lord is my shepard; I shall not want. / He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." This passage is comforting as one knows that if they believe in the Lord, there is nothing that the person will lead. The Lord will lead one to safety always. One can simply believe in something higher to get the meaning of this; it doesn't have to be Jesus. Psalm 127, contrarily is confusing because it states that unless the Lord builds the house, it is built in vain. This seems to be more literal, but I do get the idea. Unless the people building the house are doing it with the love of the Lord in their hearts, or building it for him, then what is the point?

Didactic poetry can be quite comforting as seen in Psalm 23 or it can be much too literal and seen as both confusing and condescending. Psalm 127 isn't very instructive spiritually speaking, unlike Psalm 23.

Updated Proverb: A broken toe can hurt, but a broken heart can kill.

Metaphors: Obscure or Illuminate? Didactic literature with its use of metaphors can sometimes obscure the message, as in Psalm 127, but other times, as in Psalm 23, I feel that the metaphors help illuminate. To think of the Lord as a shepard, leading his heard to comfort and safety, gives a very nice image of what he is in our lives. It depends on the text because it can do either. In Psalm 127, it states: "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, / children a reward from him. / Like arrows in the hands of a warrior / are sons born in one's youth." These lines are not as clear as the metaphors used in Psalm 23 and I believe that they actually obscure the meaning and distance the reading from the real message.

Journal Exercise 3.5A Persuasive Writing Techniques:

Logical appeals: The solution of eating babies (children too old will have tough meat); calculates the number of babies and the number of souls; the beggar children are "in the present deplorable State of the Kingdom, a very great additional Grievance;" eating babies will work for everyone and help everyone too.

Emotional appeals: The poor Irish with their three, four, or six children; the Irish being stepped on by landlords; the wealthy's attitude of the poor (simply a way to make money); the idea that the papists "stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the pretender;"

Ethical appeals: For the rich to change; stating that what the government is doing is just as bad.

Paragraph 1 -- Logical appeals: Logical appeals use evidence like facts to support a position. Taking Swift's logical appeals as literal, that children are "in the present deplorable State of the Kingdom, a very great additional Grievance" may be so, however, eating babies is not logical. It works in satire because he is trying to be as outrageous as he can, so he can get his point across.

Paragraph 2 -- Emotional appeals: The emotional appeals that Swift uses can be taken very literally and work that way. He is making a point that he believes to be very true and when this is combined with the more satirical elements of the proposal, there is a feeling that he is being outrageous, but he is also being very critical at the same time. Swift uses very powerful words to get across his point, which evokes emotions in the reader.

Paragraph 3 -- Ethical appeals: We get a clear sense of Swift's sincerity in his ethical appeals. He knows that the Irish are starving and so he wants to point out how their wrong is hurting and killing people. His ethical appeals can be taken quite literally as he says exactly what is happening: English landowners are getting more money for Irish grain in London than in Ireland. Even though tenant farmers are starving, they are sending their Irish grain out.

Journal Exercise 3.5B "A Modest Proposal":

Part One

1. Health care -- solution: Nobody should have health care. Our society should go back to "survival of the fittest," which means only the strong will survive cancer, AIDS and other types of diseases. This will put us on par with under-developed countries. Everyone will be injected with a disease that is randomly selected, so that everyone has the same chance of surviving.

2. Overpopulation -- solution: Only red-haired people should be able to have children (or at least one parent has to be a red-head) because there are fewer people with red hair in the world. This will stop the greater population, those people with blonde hair and brunette hair (and black and gray!) making children.

3. Obesity -- solution: Because fat people often have very fat arms and legs, they should have them amputated. A person can't live without their head and torso, but they can live without their limbs (we have seen numerous veterans do it!), so in order to weight less, let's just amputate fat people's limbs. The second part of the solution is that they will have to army crawl because they can't walk or use a wheel chair, using just their torsos, which will work out their midsections. Pretty soon their midsections will be thing and -- voila! -- obesity cured.

4. Terrorism -- solution: Everyone should be given bombs and gun so that everyone is at an equal advantage, even children.

5. Pollution -- solution:

Part Two

Journal Exercise 3.5C Responding to "A Modest Proposal":

Boyle's "Top of the Food Chain" essay is similar to Swift's "A Modest Proposal" in that they both come up with outrageous ideas to tackle a problem. While Swift comes up with eating children as a way to help stop cruelty to the Irish (and he gives several reasons why it will work), Boyle comes up with an idea of how to get rid of all the mosquitoes in Borneo (first to spray chemicals, then to get geckos, then get cats).

Words: 1) Savages: halfway through the text, he means the Irish; the emotional effect we feel is that these people are hard and uncivilized; 2) male and female: the same line as 'savages,' men and women (he is talking about their breeding); emotional effect is that life is really nothing more than breeding; 3) popish infants: halfway through text in talking about when there is an abundance of children born, popish refers to Catholic -- so Catholic infants; the emotional effect we get is that these children are all the same because they are Catholic -- no individuality; 4) beggars -- used throughout the text, but most notably in the first line, he is talking about poor mothers or Irish mothers; the emotional effect is that these women are nothing; 5) rags -- first sentence of text, he means poor, tattered, dirty clothing; the emotional effect is that these people are below everybody else; 6) breeders -- about six paragraphs into text, or child birthing age; emotional effect, breeding is all women are good for; 7) carcasses -- used about five times in text toward the middle, he is talking about the bodies of the babies; this, emotionally, distances us from the fact that these are babies.

Journal Exercise 3.6A Mock vs. Real Epic:

Mock-Heroic Poems: English neoclassicism of the 18th century; came from French models; both forms of epic poetry, though do not have as much gravity (seriousness); both legitimate and independent from epic poetry.

Journal Exercise 3.6B Alexander Pope:

Antithesis: 1) "To err is human, to forgive, divine." 2) "Man never is, but always to be blest." 3) "Tis education forms the common mind." 4) Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet." 5) Journal Exercise 3.7A Analyzing Humor:

Part Two: Exaggeration: Understatement: Warped Logic: Improbable Situations: Ridiculous Names: WHAT POEMS of VOLTAIRE HAVE YOU READ?

Journal Exercise 3.7B Comparing Stories:

Voltaire's satire Candide has held up. Candide believes in Pangloss's theory that everything is for the best and is incredibly optimistic despite everything going wrong. There are points in the story that the reader is amazed that these people are still going strong -- and still maintaining their optimistic attitudes toward life. The satire is actually incredibly relevant today in our society of self-help books and life coaches and gurus. People today -- like Candide -- have the belief that they can change their lives by working hard and being optimistic. Modern people still have this idea of incredibly optimism -- even through the worst of times.