Archibald MacLeish's poem "Ars Poetica" l

The poem's figurative language is meant to bring the poem to life by appealing to the senses. The clarity and precision of the similes make the reader for a moment believe that he or she knows what the poem "means," but what is actually happening is that the poet is simply taking the reader deeper into the mystery.

The first three images of the first stanza bring to the reader's senses an experience of touch---the fruit described as if it were in the reader's hand, the reader's "mental thumb" moving over the features of the medallion, and the reader leaning out of the window in the old building to touch the cool moss-covered stone. Then, in the fourth image, the reader watches as a flock of birds takes wing---the poem (or at least the stanza) has already started to leave the reader behind with his "palpable" sensations and his emotional memories of the images.

"A poem should be palpable and mute/ As a globed

. . .
p of capitalism---could have altered their fates if they had known the facts---or lies---on which their lives were built. Sophocles is writing in an era which believed that the gods mysteriously ran human lives. Oedipus had no way of knowing he had killed his father and married his mother---until it was too late and disaster was assured. Miller is writing in a era in which capitalism---buying and selling---propels society and everybody in it. It would seem that both Oedipus and Willy, then, are helpless to alter their fates. Willy as we find him in Miller's play is a failure in life, an embarrassment to his sons, a distant shell of a man to his wife, and a used-up discard to his profession of selling. Yet he is in denial about his situation. He still believes he can rise to the top of the field of sales, that the business and the system will not let him down, will come to his rescue now that he needs them. However, Willy has as much chance of being saved by capitalism as Oedipus has a chance of being saved by the gods. In both cases, this would involve expecting to be saved by the very forces which had victimized the protagonists in the first place. Both are victims of forces much more powerful then they, and far beyond the
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Ars Poetica, Willy Miller's, Willy Oedipus, Charley Willy, Oedipus Willy, Oedipus King, College Publishers, Archibald MacLeish's, York Bantam, York Viking, living entity, killed father married, reader poem, poem living, top power, successfully sell, oedipus willy, father married, chance saved, trying perfect, killed father,
Approximate Word count = 1823
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)