Essays on Literature & Poets
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4. There are two basic ways to approach a poem, just as there is with any work of art. The work can be taken on its face value, examined textually and/or structurally and expected to stand on its own, or the work can be examined in terms of external matters such as the life of the artist. It is certainly true that the artist draws on his or her own life, which if nothing else is a formative experience that determines how the individual thinks and thus how the individual shapes his or her work. At the same time, it is also true that connections made between the work of art and the life of the artist are not sufficient to determine whether that work is valuable or not. The poems of Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot can serve to show how an understanding of the life of the poet can illuminate aspects of their work, while it is also true that the work itself illuminates aspects of their lives by showing what has been important to them and what has contributed to their outlook. Still, the poem itself must communicate to the reader without reference to the life of the poet. What this really shows is that there are different levels of analysis possible, with each level capable of illuminating and being illuminated by the other levels.Baym et al. note that the poetry of Robert Frost is "characterized by bleakness," and they also cite the travails of Frost's life that might have contributed to his bleak outlook, including the bitter struggles of his early years, the son who committ
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, for they delved more into their own minds as sources and as subjects than does Eliot, who stands back as poet and offers an intellectual rather than emotional analysis.
An in-depth study of Eliot's life might demonstrate why he thought as he did and why he chose to express himself in this particular type of poetry. As with Frost, such information would certainly give the reader fresh insights, but for both poets it is their poetry that must convey meaning, attitudes, intellectual relationships, and emotional content such as we expect from poetry. The way they address issues and make decisions derives from their lives and from experiences they have had, and an understanding of those experiences can be useful in broading our understanding. We can always learn more, but we have to learn the most from the work itself. That work will give us a sense of the poet's life more than the poet's life will give us a sense of the poetry.
Baym, Nina, Ronald Gottesman, Laurence B. Holland, David Kalstone, Francis Murphy, Hershel Parker, William H. Pritchard, and Patricia B. Wallace. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 3rd ed. Volume 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989.
5. Any specific type of criticism provides a ce
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Approximate Word count = 2787
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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