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Existential Poems. Marissa Romanucci Satveka Ilango. Stephen Maria Crane. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation .” -man announcing to a higher power or God, that he exists of is important
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Existential Poems Marissa Romanucci SatvekaIlango
Stephen Maria Crane • A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” • -man announcing to a higher power or God, that he exists of is important • -religious announcement • -expectation • -i exist/ I do good things therefore I should be rewarded (I heart huckabees) • -no understanding/ cannot push your responsibility onto others “bad faith” • -no universal rational judgement
Stephen Maria Crane • I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. "It is futile," I said, "You can never — " "You lie," he cried, And ran on. • -man chasing horizon is absurd • -around the earth not catching up to each other • -nausea • -ignorance of each other/ no connection • -man running is religious, other person is atheist • -the reverse of this also works • -freedom of choice • -can’t communicate • -mood: what good does it do anyway/ why try it’s pointless • -wants to rationalize, but can’t
A Decade by: Amy Lowell • When you came, you were like red wine • and honey, • And the taste of you burnt my mouth • with its sweetness. • Now you are like morning bread, • I hardly taste you at all for I know your • savor, • But I am completely nourished.
Decade was written as an ode to Amy Lowell's relationship with her roommate and close friend, Ada Russell. Although it was not accepted in Lowell’s time to be homosexual, she could not disguise the love that was stitched into the delicately woven declaration of love that is A Decade. “When you came, you were like red wine and honey,And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.”In the first two lines of her poem, Lowell describes the initial attraction that is inherent in a new relationship. She speaks metaphorically of the intense passion that she feels for her lover, so strong that it burns her. The heat between them is so powerful that she almost feels overwhelmed by it, though she knows that she cannot resist the temptation of her partner’s loving embrace.
Both red wine and honey are symbols of lust or seduction, and are used here to represent the sensual nature of the narrator’s bond with her significant other. At this stage in their relationship, they could not get enough of one another, and lusted for every second that they could spend together. “Now you are like morning bread,
The second part of this poem describes a relationship that is a bit tamer that the one described in the first lines. While the narrator has not lost the passion that she felt for her partner in the beginning, but it seems that it has begun to die down a bit. Over a period of ten years, any relationship would be expected to lose its spark, but the trick is to not let the fire die out. A flame can be reduced, but it would still be burning, and that is all that matters. Lowell is saying that, though they have been together for a long time, she is no less in love with her partner than she had been at the beginning. It is a different kind of love, however. What their love may lack in intense passion, it makes up for with the deep adoration and devotion that the two lovers feel for each other, and that can only be attained over time.
“I hardly taste you at all, for I know your savour,But I am completely nourished.”The conclusion of the ode is a bit more complex than the first two pieces. While the phrase “I hardly taste you at all,” may alone sound denial of the importance of their relationship, when it is finished with “for I know your savour”, it becomes a testament to the strength of the couple's bond and the amount of love that Lowell still feels for Russell after all this time. The author feels that her partner is so much a part of her now that she can hardly feel where she ends and her partner begins, and this is infinitely satisfying to her.
“I hardly taste you at all”•Alienation and Estrangement--Humankind, owing partly to the growing dependence on reason and science, has become increasingly alienated--from God, from nature, from other humans, and from our own selves. We live in a spiritual desert, barren of hope and love.
The Plain Sense of Things After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir. It is difficult even to choose the adjective For this blank cold, this sadness without cause. The great structure has become a minor house. No turban walks across the lessened floors. The greenhouse never so badly needed paint. The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.
By: Wallace Stevens A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition In a repetitiousness of men and flies. Yet the absence of the imagination had Itself to be imagined. The great pond, The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves, Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see, The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge, Required, as necessity requires.
- encounter with nothingnessThese last two and a half lines introduce an intensely epistemic idea: a hypothetical state of existence and knowledge when imagination no longer exists, new ideas are not formed, and consciousness is static. This is life “After the leaves have fallen,” when “we return/To a plain sense of things”. What are the consequences of a world in which imagination has reached its end? Imagination and creativity are absolutely essential not just to the arts, but to all of humanity. Reaching a point at which new ideas are no longer created would mean the end of existence as we know it; without any forward momentum, human knowledge would indeed become inert.Much like the first, the second line “For this blank cold, this sadness without cause” (6) is nearly devoid of descriptive language: the only adjective here is “blank.”
At a glance, “sadness without cause” is a feeling that most people have experienced at some point—some days feel as though nothing is going as expected which draws an emotional connection to the reader, despite the line’s stark language. However, the fact that the speaker describes this state of existence as “sadness without cause” hints at another idea on the nature of being: if nothing caused “event X” (which in this case is sadness), why and how does it exist? How can one have an effect without cause? If everything comes from something, then there must have always been something from whence to come. But right here, the speaker is telling the reader that this sadness has come from nothing, and the implications of this concept are huge in scale it is no longer a wonder as to why the speaker struggles to find the adjectives to describe such a feeling. So basically he cannot reason, he has difficulty to grasp all there.
Rubric • Depth of Analysis • Presentation Skills • Understanding of Concepts • 5 – clear preparation and enthusiasm • 4 – good but reads off slides too much • 3 - monotone project • 2 – attempt at effort • 1 – no effort
