Crane Poem Reflection

(I've read "'Think as I think,' said a man" in our literature book, and I liked it too, haha.)

The poem I found was:

A man went before a strange God --
The God of many men, sadly wise.
And the deity thundered loudly,
Fat with rage, and puffing.
"Kneel, mortal, and cringe
And grovel and do homage
To My Particularly Sublime Majesty."

The man fled.

Then the man went to another God --
The God of his inner thoughts.
And this one looked at him
With soft eyes
Lit with infinite comprehension,
And said, "My poor child!"

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/stephencrane/11855

I think it's interesting how people, in Stephen Crane's opinion, react to God. In the face of the stereotypical, booming, powerful God, they fear and, instead of worshiping as is demanded of them, run away. What people really want in their God is Someone who would understand them but love them and pity them anyway. I think you could take the phrase "The God of his inner thoughts" in more than one way. The way I took it when I first read through this was as "the God who knows men's inner thoughts," but you could also take it to mean "the God inside oneself." Maybe Crane wrote it that way intentionally.

The first way to take it is that we love a God Who loved us first. This makes sense and is Biblical. It also is comforting to imagine Someone who cherishes us and comforts us even when He knows everything about us--all the bad stuff.

The other way is a little more New-Age-ish, that there's a god/God inside ourselves and to reach enlightenment or the ultimate reality, we must contact Him/Her/It. I wouldn't agree with this interpretation but I can see how Crane might have meant it. After all, we seem to be much more likely to pity ourselves than other people are--at least most of us, I guess.

I hope for the first interpretation, really. To me, it's a little less sad... That there would be Someone out there in the poem Who would love a man. Otherwise it's a man loving himself, like most men do. Hm.

On an unrelated note, from Crane's other poems, I like his style. It reminds me of the Psalms and translations I've read of ancient poetry and song lyrics. It has a lulling rhythm behind it and a lot of repetition of phrases as well as great descriptions.

Walt Whitman Connection

I do find this poem interesting, not because of the many details that Whitman includes to broaden the scene (I, myself, find that repetition tedious) but because of the main idea of the poem. Whitman says that whatever the boy in his poem looks at, he becomes. At first this sounds pretty odd, but as Whitman continues with this idea, it starts to make sense. A lot of who we are can be attributed to our environment. Therefore, the things around us do change us, at least to a certain extent.

Whitman especially makes this clear when speaking of the boy's parents. The boy gleans all of his outward personality from his parents because he's around them the most.

There was one line that I did connect with in particular:

"...the sense of what is real, the
thought if after all it should prove unreal..."

I have spent a good deal of my thought life wondering the same question. To see it referenced really did touch me, I guess. Most people take what they see in their day-to-day lives for what it appears to be, on the whole. This is necessary, or they could not function in our world (for example, if you wander around trying to prove the world to be real, and not working or something, you could lose your job. If you question whether your food is poisoned at every meal, you may never eat at all). However, I think many people don't even recognize the possibility of our world being illusion, since it's so rarely referred to outside of philosophy and sometimes poetry. I think it's refreshing that Whitman did recognize this--although I'm a bit puzzled as to how it fits into the poem's context.

I guess Whitman is trying to speak for all people, again, and assumes that everyone questions reality at some point in their lives, which for all I know is true. It would make sense.

Emily Dickinson Poem

THE BUTTERFLY’S assumption-gown,
In chrysoprase apartments hung,
This afternoon put on.
How condescending to descend,
And be of buttercups the friend
In a New England town!

I think Emily Dickinson is trying to show people the everyday beauty and regality of nature. She personifies the butterfly and describes its usual living place (using words like "chrysoprase," which is a kind of gem. Instead of treating living among humans as an honour, as people self-centeredly would like to, she says that it's "condescending" for the butterfly to dwell among us. She treats the butterfly, whom some would consider a mere insect or even a pest, as a symbol of beauty and richness that is even more valuable than the people living in the town.

Team Poe

...because he'd be so much better with Bella than Irving could ever be.

Lame and obvious joking aside, I'm firmly a Poe fan. Irving's work doesn't strike me as that enjoyable to read, to me personally of course. Poe, though, is deep, and (as we discussed in class) uses a lot of awesome language. I love his poetry especially. There was a time when I tried to memorize "The Raven" (and I have successfully memorized most of it, haha), and of course there's my favorite Poe poem, "A Dream Within a Dream." For those of you unfamiliar with it, it goes:

Take this kiss upon the brow
And, in parting from you now,
This much let me avow:
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream
Yet, if hope has flown away
In a night or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand.
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep!--while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

(Any errors in the above should be attributed to my faulty memory, but otherwise I guess you'll just have to trust me that I didn't look this one up.)

"A Dream Within a Dream" is one of Poe's lesser-known works, but I find it resonated with me a lot. I love the rhyme and the subject, the language and the imagery, the metaphors and the emotion in it. And I suppose that's what I love about Poe's work the most. He writes creepiness really well, but he recognizes beauty within his works also.

As I walk in a pitch-black Night

(A poem--written in the Puritan style of Anne Bradstreet.)

The eve tonight is cold and dark
The only thing that bids me hark
Are crickets singing in the grass
As if lamenting, "Ah, alas--
"The sun is gone, the night to stay
"'Til dawn shall break another day."

No moon lights up the cloudy sky
No twinkling stars to nav'gate by
I see no path beneath my feet
And so I wander off the street
Until my neighbor's light I spy
And find my way with now-keen eye

The neighbors ours, they walk alone
No stepping-path to them is shown
It is our duty and our joy
To those in the world's grim employ
To show them truth and light their way
'Til their dark night turn into day.