On Grief and Reason
Brodsky is discussing the darkness that Robert Frost' poems posses and how it has darkened his mind. He breaks the poem apart. He first breaks it apart by stanza, then by lines, then by words. He pulls the poem apart to decipher what every word could possibly mean. He states that "Every word comes practically barnacled with allusion and associations." He demonstrates the breakdown of the lines and words by first just looking at a line. He says "As I came to the edge of the woods" is an innocent sentence but when you break down the words and look at "the woods" and "the edge" you begin to notice that nothing good ever happens in the woods. He looks at every word to try to figure if it does have a deeper meaning and if it fits with the rest of the poem like Perrine would say. I buy what he says about Frost's poetry because all of his claims are supported by other aspects of the poem. None of his claims contradict each other. It is interesting how deep he goes into these poems. I never realized how dark Frost's work actually was. I read Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost and did not think it was as dark as it actually was. In this essay Brodsky applies the biographical lens in the beginning when he is discussing Robert Frost but when he begins to discuss his poetry he takes on a new criticism lens.
Allison I agree with you on how Brodsky breaks down the poem. He goes from general to specific and I like that because in poetry I need a little extra help and when he takes the time to do that I feel that I understand better. I also said that Brodsky used new criticism in order to analyze Frost's literature!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, this is such a clearly written response to the given Sacred-Write prompt, and that is greatly appreciated. Secondly, I happen to politely disagree with your statement regarding "buying" Brodsky's argument, perhaps for a minute reason, but I do for this reason: On a surface level reading, or a first-read without annotations, I found that I did happen to "buy" his argument, as I was quite impressed by his ability to read an explicate Frost's works with such specificity. However, on a deeper reading (or at least trying to) I found that this sense of specificity might have been to his disadvantage, as it did not necessarily "check off all of the boxes" in terms of interpretation of Frost's poetry, rendering possibly incorrect. While I do still feel as though Brodsky's interpretation holds some sort of validity, I found a few of his micro-analysis' to be perhaps too biased or not with enough concrete support.
ReplyDeleteI loved your mention of Brodsky's analysis from stanzas, lines, and ultimately words. When reading poetry, as Mrs. Mac points out in class, we are often determined to find the "deeper meaning" during the first read, when in reality it takes time to solve the puzzle that is often poetry. Even Joseph Brodsky breaks the text into pieces and he's a winner of The Noble Prize in Literature. :)
ReplyDeleteBut in the beginning of the essay he also cautions on doing that very thing. Seems strange to me that he dismisses the autobiographical only to come full circle to it by the end.
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