Author: Brian Sterling

How do these love poems, “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist,” compare with other love poems you’ve read?

Walcott’s poems “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist” compare to other love poems I’ve read because it revolved around the literary device of imagery.  Edith Wharton’s “Terminus ” also included imagery, you could imagine how the person looks, what’s going on, you could have a daydream about the setting. It seems like a common theme among all these romantic poems deal with the lovers being distant from each other. The speaker is always reciting the lovely moments in the past tense and reminiscing on those great times. The speaker is always dreaming of the past, in “The Fist”, the speaker says, ” But this has moved past love to mania” to convey that this romance has happened in the past.

What is the relationship between place (e.g. a bedroom, a train station) and memory in the poem?

In the poem “Terminus”, Edith Wharton talks about her recollection of time with her lover. Place and memory have a relationship because this event is happening in the past in specific places. She is remembering the place where this sexual moment occurred, a bedroom. It seems like the train station is where she met her lover. It is confusing as to if her lover is leaving her boarding the train or getting off the train to meet her. Memory is based on her sexual encounters in the bedroom and Wharton uses imagery to set the tone throughout the poem. The bedroom and the train station serve as the same universes for Wharton, the pleasure she shares with her lover. This experience that she has had seems to have changed her in a positive way. The language in this poem can be seen as confusing but the main idea and relationships seen in this poem are noticeable.

What is the significance of the two lovers meeting at Yalta, a resort town?

In this short story, Gurov and Anna fall in love and have an affair in the town Yalta that is known for love affairs. Gurov had a prejudice against women and despised all the stories of sin told about this place Yalta. It ironic because Gurov hates and does not believe these immoral stories about Yalta yet he becomes an example and lives in one of these stories. Gurov an older man has an affair with Anna with younger women and both parties are married. They both commit sin in a resort town known for sin. What’s also interesting about this story is how Gurov has all this hate for women yet falls in love with a woman. Gurov has been apart of many affairs but finally realizes he is in love with this being the first time. Anna is different already regarding herself as low for having an affair. Yalta represents everything Gurov hates. Gurov meeting Anna in Yalta represents the transition Gurov will take in his life.

In her short story, “The Dead”, the differences between Gabriel and his family are evident. His encounters with Miss Ivors represents the rejection of his culture and his past. I believe that “dead” in the story constitute the past as the living represent the future. Gabriel wants change in the present to depict the future because as he says times are changing and not always for the good. His interaction with Miss Ivors proves to be the gap between the past and the present. The past being Gabriel’s Irish culture and Miss Ivors view of the world and the present being Gabriel’s realization that he is tired of his culture and the past and wants to move on to the present with a new culture. When Miss Ivors calls Gabriel a “Brit”, she realizes Gabriel has terminated his relationship with his culture and has assimilated to the new culture of British controlled Ireland.

William Blake in all three of his poems is criticizing the time he lived in during Eighteenth-Century England. In his poem, “the Gates of Paradise”, Blake criticizes the most important topic during the era, religion.  Calling the person who is accused of being God as his Satan. He wonders about how society can be so evil and how God allows this to happen. He is criticizing God himself and uses his surroundings as reasons for this criticism. In “London”, Blake points out these issues in society and reveals the life in the urban areas of England. Blake mentions crying of man and child which resembles terror no matter how old or how strong you are. In his last poem, ” The Chimney Sweeper”, Blake exposes the problems of child labor. Using imager of kids covered in black and wearing clothes of death. Then he relates these horrors done to these kids to how people use God to ignore the real sins and terror being done in society.