Friday, May 28, 2010
#4 Pg. 1088
To compare any modern day lyrics with some poems from way back in the day is definitely going to be a challenge. I mean, I can’t stand poetry because it’s so vague and seriously a waste of my time. Trying to interpret what a poem is saying is like having my teeth pulled out one by one. If you remember, in my first blog or second one (idk) I clearly expressed that analyzing poetry and literature completely RUINS the entire thing for me. If I don’t understand what I’m reading the first time around, picking it apart piece by piece is only going to make me hate it even more. Plus, on top of not understanding poetry, the only similarity between these poems and any modern day love song is that they have the idea of love written into them. And that’s about it. The theory and definition of love has dramatically changed over the course of time and it simply doesn’t relate to love back in the day. Back in the day (I’m having a field day with this back in the day thing) love was forced and it only meant making your man happy and being a good wife. Nowadays (there I go again with the old people references) love is a choice and it can be between whatever two people choose it. Love will always be something that is sacred and special, but that can vary between people and the times (which is obvious given that Shakespeare was comparing women to seasons and guys today are comparing women to whores). One thing I will give poetry from ( I just had to) back in the day is that the men at least respected their women. It’s so hard to find a man who will respect you, let alone treat you like something other than a tool for sex. I guess you could say I have a thing for hating men. Lol. But really, there are some good ones, I’ll give you that. There’s about 4 in this country. Anyway. Like I said, comparing old poetry and modern day lyrics is a task for the brave people because they can only find so much. Love is a common “thematic element” in all love songs, duh. But like I said, that definition of love is completely different and when you really think about it, it kind of negates the whole “common thematic element” thing because said element has two different definitions. I don’t really have any favourite “modern” lyrics. I really like Nat King Cole’s “When I Fall in Love.” That’s a good one. I’m not the kind of person who actually listens to their music because for me it’s just like analyzing poetry. JUST LISTEN TO IT. The writer didn’t convey any message and he/she most certainly did NOT sit there and think “I think I’ll use an extended metaphor in the second verse and a illusion to Shakespeare in the chorus.” Really people.
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Haha “back in the day” has always been one of my favorite things to say. I love that you used it in here. I agree with you about interpreting poetry, for the most part at least. I hate when I have to seriously think about what is being said to me; it is like why cant you just say what you want to say in the first place instead of writing all of theses symbols and metaphors that mak me guess what you really meant?! It seems like a lot of unnecessary work for everyone! I always argue that half of the time our interpretations are probable wrong and that some of these poets are probably like “what are you talking about? I wasn’t talking about freedom, I was literally talking about a bird!” But at the same time I do appreciate the way that poetry can make you a better thinking and they way that it can give you different ways to express the way that you feel. Also a lot of people say that songs are just poems written to music ( like this assignment points out) and I do enjoy music so I am glad that at least that comes out of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in interpreting poetry, well I do not enjoy looking into poetry and written works from “back in the day”. However I have to say that I slightly disagree with you. Yes songs are a lot different in the way they express love and of course by the words that are used compared to those of earlier days. But there is still the same meaning and desire in the modern songs and poetry from earlier writers. The problem is that now a days we have come to use the word so commonly it has somewhat lost it power. We say we love our shoes, our bags, our coffee, or those buffalo wings we use love for everything, I use the word love for everything! I think that it is used to loosely. The songs we have today do the same in the things that they say. Then again who is to say that the songs of today are really even talking about love? Just throw the word love in their and it’s a love song. I do understand where you are coming from and where you get your opinion a lot of songs are so vulgar. They have used such a special and beautiful word and twisted it to describe how they feel about women or men’s bodies or raunchy appearance. So in that sense I agree with you however I believe that love in poems from back in the day are still similar to “some” songs for our day.
ReplyDeleteWow, I am not on the complete agreement with your blog this week. But we all have our own opinions and should be respected, right? Well I actually agree with the entire analyzing parts of literature. It is like having our tooth being taken off one by one. Plus I am just like you, if I do not understand it the first time around, then the second time will one confuse the story or poem and make the entire literature piece an indefinite horrible piece of literature. But then again, there has been times that when I read something twice it makes so much more sense and the complication of my life ends. On the other hand, I am not that negative with guys. I do know that there are those guys that should just be put behind a door and never let them out, but of course we also have the good side of the guys. I always say, a girl and a guy somehow always relate. For example not only can guys be d..ks, but a girl can also be worse than a guy sometimes. I guess it is just the fact that I have luckily been through good experience and I have been able to forgive the bad experiences.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some points you made here, but others I can definitely see where you’re coming from, however, I don’t quite agree with. I do agree with the frustration of analyzing pieces of literature I never understood to begin with. But I think that looking deeper into the literature can be really rewarding. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard to do and it can definitely be a pain but I think it’s interesting to see what I find in a poem and compare it to what other’s find. I’m usually way off and I don’t make much sense but for some reason it’s kind of fun to me lol. And I couldn’t agree with you more on your ideas of music and just the perspective that people have on love itself. I wouldn’t say that all guys are horrible, there are some decent ones out there, but sex itself is the new word for love. And people just throw the word Love around like it’s no one’s business. Love is supposed to be sacred, like you said, but love seems to have lost its luster, in a way, which is really sad. And these popular singers with all these songs about sex and all that jazz aren’t helping the situation at all, and unless these influences change, I think it’s just going to get worse from here on out.
ReplyDeletehahaha finally someone said it. Thank God. I too share your hatred for analyzing poetry of any kind. Realistically i see the value in being able to but once you do it seems presumptuous and pretentious to make assumptions about what the writer really intended people to understand about it. I also agree that writers don't necessarily start out thinking about how they'll put a reference to communism here or make their woman symbolic of Shakespear's Juliet, it just kind of happens. Take it from a writer, if there's some greater purpose you see in the writing, some great inference you can draw out... Then it's from your own head really and my words only seem to support that. Poetry was never meant to be ripped to shreds and written about line by line, it truly is like having a root canal over and over- I should know I had three at once 'back in the day' and ouch. lol. If you read poetry and don't understand it, then sure read it again, slow down and think about what that means to you but please by God don't start categorizing the damn thing, it's so ridiculously irritating. I think people will always write about love in a distant and often times abstract manner. We're not meant to understand every little detail of why or how... Just appreciate it, give it your own meaning, and quit prying in to the authors life. haha, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your blog is one of my favorites for this class.
ReplyDeleteThis week’s blog was a challenge for me. I don’t listen or know of any love songs so it was extremely hard for me to compare its lyrics to the words in the poems. But I got through it, it was hard and mine has a lot of useless information to fill the word count. I see you got through yours pretty good also. It looks like you have some sort of resentment towards men, you shouldn’t let things that happen to you in the past affect you that much. Let it go or you’ll seem unlikable and put off an odious vibe. Saying it’s hard to find a man that respects you is unreal, maybe you need to look somewhere else or put yourself in a different situation/environment. Presuming that most men are disrespectful and only treat women as a tool for sex is like saying all women are whores. It’s a two way assertion and it goes both ways. All in all I liked your blog, it was very straight forward and to the point, I like that.
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