Essay on Next To Of Course God America I

Submitted By Vanza
Words: 3676
Pages: 15
Open Document
next to of course god america i This poem is going to cause a lot of bother, partly because people think it’s tough. It’s not. It’s really simple, and really thought­provoking. About the form The poem is a sonnet . Google searches and Yahoo! answers will try to convince you otherwise, but it is a sonnet. If it looks like a sonnet and it feels like a sonnet, it’s a sonnet. So what is a sonnet? Sonnets were most popular as love poems. That’s what will fox some people. This isn’t really a love poem. Some people will try and work it round by saying it’s a love poem of sorts about
America. It isn’t. A sonnet isn’t always to do with love. They became known in England as a thing to do with love, but they aren’t always. Shakespeare, among others, is responsible for this. When Romeo and Juliet first meet, their words form a sonnet. Spenser, Wyatt and others are mainly responsible for our views about the connection between love and sonnets. First... look at these sonnets: Spenser
Wyatt
Sidney
Shakespeare

These look and feel quite different from E. E. cummings! These poems show how the sonnet was used to compare women to angels, ask women to release men from their torture; and, by the final one, Shakespeare, you can see him playing around and mocking these ‘false sentiments’ which said women had eyes like the sun or walked like an angel. These sonnets are what fox lesser mortals who think this poem can’t be a sonnet. Some people who haven’t done their research fail to realise that all sonnet means is ‘little song’ ­ that’s all ­ and there are just as many about other things as there are love ones. Only, it’s the love ones that stand out. That’s unfortunate, because it’s left some lesser mortals with the view that a sonnet
MUST be about love. That’s like looking at the pop charts and thinking all music is pop music.
Of course, what doesn’t get into the top 30 isn’t music, right? Classical and Jazz and underground numbers that just don’t get mainstream popularity ­ they’re not music as well are they? Wow. However, sonnets are as much, often, about politics. 100 years after Shakespeare, sonnets were more popularly about other stuff. Yes, there were still love sonnets, like Elizabeth Barratt
Browning’s
Sonnets from the Portuguese but there were plenty of other types too. My absolute and utter favourite is
Ozymandias
­ a poem about power and how time lets us forget

even the most cruel tyrant. Other poems that you will need to look at to get a full understanding of next to of course god america i include: Anthem for Doomed Youth
Futility

Both sonnets. Both about war. So what do sonnets do? They take the crazy, overwhelming, nonsensical thoughts in your head that swim around causing all manner of distraction, and they pen them into a nice, mathematical, rhythmic, structured shape. Imagine thoughts as a field full of hundreds of cats. A sonnet takes those crazy cats and puts them in a tidy, organised, neat little pen. No craziness. No distraction. Not only that, sonnets are really hard to write. First you need a rhyme scheme ­
A­B­A­B­C­D­C­D E­F­G­E­F­G in this case. So you need to find words that make sense and rhyme too. Always hard. Then you need to make sure you express it in a regular amount of syllables ­ often 10. So you have to make all the other words fit in 14 10­syllable lines that rhyme. Then you have to think of the stresses so that words go dee­DUM dee­DUM dee­DUM dee­DUM dee­DUM. So, you can’t say ‘father’ which is FA­ther. Or AM­er­ic­A or even am­ERIC­a because that doesn’t fit. See? Hard. E. E. Cummings keeps some bits and gets rid of others. He keeps the 14 lines. He breaks it into an octet (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines) which was traditionally a problem or an argument and a solution or response. He keeps the rhyme scheme, even breaking up ‘beautiful’ to do so. But he gets rid of the regular
Show More

Related Documents: Essay on Next To Of Course God America I

Sonnets Of Sarcasm

Sonnets of Sarcasm “Next to the course of god america i” was a heavily criticized poem composed by the American poet E.E. Cummings. The speaker in the poem is seen as a zealous and patriotic citizen who professes their great love of America through a smorgasbord of American songs that the speaker partially finish and patriotic sayings that are mashed up into each other. To illustrate the speaker's mental state, they are caught up in a frenzied manner by the way they express themselves in an incoherent…

Words 943 - Pages 4

Eng Lit Question 5 Essay

top of the wood”, and “no falsifying dream” shows that it has no imagination; it does what it needs to succeed. Furthermore, Ted Hughes uses formal language to portray the superiority of the hawk, and the constant repetition of first person pronouns (“I”, “my”, “me”) show the egocentrism and narcissism of the hawk. The hawk doesn’t feel it needs to justify its power as it says “no arguments assert my right”. “it is all mine” also shows that the hawk assumes that it can do whatever it wants to do, and…

Words 945 - Pages 4

The Story of the Land (Myth) Essay

The Story of the Land Long ago before man inhabited Earth and it was bare and fertile, two great Goddesses ruled the planet. Their names were Terra the Brave and Aqua the Wise, daughters of the Almighty God of the Universe, Omnes the Creator. The daughters are the closest things to perfection in the universe with their bravery, compassion, and generosity. Omnes molded Earth with a snap of his mighty fingers, and he was astonished! He has never created anything so beautiful with so much raw potential…

Words 718 - Pages 3

Mark Twain Satire

is worthy of it’s criticism and your arguments cannot be baseless or without merit. There is also a specific tone that effective satires carry, that of a strong, concentrated, and knowledgeable person. The two satires, both effective, “next of course god america i” by e.e. cummings and “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain, explore and analyze the tragedies of war and the things we do to justify and distract ourselves from them. In his short story, “The War Prayer”, Mark Twain argues that some things are…

Words 982 - Pages 4

US Flag Research Paper

justice, whilst the 50 stars contain two meanings. There are 50 stars on the flag which represent the 50 states, but the actual stars against the field of blue is called a constellation. The constellation symbolizes heaven and God and how he is the ultimate leader of our country. Next on the flag is the stripes. There are 13 stripes on the flag shown with the colors red and white. The colors red and white symbolize courage and purity, but why exactly are there 13 stripes? There are 13 stripes because they…

Words 672 - Pages 3

America's Most Influential Speech Analysis

They asked many rhetorical questions throughout their entire speeches, such as "But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs…

Words 834 - Pages 4

Essay on September 11

M. I was just getting up from a late night and seen what had ahppened on television. I was in shock, at this time i wasnt in the military, however this was one of the the things that made me want to join. there are many theories of conspiracy and then there are the beliefs that it was actual terrorism, I know the only thing that really matters is that 2,974 innocent lives were taken. This is unnacceptable no matter whether it was terrorism or a conspiracy, this is the United States of America and…

Words 460 - Pages 2

Essay on light and the glory

Todd Hirao History p.1 Ms. Stoker 24 September 2013 How God helped America The Light and the Glory is about the United States Constitution that has been the longest lasting government in all history. In 1620 the Pilgrims sailed from Holland and set out for America. 10 years later they were followed by the Puritans. The Puritans and the Pilgrims experienced bad incounters which forced their belief on God. There was only a tiny bit to eat and all they had for shelter was log cabin…

Words 1524 - Pages 7

Patricia Annette Southhall: Miss Virginal Beauty Pageant

with high school Academy, she relocated to Harrisonburg, Virginia where she gained admission into James Madison University she then obtained a degree in journalism, after the four years program. 1993 Miss Virginal Beauty pageant (Becoming 1st Africa America to win) She was the one to represent Virginal at the Miss USA pageant event the following year. In the year 1992 she gained employment at Douglas Wilder’s Media Office who was the former Richmond, Virginia’s Mayor, that same year she came in contact…

Words 897 - Pages 4

My Odyssey

My Odyssey In the course of events of my life, I have traveled to many places. To leave my homeland was an astounding and abrupt moment. Driving through Spain, France, and Portugal to small and far away towns were stressful trips. Traveling by plane to Majorca, an island in the Mediterranean Sea was slow, exhausting, and long. However, neither leaving my country nor driving in the old continent was as unendurable as my odyssey going to America. As a Cuban-Spaniard citizen, the desire…

Words 704 - Pages 3