Word: poem
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...difficult to articulate to my economist friend exactly what makes a poem I love a great poem. That’s what Paglia does here. She has the patience and mastery to work slowly through each poem, explaining what the lines mean and analyzing their effects. Paglia’s approach is simple without being simplistic. From Shakespeare to Dickinson to Yeats to Plath, her criticism is readable and flawlessly done...
...same time, “Break, Blow, Burn” may function best as an introductory text. Poetry aficionados will admire the elegant economy with which Paglia lays out the central moves of each work. If there is a famous poem that a reader has never particularly enjoyed—for me, it was Wallace Stevens’ “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”—Paglia’s analysis will help the reader understand its merits. But, while her analysis will unquestionably enrich a reader’s understanding...
This is not to say that Paglia’s essays don’t contain important and novel insights. She notes the subtle interplay of themes and images between different poems, and seamlessly integrates historical context and contemporary allusion. Her discussion of the fallen tyrant in Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” for instance, touches on the resonance of the poem in post-Napoleonic Europe, as well as noting that “modern readers may find the clarity of conception and execution of ‘Ozymandias’ especially compelling because Shelley?...
Paglia’s comparisons of poems and visual art are particularly effective. The colors in “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock,” she writes, conjure the rich hues of a Gauguin painting, a comparison that reinforces the tension in the poem between the puritanical world in which Stevens lives and the lush creativity of his imagination...
...four pages of analysis that Paglia allots to each poem, she can only accomplish so much. “Break, Blow, Burn” is a fun and smart read, but poetry lovers may prefer to delve into more focused criticism...