ON THE VANITY OF EARTHLY GREATNESS

The poem describes what happens to powerful people and animals after they die. It seeks to show that time reduces all great things of history into something insignificant. In other words, the poet shows how greatness continues only for a short time by representing several instances in the poem. The tusks of mastodons that clashed in the war have now become the playthings. The sword of Charlemagne the Just which devasted several emperors has now used. People who used to fear with the hug of grizzly bear now sit comfortably on its fun. Similarly, the powerful general Great Caesar is confined to the shelf.

Q. What isironical about the poem?

=> He, the writer knows that writing poems stands for nothing but he is not stopping it which is ironical about the poem.

THE CONCRETE CAT

Abstract- hate, anger, love

Poem- basically to read

Picture- basically to watch

Concrete poem- watch + read; letters get used as brush- stokes to create a visible images on the page

-an experiment poem

This is a poem of a cat. The poem draws a picture of the cat on the paper. The picture is drawn with words and letters, but not with sentences. The word CAT does not appear, but these words are the body of a cat, for example eye, mouth, paw and whisker. Other words are added to put the cat in a place, for example dish and litter box. These tell us the cat is a pet and not a wild cat. The poem ‘Concrete Cat’ is an example of concrete poem. It is a poem made for the eyes. The major focus of the poem is with the physical appearance of poetry not with ideas and emotions. Concrete poems are different from other poems they use words to create an image on the page.

KEEPING THINGS WHOLE

The poem Keeping Things Whole written by Mark Strand manages to say much by using few words. He knows that modern life is fragmented and we have many roles and responsibilities. We are always rushing from one place to another to make things complete. The poet says that all our movements are meaningful. He finds meaning in his movement to make things whole. We cannot be absolutely present in a place by not being absent in others. But still, we keep on moving and make things complete for sometimes.

OR,

This poem pleads for wholeness against the usual fragmentation that goes in life. The poet wants to keep things whole. He does not want anything to be broken. He does not find himself in the field. He finds that he is missing there. He thinks he divides the air when he walks. That is, he thinks when he is in a field; he breaks the field because he takes up space in it. The only way to make sure is that the field remains unbroken and whole is to keep moving.

OOPS! HOWS THAT AGAIN?

-an essay about verbal error

-shows why and what types of errors we make while speaking

-verbal errors may have psychological and linguistic value

Types: i. Mistranslation: wrong translation to give negative impression

ii.Tongue slip: accidently saying sth else that’s not intended

iii. Sponerism: exchanging the initial sound of words to give funny meaning. Eg. Town drain Other names fauxPas, Blooper, Missteps, etc

-sometimes our hidden wishes are exposed through verbal errors

-verbal errors are human, so it is not necessary to take them seriously

-anyone can make verbal errors

This essay describes the mistake people make when speaking and the reasons why they make mistakes. The mistakes are divided into four categories: slips of the tongue fauxpas, mistranslations and spoonerisms.

Slips of the tongue are common mistakes where the speaker says one thing when they mean to say another. For example, a businessman Peter Balfour whished Prince Charles the happy married life with Lady Jane. But the prince was betrothed with the Lady Diana. He completely turned fool by expressing such a wish in a royal lunch. In the same way, during the election campaign Nancy Ragan telephoned her husband how delighted she was to be looking at all the beautiful white people. But she was unaware of the fact that the voters were not only the whites but also the blacks. Likewise, the French Prime Minister said that the bombing was aimed at Jew but stroke the innocent Frenchmen. He meant that the Jewis in France were not Frenchmen and they were not innocent either.

Another kind of verbal mistake is faux pas. Usually a faux pas occurs when a person says something that he or she thinks is harmless but it actually has meaning that will upset some people. Several political leaders have made such slips. Jimmy Carter never fully recovered when he mentioned the Polish lust for future. Chicago Mayor had the same bitter experience when he assured the public that “the policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

Mistakes also result from mistranslation. Mistranslations are mistakes made when words in bre language are translated badly into another language. For instance, the slogan “Come Alive with Pepsi” failed in German when it was translated: “Come Alive out of the Grave with Pepsi.” When Lubke greeted Indian President at the airport, he intended to ask, “How are you?” instead said: “Who are you?” to which his guest answered, “I am the President of India.”

The mistakes also appear due to spoonerism. Spoonerism occurs when a persom mixes up the letters of the words they are saying. Once radio announcer Harry von Zell said, “Hoobert Heever” for Herbert Hoover. Similarly, William Archibald Spooner caused a stir with his famous spoonerisms. He gave out a hymn in chapel as “Kinquering Kongs Their Titles Take.” Once a spooner chided a student : “You have hissed all my mystery lectures. In fact you have tasted the whole worm, and must leave by the first town drain.”

Rosenblatt mentions two theoretical explanations for such mistakes: linguistic and psychological. By referring to linguist Victoria Fromkin, he says that the brain stores new information into a grammatical framework. The information remained in wrong grammatical framework comes out as error. A grammatical framework was a part of Anneberg’s  trouble when he admitted before Queen as “some discomfiture as a result of a need for elements of refurbishing.”

On another front, psychoanalyst Eidelberg who made Freud’s work simple suggested that  a slip of the tongue involves the entire network of id, ego and superego. He offers the case of the young man entering a restaurant with his girlfriend and ordered a room instead of a table. This expression is the reflection of the repressed desire of preoedipal period.

We laugh at someone’s mistakes because such mistakes are deviations from the conventional and normal course of life. They provide us delightful relief. Henry Bergson theorized that the act of laughter is caused by any interruption of normal human activity (a pie n the face, a mask, a pun). Thus, slips of the tongues are like slips on banana peels. So we shouldn’t laugh at them who make such mistakes.

UNCHOPPING A TREE

In this essay, Merwin gives instructions for repairing a tree that has been chopped down. In other words, the essay is telling us to preserve the environment.

The essayist tells us that repairing of the tree should begin with leaves, twigs and nests, which have been broken off by the fall. It is not difficult work if the major limbs are not badly destroyed. The unchopping can be made easier by the correct or planned fall. The success of unchopping also depends on the size, age, shape and species of the tree. The regular and tedious work may make you wish the support of animals. But they will not help you because they have learned that this is man’s work.

If the tree is hollow and it contains nests, hoards of nuts and structures that bees and wasp build for their survival, repairing work is more difficult. Everything has to be reassembled and stick them back to their original place. Furthermore, it is difficult to put back webs and dry leaves. We do not have spider’s webbing equipment nor substitute for the leaf’s living bond with its points of attachment and nourishment. This is also the time for repairing neighboring trees or bushes or other growth that have been damaged by the fall.

The tackle and scaffolding should be placed on the right place depending on the surrounding and dimensions of the tree. If they are not installed carefully, they can further damage and grind neighboring trees, plants and other vegetation.

When the time comes to erect the trunk, you need to now t delicacy of the huge tree. Every slight upward pull of the trunk must go with every motion of the tackle. Putting the trunk back into place is very difficult because the end of the trunk is broken into splinters. It is necessary to straighten the splinters by using appropriate fixative and adhesives. After this sawdust and chips of broken wood should be returned to their original place although weathering makes the work very difficult.

The next day you have to remove the scaffolding piece by piece. When you remove the last piece, the tree stands on its own. You hardly believe your eyes. It stands as if the first breeze and the motion of the clouds can push it over. What you can do is only look and wait.