re: Poetry--An Invitation to Discussion
Posted: July 30th, 2006, 6:30 pmOne of Lewis' most amazing writings--whether poetry or prose--is his beautiful and transparent poem "As the Ruin Falls." He opens with a window into his selfish nature. He wants everyone, including God, to serve him and is unable to move one inch outside himself--always ending where he begins. Then, he moves to powerful images about how Joy has changed his life and taught him how to love, not just talk about it. He expresses eloquently the heartbreak of losing her and how he has become a complete person because of everything she is. To close, he says the pain of losing her and his transformation have been a blessing and worth more to him than anything else.
I use this poem in a college composition class and give the students the back story on Jack and Joy's relationship. Even though most of them are only 17 years old, they get it (my college does classes in the local high schools). And they often choose this poem out of 25-30 other poems by great writers as an in-depth explication.
Lewis has another poem that is humorous yet profound called "Confession" in which he admits he has spent many hours looking at sunsets and has yet to see one that reminds him of a "patient etherized upon a table" (a line from his Modernist friend T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"). He then proceeds to write of what the sunset says to him. It shows how he lived in the same chaotic time as Eliot, and the Waste Land was all around him--yet his work contains beauty and inspiration his Modernists friends had to yet find--or would ever find.
One of the greatest poets is Tennyson whose "In Memoriam A. H. H." has some of the most incredible lines ever written like "I hold it true, whate'er befall; / I feel it when I sorrow most; / Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all." If you read the entire work, you see a man's journey through the deepest grief. Most people just read those last two lines, but the ones above are so important and make the famous last ones even more powerful. When he misses his friend the most and hurts the most, he knows the truth of having loved and lost than to have never had that person in his life.
Tennyson and Lewis understood loving and losing like no other poets I have ever read.
(Please excuse any errors in quoting. I don't have the texts at home where I am writing from today.
)
I use this poem in a college composition class and give the students the back story on Jack and Joy's relationship. Even though most of them are only 17 years old, they get it (my college does classes in the local high schools). And they often choose this poem out of 25-30 other poems by great writers as an in-depth explication.
Lewis has another poem that is humorous yet profound called "Confession" in which he admits he has spent many hours looking at sunsets and has yet to see one that reminds him of a "patient etherized upon a table" (a line from his Modernist friend T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"). He then proceeds to write of what the sunset says to him. It shows how he lived in the same chaotic time as Eliot, and the Waste Land was all around him--yet his work contains beauty and inspiration his Modernists friends had to yet find--or would ever find.
One of the greatest poets is Tennyson whose "In Memoriam A. H. H." has some of the most incredible lines ever written like "I hold it true, whate'er befall; / I feel it when I sorrow most; / Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all." If you read the entire work, you see a man's journey through the deepest grief. Most people just read those last two lines, but the ones above are so important and make the famous last ones even more powerful. When he misses his friend the most and hurts the most, he knows the truth of having loved and lost than to have never had that person in his life.
Tennyson and Lewis understood loving and losing like no other poets I have ever read.
(Please excuse any errors in quoting. I don't have the texts at home where I am writing from today.
)