Donne # 2

the 1^st thin u think of when u hear the wrd "song" is generally something rather happy, maybe Jack's Mannequin in sound. this is not the case fer John Donne apparently, judging by his poem, "Song". in "Song," Donne uses diction, use of imperatives, enjambment, and tone to show the speaker's frustration w/himself about his treatment and views of womyn.

the 1^st thin that strikes u when lookin @ this poem is his use of imperatives. the 1^st stanza has a lot of these. he uses wrds like "go," "get," "tell," "teach," and "find." these r all wrds that imply that he is lookin fer somethin 2 actually happen from the speaker's convo with the listener. this use of imperatives soon disappears as he seems 2 lose site of what he wants. in the 2^nd stanza, he begins 2 use statements like "if thou" and "wilt." these are wrds that imply that he doesn't necessarily want the answers 2 the ?'s that he asked in the beginning. this shows not only confusion as 2 what he wants, but also a kinda frustration as 2 the way he views n interacts w/womyn.

we can find a further indication of his frustration in his sudden flip in tone in the 3^rd stanza. in the 1^st n 2^nd stanzas, the speaker has a very bitter n cynical tone. he basically says that a tru, honest woman doesn't exist. he continues to say that he wants the person he's addressing to return n tell him bout this tru woman if he/she finds such a creature. in the 3^rd stanza, he says, "stanza 3 he says, "if thou findst one, let me know… yet do not, I would not go…" he continues to say that even if he found such a woman, he wouldn't deal w/her cuz she would b "false, ere I come, to two, or three." Essentially he says that the woman would b goin against her nature if she were tru, so he'd rather just have 2 or 3 womyn @ a time. this cr8s a rather cynical, bitter tone and the frustration w/this way of life is clear.

the final indication of his frustration comes from the use of enjambment. The 2 commas in the first stanza (1 aftr go in the 1^st line n one aftr tell me in the 3^rd line) cause the reader to pause and the thought is broken up in an odd way as though the speaker is havin a hard time communicatin what he wants 2 happen. In all 3 stanzas, the 7^th n 8^th lines are composed of 2 wrds n indented. this cr8s a feel of confusion and frustration cuz not only is the thought broken up, but the reader is caused to make long pauses while jumping to the beginning of the nxt line.

thus we come 2 find that the speaker in Donne's poem, "Song," is highly confused and frustrated. that effect was achieved through Donne's use of imperatives, enjambment, use of diction, and cr8ion of tone. idk, it seems unfortunate that Donne didn't actually have a song in mind when writin this, cuz the tones of Jack's Mannequin's MFEO or Holiday from Real would be far more pleasant to listen 2 than the cynical frustration xtpressed in this poem.

plog numero uno

Donne clearly a hopeless romantic, yeah, uk the ppl that r all, “OMG I’m so in luv w/my gf and we’ll neva separ8 n my life wasn’t complete til her!” yeah, those. this poem SCREAMS hopeless romanticism. in addition 2 b-in a hopeless romantic, he was a brite intellectual. we c this through the many skolastic refrences that he makes through the poem.
we’ll talk bout the geographic refrences 1st cuz we all know I flippin luv geo! just the fact that he knows about the many ideas and theories and prts of geo allows us 2 infer that he’s highy educated. geo also cr8s contradiction w/in the poem and even w/in a single line which shows that he was in luv. this may sound strange, but s’tru. luv tends to make ppl sound confused or get lost in their thoughts, and that is clearly what happens w/in the 3rd stanza. generally speakin, we don’t say “sharp N” or “declining W” cuz those rn’t thought 2 b proper terms nor r they thought of as “sensical” thins 2 say. sharp lft or declinin S maybe, but not sharp N or declinin W. furthermore, the diction indicates discovery, and that’s said 2 b what luv is about. the idea that he covers both land n c implies that his luv is spanning all elements thus proving that he’s a hopeless romantic. the fact that he’s able to talk bout all these thins in such a detailed and relatively correct way allows the reader to infer that he is highly educated, as st8ed b4.
further indication of his intellect is the scientific refrence. 1st is the theory of mixing parts and unequal prts will die. this is a theory that was only known n understood among the skolastic wrld. the same thing went fer the theory that all ppl were their own wrld. ppl in general knew this, but it was spoken bout n understood by the intellectual community. these thins show that he was clearly educated.
the next thin i noticed was that there was a lot of end rhyme. i think this helps in the mood of luv as well cuz the voice of the poem then takes on a song like quality. normally, i'd say that rhyme causes the voice to seem crazy or psycotic (maybe it's my fear of Dr.Suess? idk) but those are qualities of luv, so this fits. it also helps cr8 the meter/rhythem of the poem cuz the rhyme gives ur voice a steady, melodic quality when u say the rhymin wrds. finally, the pattrn btwn the 1st n 3rd stanzas help show that he is intellegent. it takes a lot of wrk 2 out 2gether a rhyme scheme and Donne accomplishes that quite well.
the final thing i have 2 talk bout is the massive amount of eye imagery. he not only talks bout "my face in thine eye. thine in mine appears," but bout the Seven Sleepers and seeing and fancies, and beauty, and sights, and a lot more. all of these things have something 2 do w/eyes and that is an odd quality, i think. now, the old addage of eyes bein the window 2 the soul may have somethin 2 do w/it cuz of the idea that he's talkin bout luv. these references 2 eyes may be 2 make the voice sound more sincere n believable cuz the idea that the luv is in his soul seems like it would mean that the luv was tru. on the othr hand, this could b thought of like the priest in Romeo n Juliet thought bout Romeo, luv was only in his eyes. essentially, that the luv was only cuz the chick was pretty. idk what the case is here, but the idea of eyes carries both connotations. whether it is a false luv or not, the quality of luv is proven nonetheless. the idea that he thinks bou this luvr @ all times is communicated too cuz of the fact that both waking n dreamin r included in the poem. the idea that he's an intellectual is again thought of when we consider that vision is one of the most relied on human senses. cuz of this, we may think of this as a scientific refrence. the final connotation that this motif could have is that of luv @ 1st site. this once again brings 2 mind that he's a hopeless romantic.
through these thins we can easily c that Donne was a bit of a hopeless romantic, but that he was highly educated as well. it doesn't take a rocket sci 2 fig out that only educated ppl understand the scientific and geographic refrences and could cr8 n truly follow a rhyme scheme like Donne's, but the thins he talks bout with these subjects lead us back 2 the idea of luv. through the motif of eyes n the end rhyme itself, we can see that he is a major tie to luv n can truly b considered a hopeless romantic.

OMG, AIDS

ok, so i'm not really doin so well (i'm actually being kept home from school tomorrow) so i'm gonna make this quick. So J'mag, Alyia, and i wore AIDS shirts to raise awareness on World AIDS day. It didn't go as well as we had hoped. I had a couple people ask me about the shirt and why Africa wasn't all the same color to which i had to xplain about choroplethic maps and how they work (i think we raised awareness about geography not AIDS). otherwise nothing really changed. I'm sure the shirt was read, but idk... AIDS is now nbd i guess. kinda sad that so many people are dying and the old age cohort is becoming affected by it due to unforeseen reasons and no one really cares too much. hopefully some one will read my blog and go "old people are not becoming more infected!!!" and go reasearch it.

OMG i fell asleep! dude, this is gonna b late. dang, now what?

wraping up the end

yeah, that pun was intended, if u don't get it, wait and think about it a sec....... ok now, yeah, ok.

so over all, i liked Lysistrata and i liked it even more after c-in The Boycott. i think that the language was not as bad as i was expecting and the puns weren't as good as i was hoping for, but decently indecent for a high school class. i think i'll prolly take this book to st8 4n6 n we'll get a reading outta it, we have some gr8 actors and almost all 4n6 n db8 kids have dirty minds (generally speaking, not the rule, but tends 2 b a commonality) so the acting will b enhanced by the fast interpretation of the puns. i really liked that the book was easily interpreted through many lenses, historical, marxist, feminist, etc. i like that it was a happy medium of the other 2 plays we read; the womyn weren't the catty, annoying, rather weak girls that the Alba daughters were, and none of them were the globally manipulative, my-way-or-the-highway person that Hedda was. essentially, i have mostly good things to say about the book, i liked it (this is honestly a good yr, last yr i think i liked 2 books- The Metamorphasis and Night). so, even though this seems really short for me, this is about it. i really think that the imagery inhanced the play because we, as readers, had to interpret and create mental images to understand the play and it was easy to do that because of Aristophanes' language and use of imagery. i loved the puns and metaphors, they made me laugh. and i liked how it was so diverse in it's ability to b interpreted. ok, this is me being officially finished, can't wait fer the next book.

extended metaphor (ha ha, i crack myself up)

ok, so since i've kinda run outta things to comment on i'll do my last commentary-esk blog on the extended metaphor of the town and the yarn. ok, so i c this in a marxist lite. first, the womyn are the proletariat rising up against the dirty, capitalist bourgeoisie, the men. next, the yarn that these womyn want to spin is a utpoia and the explaination of how to spin yarn is the plan for creating this utopia. scrubbing it in a public bath can mean exposing all the corruption of the current government to the people so that they know what's really going on, kinda like airing ur dirty laundry. cudgeling the leeches and vermen is expelling the corrupt officials from office and making sure the problem won't repeat itself and cause the yarn to unravel because of imperfections. the next step is essentially getting the people on the same level, making them equal like standard distribution of land. then culling the colonies is opening up free trade so that the econ can survive and flourish and even brining all the communist states together to help revolutionize the rest of the world to create a tru workers' paradise. the idea that this is being done by womyn fits in with communism too cuz hey were all about equality of all ppl n they tended to allow womyn to do more and hold higher, bttr positions. suddenly i'm feeling that the book could be a key for communist revolution all over. there are a lot of places where u can do a marxist reading and get even more outta this play. it sounds like the steps that should have been taken by Kruschev after gettin rid of Stalin to truly insure the survival of the USSR and communism (rather that Stalinism) are in this play. it's unfortunate that these leaders weren't up on their classic greek plays and IB english cuz they may still have power and not b the "bad guys" in our history books.

** disclaimer: i am not a commi, just a historical thinker and an opportunist

double dehumanization

r-rite so by now, we've all figured out that Peace in the end is not only a concept, but a woman, and a really pretty one at that. the men's reaction to this is um, enthusiastic to say the least. now, i've talked about this b4, but it really bothers me n imma xplain it again and in bttr depth. 1st there's the standard thing we look out for (well, i look out for as a "femanazi"), dehumanization and degradation of womyn. this is easily seen in the way that the men goggle her and her naked body. they know nothing but that they like what they see, she is a body, a piece of a&$ if you will. she doesn't have an opinion or a vote or even a brain, she's just flesh. the men continue this kind of treatment as they split her up and argue over who gets the "mountains" and legs and "gulfs". now, it's bad for this 2 happen @ all, but in a book where the theme is the power of womyn? really, that's sad. now, don't worry, the men get their turn. i think it's degrading and dehumanizing that the men are portrayed as animals so in need of a good screwing session that they will agree to anything and are drueling over Peace like dogs over a porter house steak. now we can read further into the text. pg 104 is about nothing but Peace's butte, i mean the Promonyory of Pylos. here we see that these men can't talk about real problems because their minds r 2 busy w/um, the Netherlands. (yeah, bad pun, but u should b usewd 2 it by now.) the idea that they argue about geography over a female's geography and are thinking about nothing but biology is really sad and over simplifies the male mind (ok, maybe not, but imma try 2 stay positive n try not 2 offened ne more guys than i already have). in essence, these men have been reduced to animal status and their higher thinking skill have been removed, they are no longer humans with a frontal lobe that allows decision making, but rather animals driven by instinct to continue the species. in general, i think this was a poor way to end the book and a sad interpreation of a book that had a powerful message.

pg 92 and phallus

ok, so i'd like 2 start out with an insite in2 my twisted mind/ pop culture refrence. so everytime i read the word "erection" i can't help but think about this Adam and Andrew song, "Emo Kid". In the song there's a line that says "hearing songs about getting dumped give me an erection"and everytime i read "erection" in this book i wanna start singing the song. ok, that's enough on that.

ok, so quick historical idea and slight queer reading (maybe, not sure). ok, so back when this was written there was supposed to have been a lot of "gay" activity and it was supposed to have been widely accepted, so here's the quesiton, was the commissioner gay? so he throws open the Sparten's cloak to reveal his erection (emo kid song) and then says that he has one 2 n shows the Spartan. then there's a lot of talk about things bein "up in the air" and going to explode. now, i think this is something to b xplored. the guys of this time had no problem being open and talkin bout their personal um, problems, showing vulnerability, which is something that's considered girly or weak or even "gay" now. if a guy is really emotional he's accused of being gay. now these men are a change, they are militaristic and really matcho by that standard, but then they sit around and talk about their erections and how they feel because of their womyn not screwing them?! major twist, i think. i think this may b used to advocate that being gay is not a matter of being weak or less manly, but merely likeing the same sex as you. this would be especially tru if the commissioner was gay because he seems 2 b the guy w/the most power. idk, i think this could b a poweful idea to use and re-read the book with. i mean it is said that Greek society viewed homosexual activity VERY differently than our society does, but i think this could quite possibly b a text 2 use 2 bring back that acceptance.