Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Muriel Rukeyser
I did not feel that Rukeyser and Whitman used the word "you" in the same manner. While Whitman stresses the sameness in you and the voice of the poem, Rukeyser is talking to you as a separate person from the voice of the poem. The exploration of death in this poem is a much more direct and specific image than the one that Whitman presents to us. I think in many ways this poem does not fully come to terms with death. At the end of the poem Rukeyser writes, "...fanatic cruel legend at our back and / speeding ahead the red and open west, / and this our region, / desire, field, beginning. Name and road, / communication to these many men, / as epilogue, seeds of unending love." I thought this meant that until the deaths of these men are communicated to the world as reality and fact instead of legend there cannot be peace in their deaths. To me and epilogue signifies and unfinished story and attempt to tie up the lose ends and maybe this poem is a way of giving those men an ending in their story but I'm not sure if its nearly as fulfilled as Whitman's resolution.
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Nice reading. Although the "you" employed by M.R. seems to address particular individuals do you get the sense the she is testing the morality of individuals and calling on them to be outraged by the Hawk's Nest Incident? It seems to me that she is hearkening to people to look into their own morality and find a community of like minded souls who are similarly outraged and moved to action. Any thoughts?
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ReplyDeleteYes. I agree that Whitman and Rukeyser mean different things when they say you. For Whitman, You represents the death that he is trying to get over, desiring to find that ultimate connection between the two, but I think, remaining separate until the end of the poem. I agree with Matt that Rukeyser uses 'you' in order to address individuals in a way to call them together, and she does so from the very beginning.
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