The first time we did deformation with the twitter bots, I thought that it was kind of entertaining, but I didn’t think that it was really beneficial to understanding the meaning of the poems. I also don’t think that it would have been as entertaining to people who like poems less.
When we did the programming to make it generate new words on our own, it was cool to see how much effort went into deciding which words would change and figuring out how to do it without breaking the poem. I think that if there was a way to make the computer look for synonyms instead of random words, it would be a better tool for understanding the original poems, and the words that were chosen for them. For example, in the red wheelbarrow, there are a lot of words that mean white, especially in terms of poultry, but the author chose white. Why did he choose white instead of one of the other words, such as light, pale, or colorless? What happens to the poem is the wheel barrow is sitting next to pale chickens, rather than white.
I think that changing the word, in this example, helps to highlight the improbability of white chickens in a wet world. White chickens suggests a more pristine, clean, chicken, whereas pale would still suggest that they have white feathers, but doesn’t have to mean they’re clean. Their cleanliness suggests the farm isn’t abandoned. Random other adjectives like “young” which could come up in the poem are not as revealing, which is why I think that synonyms would be a better way to replace words.
I liked the mad-libs when they made sense, but they were strange and incomprehensible much more often than they were understandable. I don’t think that deformance is really the best way to use your time when trying to analyze a poem.
Author: zurawelh1
“The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake
“The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake was published within Songs of Innocence, and seems to be a discussion between two young boys, and their work and religious obligations. The speaker of the poem discusses another boy named Tom, and the experiences he and Tom have shared, due to both being orphaned.
At the bottom of each printing, there are several characters who all appear to be young and with shaved heads, meaning they are probably representations of orphaned chimney sweepers. At the time of Blake’s life, it was popular practice for young male orphans to become chimney sweepers because they could fit in the chimneys, and they had no one else to provide for them. Though the coloring of each color plate is slightly different, the boys look dirty and hairless in every one, correlating with the line, “When your head’s bare / … the soot cannot spoil your white hair, to suggest even farther that the young characters are orphan chimney sweepers (Blake 8-9).
The other thing that I thought was cool about the color plate patterns, was that many of the groups of colors were the same as they had been for prints of “the tyger.” This made me wonder if he printed different volumes in certain colors based on who he was giving them too, or how he wanted them to be interpreted at the time.
The different colors on each plate were a big part in determining the mood and tone the poem seemed to give off to the reader. One of the prints, copy U, was completely black and white. This highlighted many of the dark undertones of the poem. For example, the poem seems to suggest that it is okay to have this terrible job now for the boys, because they will later be welcomed into open arms in the afterlife. The black and white color scheme here shows the view of the children, that things were exactly the way they needed to be, and there was no grey area in between; this is what they have to do now, to get this outcome later.
Some of the color plates, used brighter, warmer colors like pink and orange, which highlighted the afterlife imagery of the second half of the poem. The boys would “never want joy” because they would already have plenty of it, assuming all of the rules were followed (Blake 22).
Blake was my favorite poet to study when I took British lit, but I hadn’t ever realized how differently the poems could be viewed when the different color variations were put on the plate. IT totally makes sense, because different colors are associated with different feelings,I just wish we could find out why Blake used different colors at different times, and which ones he felt were the most accurate, or if he sometimes changed his mind or went back and forth about that.
Methinks My Love in Thee Doth Grow- Michael Field
I think that Michael Field was a really interesting author for this project, because it wasn’t really the authors name. The poems published under Michael Fields name were largely love poems, including “Methinks My Love in Thee Doth Grow” and they appear to be written for a women. The interesting part, is that the poems were also written by women.
Works published under the pen-name of Michael Field were actually the work of Katherine Harris Bradley, and her niece Edith Emma Cooper. There seems to be no distinction between which of them wrote specific poems, or even if every poem was a collaborative effort. It is suggested, though never proven to be positively true, that the two were having a lesbian relationship with one another. This could have been one of the reasons they chose to publish under a pen-name.
Using a male pen-name make an unknowing reader assume they are reading the words of a man, which is who they would typically expect to be writing about love for a woman. The pen-name Bradley and Cooper used also unified them together as one person. It took the bond between them to a very strong level. It also helped to hide the fact that there was a lesbian relationship at all, whether there was or not people would have wondered, even then. Hiding the lesbian relationship overall helped to hide that it was potentially one between and aunt and a niece.
If we can assume that the poem is written by one woman or the other, it seems likely that “methinks my love in thee doth grow” is written by the aunt, Bradley, because it discusses a child growing, learning, and wanting to potentially find their own goals in space. The first line of the last stanza declares “my love is grown.”
This poem is also interesting with the themes, because there are some religious references. While we are learning that Queer lifestyles were more common in the Victorian era than we might have expected, there still would have been religious tension there, as many read the bible to say God wanted love and marriage to be between one man and one woman. The first stanza of the poem states that the beloved wants to find God, and may leave the lover because of it, but the lover feels she “cannot blame thee.”
I really liked how this poem fit the theme of Victorian Queer Literature, even though you had to look a little deeper to find it. It wasn’t blatantly about two men falling in love with each other, because it was covered in layers of secrecy.
Performance of “Die a Happy Man”
“Die a Happy Man” is a country song written by Thomas Rhett. The music video is about 4 minutes long and flip-flops back and forth between scenes of the musician performing the song, and the musician and his wife enjoying themselves on various dates ad adventures. I chose to blog about this song because I have seen the song played live, as well as seen the official music video repeatedly.
If someone looked at only the lyrics of the poem it would seem like a purely romantic monologue. The music video seems to differ in it’s content. When the artist is singing he seems unhappy. His face is very serious and he gives no impression of enjoying these promises he is making for and about his wife about how he would be able to die a happy man because he has loved her. He seems very low energy and very low excitement.
This contrasts greatly with seeing him live, though, and also with the parts of the video in which his wife actually is present. When his wife is present in the video he seems really happy and excited. When he played the song on stage, ti was more acoustic and mellow than the other songs he played, but he still displayed a lot of personal energy and excitement.
I think that music videos are a particularly interesting form of performative lyric. They are meant to portray the song for it’s entire existence, but they can never be recreated on stage where the artist will play the song hundreds of times. They also have to meet a lot of the needs and expectations of not only the artist but also producers, writers, agents and other figured of the industry.
Music is performative because the band/singer can choose to play it in millions of different ways. Fast or slow could have a different meaning as well as high notes or low notes. there are lots of different ways, even beyond the words, to change the meaning of the words in musical performance.
In this song I was surprised that the performance did not see to meet the words in the expected way. the words are upbeat, happy, and excited, but the musicians face does not convey these emotions in the video he has approved for his music. Is this saying something about his music, is it real? Does he really feel this way about his wife, or did some song-writer just tell him that doing this spng would be good for his career.