In his poem "When I consider how my light is spent," John Milton confronts the loss of his sight, "that one talent which is death to hide." Milton makes use of enjambment in almost every line of the poem, indicating a sort of trailing thoughtfulness. The poem is broken into two sections, indicated by the switch in rhyme scheme from two sets of ABBA to a single grouping of ABCABC. The first half of the poem could be seen as "the question", wherein Milton ponders the loss of his sight and concludes with an apostrophe aimed towards God - am I still expected to serve God even while I am blind? Milton is then answered by what we presume is a divine voice, but which is given only the symbolic name "Patience." Patience replies that God needs no service from mankind, but that he favors those who bear their "mild yoke" the best. Milton is given a divine confirmation that his identity and holiness lies within himself, not within his actions.
My second poem was "Identity Card" by Mahmoud Darwish, an exploration of how one's identity relates to one's oppressors. Darwish, unlike Milton, seems to have already discovered that just surviving is a noble, perhaps holy, goal. In the first three stanzas he defines himself largely as separate from the person he is addressing (probably an Israeli). As tension builds in the poem, however, Darwish becomes clear that his identity is intertwined with that of the addressee, at least in some situations. Darwish thus comes from an understanding of identity as innate to an understanding that it at least partially defined by interaction with the world.
I chose these two poems because they speak to the nature of identity - innate vs. relative, a question that I am very invested in - in two very different ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment