A Dionysian Analysis of Three Poems

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy has frequently been employed as a departure point for the critical evaluation of poetic works. In this essay, the writer proposes using those qualities typically associated with Dionysus - that is, the integration of the self into the whole, the life and death cycle (the myth of descent and ascent), the natural world, and the ecstatic - in order to analyze poems by Brenda Hamilton, Sharon Olds, and Yusef Komunyakaa. The writer shows that the Dionysian tendency, rooted in the belief that man plays a role in the drama of eternal repetition that is grounded in the cyclical view of nature, is present in these works and informs each poet's mythic vision of the universe.

From the Paper:

"What each of these three poems has in common is the fact that they are based around images of human figures confronting the Dionysian motifs of descent and ascent via nature. Each poem represents a struggle between the Apollonian and Dionysian extremes, a struggle that is very much part of every human being's life. In Hamilton's poem, the poet is quite eager to run away altogether from Apollonian order into the wild chaos of poetry and the sea. It does not take much convincing for her; from the moment the poem opens, she is ready to go. Olds's poem represents a more virulent struggle between the two poles. While the father in the poem has clearly made his choice and has learned to live with it, for the younger man, the son, the journey will be a much longer road, Olds infers, marked by pain and suffering. In Komunyakaa's poem, wild Dionysus is consistently present from the beginning in the form of the figure in the poem, who is apparently half-man and half-beast - a hefty dramatization of the sublimation of Apollo into Dionysus. The poem plays not only with this dichotomy between man and the animal kingdom, but between man and woman as well."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Parisi, Joseph and Stephen Young, eds. The Poetry Anthology, 1912-2002: Ninety Years of America's Most Distinguished Verse Magazine. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002.

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