Abstract This paper compares two of Gwendolyn Brooks' books of poetry: "Street in Bronzeville" and "Bronzeville Boys and Girls". It examines the way in which each poem depicts black life and the influence of Bronzeville on Brooks' writing.
From the Paper "With her stunning use of form and language, Gwendolyn Brooks is often considered one of the most innovative American poets of the twentieth century. More importantly Brooks stands out as a post-Harlem Renaissance writer who speaks honestly and passionately .."
Abstract This paper examines a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks' "Song in the Front Yard" and explore its peculiar construction; use or non-use of poetic devices and its underlying message. In particular, the paper delves into the manner in which Brooks carefully uses her art to amplify her message and how her narrator pining for freedom encapsulates the yearnings of young female children and of African Americans more generally, in 1940s America.
From the Paper "The following paper briefly examines a poem, "A Song in the Front Yard", by Gwendolyn Brooks. In particular, the paper looks at the structure of the poem, the poetic devices employed and the underlying message of the poem (at least in the view of this writer). In the final analysis, the message of the poem seems to be about the allure of the "night life" and (more subtly) about how Gwendolyn Brooks wants to explore the world around her in a way that most young girls - certainly African-American girls - could not in the days of her youth. To begin with, the structure of Brook's poem contributes mightily to its power. For one thing, three of the four stanzas in the poem are comprised of four lines, with only the third stanza (comprised of eight) breaking this pattern (Brooks 1993)."
Abstract The paper discusses how Brooks' white audience affected her writing. The paper also considers whether her work was more geared toward these white readers, or rather toward a black audience.
From the Paper "When Gwendolyn Brooks began publishing her poetry, her readers were in for a surprise. Appearing mostly in magazines aimed at upper and middle white audiences, Brooks' poems revealed the inner world of urban blacks, a realm previously unknown to white readers. Indeed much of the critical reaction to Brooks' poetry fixated on her race as a means of judgment; critics seemed to praise the work in spite of the fact that Brooks was an African American woman."
Abstract This paper is on the Peter Brook production of the "Mahabharata", the Indian epic. The author contends that the process of de-contextualization of characters, plot elements and pieces of narration out of the Mahabharata's original context and into a Western mode of performance, plot construction and interpretation exhibits the latent Orientalism of the Brook production, and represents the profound and perverse commodification of the India classic. The author further explains how it was Brook's perspective and alteration of this epic that reached a broader Western audience.
From the Paper "As a world defined by over 200 nations, and thousands of cultures, an incredibly rich history and set of traditions exists. The last century has marked a turning point in our planet's history. As never before, the distance and separation of cultures is becoming ever smaller, due to better transportation and communications infrastructures, and a desire to conduct business on a global scale. There is also an interesting and concerning adoption and synthesis of cultural practices and traditions. One could debate rather academically the merits of cultural encounter and interaction, and to say that perhaps with a synthesis of different cultural practices, a new culture is born. That may be, however the focus of this essay is to critically investigate and discuss the adoption or representation of other cultural traditions, without comprehending their meaning or significance. This is demonstrated through the Western commodification of cultures, the notion of Orientalism, and specifically focusing on the Brooks/ Carri?re production of the Mahabharata."
Abstract This paper presents a look at the author Terry Brooks. The writer provides Mr. Brooks' background as well as his current works. The writer of this paper discusses how Brooks makes the reader see what he is writing and understand its meaning and content.
Abstract In Gwendolyn Brooks? poem, "The Mother", the narrator expresses a reluctant regret and a desire for the children to which she did not give birth as a result of abortion. The paper analyzes the poem and its use of tone, diction, and imagery. It finds that the speaker is alternately regretful, self-recriminating, and motherly in her reactions to her unborn children. Taken together, Brooks? powerful shifts in tone, diction, and imagery all serve to highlight the narrator's longing, and tentative regrets over children that were never born.
From the Paper "Taken together, the changing tone throughout "The Mother" helps to expresses the narrator's reluctant regret over abortion, and a desire for the children she did not give birth to. It is her very changes in tone and emotion throughout the poem that help to highlight her confusion and regret. She is by turns apologetic, regretful, reproachful and frustrated in her attempts to explain herself."
Abstract This six-page junior level paper focuses on the life and work of famous black American poet and author, Gwendolyn Brooks with special emphasis on her poem "The Chicago Defender sends a man to the Little rock". Brooks was an immensely talented African American writer and poet and she was deeply concerned about the plight and suffering of her community in the United States, therefore most of her work has focuses on that subject.
Abstract The writers Lawrence LeShan and Rupert Brooke are examples of individuals who offered different, even contrasting, perspectives about the concept of war. For the purpose of this paper, an analysis is conducted wherein LeShan's "Why We Love War" and Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" are compared. The comparative analysis includes a discussion of how the two authors created and expressed their own concepts of war and how these different concepts serve as an illustration of how the different realities of the writers contributed and influenced to the formulation of these "war" concepts.
From the Paper "Rupert Brooke, on the other hand, presented a functionalist view of the war, by evoking feelings and ideologies of patriotism and nationalism. Where LeShan centers his discussion on the nature and concept of war throughout human history through the social science perspective, Brooke offers an individualist or humanistic view of the war. The writer, through his poem, ?The Soldier,? presents the psyche of an individual as he engaged in the war, the feelings and opinions of a person who is willing to die for his country. The poem illustrates how death becomes a means to an end, and this "end" is, ideally, to bring forth peace and unity to the whole world."
Abstract The paper provides an analysis of poet Gwendolyn Brooks' attitude toward prevailing social attitudes, moral beliefs and cultural positions of her time. The paper cites several of Brooks' poems as examples and explores their relation to the Civil Rights Movement.
From the Paper "In his influential sociological study, "The Lonely Crowd" Riesman summarizes the content of American culture in the decade after World War II. He cites the inner-directed attitude toward generalized but nonetheless inescapably destined goals. (Riesman) More pervasive, he argues, is the attitude of the other-directed person who takes his life cues not from his inner spark but from others. The other-directed do not so much seek others' adulation as respect and more than the respect, the affection of an amorphous and shifting though contemporary jury of peers."
Tags: First, Fight., Then, Fiddle, Song, in, the, Front, Yard
Abstract This paper describes the work of Cleanth Brooks who was a figure in the founding of the formalist school of "New Criticism". The author of this paper provides several examples of texts that Brooks claimed should be freed from authorial, historical, and socio-political associations, to create a space in which the text is able to speak for itself.
From the Paper "Cleanth Brooks' methodological approach to literary criticism seeks to locate the essential experiential voice of a text through an authentic interaction with the text as experience itself. Brooks was an instrumental figure in the founding of the formalist school of "New Criticism", which called for a freeing of the text from its historical and authorial intentions in order to focus upon the critical indications of the text itself. These indicated vectors of interpretation would be revealed by a close reading of the structural interplay of the textural elements, which could then be used to generate a normative evaluation of the work. Such strategies axiomatically located a meaning that transcended the formal indications of language to express 'concrete universal' truths of the human existential experience. The fact that these 'universals' are assumed on faith problemitizes such a methodology by essentially placing limits upon human comprehension even as it seeks to express that which is beyond it. Brooks, however, held that it was in this space of wonder that literature did its work by interacting with the 'real' world.
Brooks asserts that the study of literary texts must begin with a freeing of the text from its authorial, historical, and socio-political associations, to create a space in which the text is able to speak for itself. It is in this space that the critic performs a close reading of the text, from which the multitudes of associations emerge. The first of his interestingly termed "articles of faith" is "[t]hat literary criticism is a description and evaluation of its object". This assertion was intended to direct the focus of literary study away from the bibliographic and historical approach that dominated the discourse prior to the emergence of Formalism. The meaning and significance of the text was derived from its position in history and the assumed intentions of the author. Brooks was instrumental in the development of a new perspective that posited the text itself as the primary object of critical investigation. While a strict formalist approach would render the textural object wholly disassociated from anything but itself, Brooks' holds the belief that there is a value and meaning in literary objects that can be accessed through a thorough consideration of the structural unity created by the content of a text. From these assumptions, Brooks does not disregard extrinsic evidence, as amply demonstrated in his Historical Evidence and the Reading of Seventeenth-Century Poetry; rather, the text itself must dictate the necessity of such support."
Abstract This paper analyzes and contrasts two sonnets written respectively by the British WWI poets Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon: "The Soldier" and "Dreamers". The writer discusses how both poets modified the traditional structure of the sonnet to accomplish their poetic ends. Brooke's poem is elegiac in tone, focusing on national identity and acquiescing in death as a doorway to eternity, while Sassoon's is a bitter and ironic protest against the injustice and inhumanities of war.
From the Paper "Sassoon writes in a voice of protest, not acquiescence, unlike Brooke, despite his use of the sonnet form. "Dreamers" begins with a striking image, the image of soldiers going off to war, presumably by train to the front lines, rather than in the middle of an internalized thought like Brooke's poem. Brooke's poem focuses on an individual soldier who will be remembered, Sassoon's the vast, nameless masses of men who will die and be forgotten. Some of Sassoon's dreamers are good, some are bad, all have different problems and jealous conflicts at home, but they are in the process of being blended into one in the form of a purposeless army whose cause they can little understand."
Abstract This paper shows how Gwendolyn Brooks uses the daily experiences and struggles of her characters to comment on important issues, such as the societal views of women, race, and the poverty found in the inner city through her poetry. The paper looks at the poems, "The Hunchback Girl," "Sadie and Maud," and "The Mother," among others.
From the Paper "Brooks describes a similar longing for unfulfilled dreams in her poem "kitchenette building". In the poem she describes the hardships of daily life in a black urban environment. It begins with "We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, / Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" makes a giddy sound, not strong / Like 'rent,' 'feeding a wife,' 'satisfying a man'" (Brooks 20). The terms "things" and "dry hours" portray the emptiness of their place in society, while "involuntary plan" describes the speaker's disappointment with life and the ache of responsibilities in place of forgotten dreams (Melhern 22)".
Abstract This paper explains that Brooks Jackson's book "Honest Graft" concludes that graft is never honest and that politicians who engage in it are never patriotic. The author relates that the book deals with the role played by lobbyists and money in American political system.
From the Paper "Brooks Jackson's seminal book "Honest Graft" is an exploration into the role that lobbyists and money play in American politics. Granted unprecedented access by Tony Coelho the California Representative who was the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign, ..."
Abstract The paper examines the use of narration and dialect in Langston Hughes' "Negro", and Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool". The paper discusses elements of poetry found in both poems. The paper also looks at differences in diction in both poems.
From the Paper "Elements of Poetry. Poetry is created through the use of various rhetorical devices that have no inherent meaning within themselves, but when used within a poem create meaning through the feelings and emotions which they convey to the reader. Thus an examination of a couple of these rhetorical devices within two well-known poems will offer insight into that which stirs these particular emotions within the audience."
Abstract This is a book review of David Brooks' book, "Bobos in Paradise:The New Upper Class and How They Got There." This paper examines David Brooks' concept of the "Bobo," a compound of bourgeois and bohemian, which is the new emerging class of the millennium. This class is made up of bankers, baby boomers and the new generation that is running the billion dollar dot-com industries. The author also points out several weaknesses in Brooks' thesis, and traces this back to his own background which makes him biased in his writing about "Bobos."
From the Paper "Till there it is okay. But the problem starts when Brooks attempts to give authenticity to this newfound culture with all its new sense of taste and style. He starts appreciating the Bobo culture because of its "sober" bourgeois achievement, which takes into it the creative, and the spontaneous element of the sixties. On one level he scoffs at those Bobos who think $ 10K outdoor Jacuzzi is crass but $20K slate shower reflects simple rhythm of life. Yet on another level he appreciates this new upper class style which is based on the display of sufficient taste to know what the best is and to choose it--whether the best coffee, the best food, the best building materials, or whatever. He has his full support for them who find that it is not okay to spend extravagantly on something for display along; it is okay to spend extravagantly on something that is useful in enhancing one's authentic personality."
