英语诗歌对比评析

Dingyu Wang(515370910026)

Vy100

Professor Thorpe

11.22.2015

I Prefer Poets: Poets Can Do More than Barking

In November 2011, Notch officially completed work on Minecraft 1.0, “an open world game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish” (Gallegos), which turned out to be a huge success (McCarthy).McCarthy first regards its success as a mystery since it’s only an indie game without any advertising but he finally points out that the success is just because players“have free rein to build, build, build”(par. 18).People do enjoythe freedom to think and create. In effect, the situation is analogical when people encounter poems. “Who Is a Poet” and “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” are two poems that both take advantages of audience’s imagination in order to convey its message. However, “Who Is a Poet” provides more freedom for audience to understand and to imagine, thus giving a more effective argument, while “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” restricts audience’s imagination in the author’s world by giving a detailed imaginary scene.The detailed reasons why “Who Is a Poet” is better than “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” will be gradually revealed by analyzing the logos, ethos, and pathos in those poems.

Billy Collinswrites “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” in a n imaginarily narrative way, encouraging people to seek joy amidst sorrow. In the poem, the neighbors’ dog keeps barking which almost drives the speaker craze. Then he falls into his imaginary world where the annoying dog becomes a soloist. The story that the speaker uses imagination to make an irritating dog so funny tells people not to be stuck by little annoyance and try to make life happier.

Alternatively, Tadeusz Ró?ewicz writes “Who Is a Poet” to answer the question who is a poet. His argument is that poets are hard to define- anyone can be a poet under certain circumstances. Therefore, he actually gi ves a “vacant” definition of poets, and leaves the work to the audience who are guided to define their own poets. This kind of argument seems ridiculous but actually is a more effective way to argue such ill-defined items- it has no complete argument in th e poem itself, but it has a unique argument once a reader start to read it. It’s the reader who completes the other half of the argument.

Although the story in “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” is quite interesting, it can only offer a very limited extent. “Who Is a Poet” does a much better job in offering chances for audience to think deeply. As a result, the latter one is superior to the former one in the interaction between poets and audience, which makes it a better argument.

The logos,or the width of a poem’s context may wellconstrain the width of audience’s thoughts, thus playing an important role in an argument. The objects are very limited in “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House”- just the neighbors’ barking dog and the fi ctional dog soloist. A lthough that“dog” is likely to be a represent of all the annoyance, which provides a little more extent, the poem is far more restricted in comparison with “Who Is a Poet”. In “Who Is a Poet”,Ró?ewicz covers both abstract and figurative parts about poets. Thanks to its complex context, readers are able to think over it in severallevels, thus obtaining profound understanding that comes from thinking deeply. Generally, the width of poems’ contexts provides objective condition for readers to think freely.

The ethos,or the reading process of a poem, does matter a lot with respect to the effect of the argument. Collins’s story starts from a narrative of the actual barking dog and then turns into a narrative of a fictional dog soloist using a transitional sentence “and now I can see him sitting

in the orchestra”(Collins). The transitional sentence is a signal and it’s so clear and obvious that people jump into that particular scene without any other thoughts. However, the literal meaning of “W ho Is a Poet” is somehow contradictory- Ró?ewicz states a poet can be both one who writes verses and one who doesn’t write verse (Ró?ewicz). The literal contradiction can lead audience into deeper thoughts, thus being capable of sending more messages which are not on the surface of the poem. This kind of sentence-pairs also appears in the beginning of the novel Tale of Two Cities- “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness …” (Dickens 8), which are a recognized extraordinary opening that constructs a solemn atmosphere. Such atmosphere helps people think deeply.

The pathos isthe choice ofperson in poems. “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” uses the first person which constrains the thoughts of readers, while “Who Is a Poet” is

in the third person so that it can free the readers’ thoughts. Using the first person is known to be a good method to tell stories, though; it’s not a good idea to apply the first person in an argument. The use of “I” will absorb readers into the story and trap them within the story. Notice that although poems using the first person can take advantages of audience’s imagination,this kind of imagination is limitedwithin the author’s imagination.That is to say, the audience could at most imagine in the way the author imagines, being not able to go out of the author’s imagination. “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” is actually an interesting poem with wild imagination, but after reading it, people only get the interesting idea of the barking dog and then little thing else.Alternatively, “Who Is a Poet” keeps in the third person and provides an insight

of poets by offering a distance between readers and the characters in the poem. As a result, “Who Is a Poet” is also superior to “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” according to the pathos.

“The message of the poem was defined as the interpretation of the poem, often linked to theme but encompassing more than that. It involves analyzing of unfolding what that would mean to the reader” (P atel).That’s true. Therefore, in order to “have something to be unfolded”, poems need some extra space that is left to readers, as opposed to proses, which are designed to instill the text into readers’ brain thus providing no extra space for readers. People prefer play games rather than watch television, for the former activity provides the freedom to think and create and Minecraft made a huge impact just by providing freedom for players. Not surprised, the poem “Who Is a Poet” which possessesan expansive width, a guidance of in-depth reading process, and the solemn use of the third person is superior to “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House”, for the former one has a higher degree of freedom provided for audience.According to the history of human beings’ exploration, in which humanbeings try again and again to free themselves from the limit of nature, human beings do pursue freedom, and do enjoy freedom, even when they are reading a poem.

Works cited

Collins, Billy. “Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House.”

Dickens, Charles. Tale of Two Cities. London, GBR: ElecBook, 2001. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 23 November 2015.

Gallegos, Anthony. "Minecraft Review — PC Review at IGN." IGN. Web. 26 Nov. 2015. McCracken, Harry. "The Mystery of Minecraft." Time 181.21 (2013): 40. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.

Patel, Pooja, and Leslie E. Laud. "Poetry Feedback That Feeds Forward." Middle School Journal

46.4 (2015): 24-31. ERIC. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

Ró?ewicz, Tadeusz. “Who Is a Poet.”