"Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket"
- subverts traditional elegy
- poem appears to "pull reader along." possible textualization of sea currents?
- extensive use of Germanic monosyllables. piece appears to fold in on itself...evidence of more textual "acting" ?
- line 12: "weight the body [...]return..." keeps tradition of burying dead at sea--entrance of monstrous with death, esp. violent death
- embodying Night with nautical terms and therefore human qualities.
- numerous invocation of Greek pantheon and mythos? How does this stack against a Quaker, definitively Christian context?
- line 35. "sea trembles at your death". Notion of fear in death? Is death then a separate agent, which renders the sea vulnerable?
- line 36: "lash" As if the sea can be tied down. Can it be tied down? What does this say in relation to the Man v. Nature concept?
- line 39: Why do we have this question mark here? what is implied with the punctuation here? Can bluefish even be caught? Potential sarcasm loaded into this question mark?
- line 50: Guns cradled on the tide....poem shifts if only for a moment to its traditional association as a repository. Yet the sea cradles violence. What do we we do with this?
- Continuous allusions to _Moby Dick_ throughout. Why? Is this a potential sign of college educated youth, or something more?
More will follow shortly....
Again, try to stick to textual realities, visible phenomena up front. Much of these include interpretation.
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