Before your presentation, the only work that I had ever been introduced to by J.D. Salinger was Catcher in the Rye. While I admired Salinger’s stand against conformity and all things “phony”, I really did not like Catcher in the Rye because I found Holden Caulfield’s voice too annoying. After listening to your presentation, I appreciate a little bit more of what Salinger’s purpose was in his writing. He seems to write about characters that are misunderstood because they refuse to give up their individuality to integrate into society.
I liked how you chose “Nothing Gold Can Stay” as one of your poems because I think that Salinger would completely agree with Robert Frost’s message that innocence is precious and fleeting. I was impressed by your analysis of the poem; the paradox in the first line of the poem with the colors and seasons was very complex. The biblical allusion in the poem also strongly supports the theme of the eventual loss of innocence in Salinger’s writing. In your presentation, I’m glad that you argued that Salinger was trying to portray that there must be a balance between one’s own individual personality and the expectations of society for someone to be able to function in society. You really backed this up well too by using Salinger’s characters as support because they refused to conform at all and could not cope, were completely stereotypical, or were a healthier mixture of both.
I’m going to get straight to it – I thought your analysis of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” was absolutely fantastic. The way you broke down the poem line by line to explain the very obvious and the very subtle paradoxes of this famous poem shed a new light and perspective on the poem that I have never interpreted myself when I read the poem. I never knew such a short and well-known poem had so many intricacies and nuances, revealing the true complexity that lies in “the fleeting of innocence.”
The only thing I could tell you to improve on with this poetry analysis was to further elaborate on its connection/relevance with J.D. Salinger and his works. Your analysis of the poetry was in-depth and really well explained, but then you only had one paragraph relating the theme (loss of innocence) to J.D. Salinger, making it seem more like an inconclusive summary than a qualified argument. If you tied how the paradoxes (and other literary techniques) used in Robert Frost’s poem to the ones used in J.D. Salinger’s work(s), and supported with textual evidence, you would have had an extremely strong paper. But regardless, amazing job with the analysis of the poetry.
Before your presentation, the only work that I had ever been introduced to by J.D. Salinger was Catcher in the Rye. While I admired Salinger’s stand against conformity and all things “phony”, I really did not like Catcher in the Rye because I found Holden Caulfield’s voice too annoying. After listening to your presentation, I appreciate a little bit more of what Salinger’s purpose was in his writing. He seems to write about characters that are misunderstood because they refuse to give up their individuality to integrate into society.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you chose “Nothing Gold Can Stay” as one of your poems because I think that Salinger would completely agree with Robert Frost’s message that innocence is precious and fleeting. I was impressed by your analysis of the poem; the paradox in the first line of the poem with the colors and seasons was very complex. The biblical allusion in the poem also strongly supports the theme of the eventual loss of innocence in Salinger’s writing. In your presentation, I’m glad that you argued that Salinger was trying to portray that there must be a balance between one’s own individual personality and the expectations of society for someone to be able to function in society. You really backed this up well too by using Salinger’s characters as support because they refused to conform at all and could not cope, were completely stereotypical, or were a healthier mixture of both.
I’m going to get straight to it – I thought your analysis of Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” was absolutely fantastic. The way you broke down the poem line by line to explain the very obvious and the very subtle paradoxes of this famous poem shed a new light and perspective on the poem that I have never interpreted myself when I read the poem. I never knew such a short and well-known poem had so many intricacies and nuances, revealing the true complexity that lies in “the fleeting of innocence.”
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I could tell you to improve on with this poetry analysis was to further elaborate on its connection/relevance with J.D. Salinger and his works. Your analysis of the poetry was in-depth and really well explained, but then you only had one paragraph relating the theme (loss of innocence) to J.D. Salinger, making it seem more like an inconclusive summary than a qualified argument. If you tied how the paradoxes (and other literary techniques) used in Robert Frost’s poem to the ones used in J.D. Salinger’s work(s), and supported with textual evidence, you would have had an extremely strong paper. But regardless, amazing job with the analysis of the poetry.