hi, i have to analyse the following poem by Ciaran Carson and look how the motif of snow (taken from the ending of Joyce's short story 'The Dead') is self- consciously manipulated.

Snow

A white dot flicked back and forth across the bay window: not
A table- tennis ball, but ‘ping- pong,’ since this is happening in another era,
The extended leaves of the dining table- scratched mahogany veneer-
Suggesting many such encounters, or time passing: the celluloid diminuendo
As it bounces off into a corner and ticks to an incorrigible stop.
I pick it up days later, trying to get that pallor right: it’s neither ivory
Nor milk. Chalk is better; and there’s a hint of pearl, translucent
Lurking just behind opaque. I broke open the husk so many times
And always found it empty; the pith was a wordless bubble.

Though there’s nothing in the thing itself, bits of it come back unbidden,
Playing in the archaic dust till the white blip became visible.
Just as, the other day, I felt the tacky pimples of a ping- pong bat
When the bank- clerk counted my money with her rubber thimble, and knew
The black was bleeding into red. Her face was snow and roses just behind
The bullet- proof glass: I couldn’t touch her if I tried. I crumpled up the chit-
No use in keeping what you haven’t got- and took a stroll to Ross’s auction.

There was this Thirties scuffed leather sofa I wanted to make a bid for.
Gestures, prices: soundlessly collateral in the murmuring room.

I won’t say what I paid for it: anything’s too much when you have nothing.
But in the dark recesses underneath the cushions I found myself kneeling
As decades of the Rosary dragged by, the slack of years ago hauled up
Bead by bead; and with then, all the haberdashery of loss- cuff buttons,
Broken ball- point pens and fluff, old pennies, pins and needles, and yes,
A ping- pong ball. I cupped it in my hands like a crystal, seeing not
The future, but a shadowed parlour just before the blinds are drawn.
Someone
Has put up two trestles. Handshakes all round, nods and whispers.
Roses are brought in, and suddenly, white confetti seethes against the window.


Overall, i have to consider the consequences of intertextuality. Can anyone help, i really don't have a clue. Thanx

Wow, big words, big poem and big assignment.


"Essentially, every text is informed by other texts which the reader has read, and the reader's own cultural context. The simplest articulation of intertextuality can be seen in the footnotes that indicate source materials to which a given text is alluding, or which are known to have influenced the author. A constructive hypertext can make this notion of intertextuality an externally accessible "mosaic" of multiple texts, placing the internal connections about which Kristeva theorizes into a visible forum which can be expanded by each subsequent reader"


I'm inferring intertextuality means corresponding relationships between the last part of The Dead and the poem in question. Thanks for typing it up, by the way, I did not see any copies on the net. I assume it is a copyright violation, but perhaps the author will forgive.

I admit I never read The Dead, but a net search seems to point to this part as the relevant section (correct me if I am wrong):


"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."


Still, I fear I am stuck because of the 'self-conscious manipulation'. Any clarification forthcoming?

I guess I should not be surprised at another obscure poem from an Irish author. Still, I don't follow the difference between a ping-pong ball and a table tennis ball. And, the meter seems incomprehensible to my ear, what with the very long lines, although it reads well when spoken aloud.

I don't think there is any difference in the two games- perhaps 'table tennis' is the more correct version?

The last stanza seems to be referring to a funeral- the shadowed parlor, two trestles to place the coffin on, people meeting and condoling in low voices. The snow in the Joyce is 'falling on the living and the dead.'

That's a start, anyways.

pam

So what class are you in, anyway? You seem to get some interesting assignments!

pam

Hi,
can anybody tell me what significance end of every line punctuation has?

UMMM..IM wondering if any one can help me really quick.

i have to write a literary analysis essay on flanders fields. the thing is that im not very good at taking the poem apart. so if you can tell me anything that you notice about the poem i would be very greatful (ie: metaphore, meter, imagery, etc...)

heres the poem and thanks :)

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

UMMM..IM wondering if any one can help me really quick.

i have to write a literary analysis essay on flanders fields. the thing is that im not very good at taking the poem apart. so if you can tell me anything that you notice about the poem i would be very greatful (ie: metaphore, meter, imagery, etc...)

heres the poem and thanks

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[tinyurl.com]

First published in Punch, 1915 - now that's weird!

pls help me to find robert mezey's "my mother".ı have to analyse it

I missed this when it was first posted.

Table tennis is the official sport. Ping pong is the same game but played on the dining room table, probably with house rules such as whether you're allowed to take a bounce off the wall of the room and are allowances made for the player with the sideboard at their end.

I like the image of kneeling in prayer (decades of the Rosary) while rummaging down the edge of the cushions to find what's been lost down there.

Linda wrote:

> but played on the dining room table, probably with house rules
> such as whether you're allowed to take a bounce off the wall of
> the room and are allowances made for the player with the
> sideboard at their end.

Not to mention the lost points when you break the best china!

Re ping pong and table tennis. Surely the whole point of that line is that ping pong was what everybody used to call it in the first half of the 20th century- like saying wireless instead of radio and Housey Housey instead of Bingo. All the poet was trying to do was take us back in time to the 1930s by using the language of that period.

I don't think the poet is trying to take us back to the 30's, that's just the period of the sofa. The poet is thinking back to childhood and playing ping pong on the table.

Yes but I thought the subject of the poem was either a child in the 30's or had a 30's sofa in her/his childhood, that's why s/he bought the one at auction, and used the term ping pong - scene setting.