Week 13 Analysis: Akhmatova
Literary Analysis on Akhmatova (565-574)
Requiem is an elegy written by Anna Akhmatova. It's a lyrical cycle, a series of poems written on a theme, but it is also a short epic narrative. The "I" of the speaker throughout remains anonymous, even though Akhmatova describers her personal emotions in the central poems. Requiem is both a private and public story. It's a picture of individual grief linked to the country's disaster, and a vision of community suffering that extends beyond contemporary national tragedy into medieval Russian history and Greek mythology (567). One of the big themes in Akhmatova's Requiem is grief. Requiem voices a single mother's grief, which was based on Akhmatova's son. He was in prison and eventually sentenced to death. The grieving speaker returns from religious transcendence to earth and current history. In the Dedication poem, it says, "Mountains bow down to this grief, Mighty rivers cease to flow, But the prison gates hold firm, And behind them are the "prisoners' burrows And mortal woe" (568). I think in these lines, she's talking about her son being arrested and then his death. Also, on page 571, it talks about grief again when it says, "For seventeen months I've been crying out, Calling you home, I flung myself at the hangman's feet, You are my son and my horror. Everything is confused forver, And it's not clear to me Who is a beast now, who is man, And how long before the execution." Requiem records the experience of her son's imprisonment against the background of previous terrible losses to the political abuse of power. Her poems experience the face of evil but it does not try to rationalize or analyze the causes of suffering. It is their memory she perpetuates by writing Requiem, and it is in their memory that she herself lives on.
Requiem is an elegy written by Anna Akhmatova. It's a lyrical cycle, a series of poems written on a theme, but it is also a short epic narrative. The "I" of the speaker throughout remains anonymous, even though Akhmatova describers her personal emotions in the central poems. Requiem is both a private and public story. It's a picture of individual grief linked to the country's disaster, and a vision of community suffering that extends beyond contemporary national tragedy into medieval Russian history and Greek mythology (567). One of the big themes in Akhmatova's Requiem is grief. Requiem voices a single mother's grief, which was based on Akhmatova's son. He was in prison and eventually sentenced to death. The grieving speaker returns from religious transcendence to earth and current history. In the Dedication poem, it says, "Mountains bow down to this grief, Mighty rivers cease to flow, But the prison gates hold firm, And behind them are the "prisoners' burrows And mortal woe" (568). I think in these lines, she's talking about her son being arrested and then his death. Also, on page 571, it talks about grief again when it says, "For seventeen months I've been crying out, Calling you home, I flung myself at the hangman's feet, You are my son and my horror. Everything is confused forver, And it's not clear to me Who is a beast now, who is man, And how long before the execution." Requiem records the experience of her son's imprisonment against the background of previous terrible losses to the political abuse of power. Her poems experience the face of evil but it does not try to rationalize or analyze the causes of suffering. It is their memory she perpetuates by writing Requiem, and it is in their memory that she herself lives on.
Alissa, you did a great job! I love how states that the author’s poems expresses the experiences of the face of evil but it does not try to rationalize or analyze the causes of suffering. The author stated the horrific facts of the political system, but did it in a way that we as her readers could feel her grief and not care about the why behind a mother’s suffering.
ReplyDeleteHi Alissa,
ReplyDeleteGreat job with your analysis this week. I enjoyed this series of poems by Akhmatova I think she writes beautifully and she uses great imagery and literary devices to show her theme, which I agree is grief. She writes a lot about grief and death and the inner struggle she has with herself along with the struggles she has with politics. I think you hit the nail on the head with your analysis. Great job!
Hi Alissa, I will start off by saying that you did a fantastic job on your analysis. I liked how you provided some amazing quotes and expanded them. I do agree with you that the author expresses quite a bit of grief, and it is clearly shows in some of the quotes you chose. It is terrible how those people lived and the fact that you mentioned the political abuses is spot on. You did a great job.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis is really well written! I like how you pointed out that grief is talked about; and I really liked the quotes you used, they backed up what you were saying and they were fitting where needed. You gave me more to ponder about these writings and a different perspective!
ReplyDeleteHey Alissa,
ReplyDeleteYour analysis really connected with me because it is crazy how I have the same topic and you have many of the same ideas I had of the poem as well which makes it a relief to see I have someone who appreciates the same reading I do and connect with the reading I do. But I can see why you chose to do Anna poems especially because they are extremely clear and if you read her introduction it is so simple to talk about any topic we can chose from with her text. So I'm sure your using this for your project because I sure am.
Hi Alissa,
ReplyDeleteYou did a fantastic job with this analysis this week! I liked how you mentioned the "I" person being anonymous. It is easy to just assume that the author, Anna Akhmatova as being the speaker. I also noticed the theme of grief in her poems. What a terrible thing to live through, I couldn't even imagine!
-Patrick