In the Comments section below, please post a response of at least one full paragraph (min. 5 sentences). Your assignment is twofold: 1) you are to demonstrate a clear understanding of the text by attempting to summarize the text's argument as precisely as possible, and 2) you are to use your comment to ask the text (or ask your peers) at least one thoughtful question.
Remember: your comment can respond directly to other students' posts on this text. The goal of this forum is to offer an opportunity for intelligent dialogue related to the works we are studying in class. Respectful debate is always welcome.
From the title of this poem, you can tell that it is "Thirteen ways of Looking at a Blackbird". However once I read it, I could not find anything that relates all of the ways. There were a lot of them that didn't make sense to me, but I though number 12 stood out. It read,
ReplyDelete"The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying."
I not quite sure what this is trying to say but it does place great importance upon the blackbird. Is it possibly saying that the blackbird is what keeps all of nature going?
P.S.
Number 4 is hillarious.
I think this poem may have more to it than just meets the eye. Blackbirds are symbols of knowledge and intellect, lessons that we have learned by making mistakes, and to some people they are symbols of spirituality. If we consider the Blackbird as signifying the intellect, this makes me think of omnipresence, and isolation. In the first stanza, its says:
ReplyDeleteAmong twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
This stanza to me evokes that the blackbird is all alone because of the knowledge it has, and perhaps the knowledge it has gained because it has made mistakes. My question is, what does the last stanza mean? It seems to be contradicting itself when it says, “it was evening all afternoon”.
I am still figuring this poem out, to be honest. The blackbird seems to fly around all different settings and people, bringing them all together, if only by their observation. The interpretations reflect who they are and the situation.
ReplyDeleteI came across this, an old English poem about crows (which are black birds), as well and found it interesting:
One is for bad news, two is for mirth.
Three is a wedding (IV), four for a birth.
Five is for riches (VII), six is a thief,
Seven a journey (XI), eight is for grief (VI).
Nine is a secret, ten is for sorrow,
Eleven is love and twelve is joy on the morrow.
The order of events do not correspond, but they seem very similar in a lot of ways. I also added a few stanzas that seem to coincide with this poem. If the two are related, it seems that no matter what social caste, everyone can relate to a blackbird in some obscure way.
This might be crazy but i think the blackbird can symbolize God or a diety. In the first stanza there is only the blackbird and a barren landscape; God and the formless earth He had created? In the second stanza there are three separate blackbirds, but all blackbirds; The Trinity? These examples go on like in the fourth stanza where a man and a woman and a blackbird are all one. This could symbolize marriage and how God is a part of marriage. It doesnt make sense in some stanzas but its something to think about.
ReplyDeleteStanze II says:
ReplyDelete"I was of three minds,
like a tree,
In which there are three blackbirds."
To me, it sounds like there is something greater than the blackbirds. They may be the focus of the poem, but all of the birds are connected somehow, in this case by the tree. This sounds a bit like the idea of an oversole. When blackbirds are connected by a tree, animals or nature are connected with God in the oversole. My question is, is the tree this significant or is it not of great importance?
Jake, I think you are right in pointing out the significance of the tree. I think that the trees, and nature in general throughout the poem, are Stevens way of connecting his poem to the transcendentalist way of thinking. Throughout this poem, their are several stanzas that i do not understand. One in particular, is the tenth stanza, which talks about the blackbirds flying through a green light. My question is, what is this green light that the birds are flying through, and does it have any sigificance?
ReplyDelete"When the blackbird flew out of sight,
ReplyDeleteIt marked the edge
Of one of many circles."
I'm not sure exactly what this means, but it seems abstract, as does every stanza. Wallace Stevens is trying to communicate different truths about life through looking at blackbirds. This is what the transcendentalists attepmted to do , and modernism continues this. The only difference between them is their view of God and our ability to find truth pertaining to him.
In Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird I think the most interesting stanza is the seventh one.
ReplyDelete"O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?"
I think this interesting because Stevens is saying,"oh thin man of Haddam( Connecticut) why do you imagine golden birds? do you not see how the blackbird walks around the feet of the women about you?" I'm not sure what this poem is trying to say but I think it might relate to the Modernists trying to refuge themselves in things. I think that maybe Stevens is saying that the blackbirds are so simple yet their is truth behind them and that they can be seen as art. Maybe he is trying to tell the people of Connecticut to look at the simple things which can be art, instead of looking for golden birds or art outside of Connecticut.My question would be what is the green light or what does it mean in stanza ten?
Going off of what peter said about the blackbird possibly simbalizing God, in the stanza Matt was talking about (12) couldnt God be the blackbird? because Matt made the point that mabey the blackbird is what keeps nature going and isnt God what keeps nature going? and also in stanza 7 like lena talked about the blackbirds could once again be God. Its telling men to stop searching for "golden birds" which seems to be wealth, and to pay attention to the blackbirds around the feet of women. This seems to me to be like the women with God in their life. So men should look for Godly women instead of wealth.
ReplyDeleteAs what pretty much everyone else has said, it seems to be that the blackbird represents God. This is most evident in stanza 8.
ReplyDeleteVIII
"I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know."
I think that is is describing that we know what is going on around us physically. We also know that the blackbird (God) also knows what we know and everything else.
Another example of this is stanza 4.
"A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one."
In this stanza the reader is told that man, woman, and the blackbird are one. This seems to describe the relationship everyone on Earth has with God. We are all one in Him.
What I want to know about this poem is, why does Stevens use a blackbird? Why not something more elegant? Or plain?
I agree with Phil that the blackbird may represent God. When he says "a man and a woman are one; a man and a woman and a blackbird are one", he may be talking about how man and woman are one in marriage and God should be just as big a part in a marriage as the other person is. When he says "I do not know which to prefer, the beauty of inflections or the beauty of innuendoes, the blackbird whistling or just after", I think he is referring to God. He thinks God's somewhat hidden beauty is just as beautiful as God's obvious beauty. He thinks that hearing God's voice is just as beautiful as seeing what happens as a result of God's voice.
ReplyDeleteIf the blackbird is supposed to be talking about God, what would be meant by thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird? Is this suggesting thirteen ways of looking at God? Or is it suggesting thirteen ways of viewing the blackbird; only one of which is God?
ReplyDeleteI think that the title "thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird" does in a way suggest thirteen ways of looking at God. We can see God through many things and in many ways, even if we look at God through one event. This is just like looking at the blackbird in 13 different ways, but in one situation. I think that if the poem does represent God, then it is trying to tell us that there are many ways that one person can see God, and that leads to how everyone all over the world sees God in different ways. One question I have, Is why would the author choose. A blackbird to represent God? Why would he not use something pure like a dove?
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea that the blackbird is God is interesting and is a possibility, but I think that this poem seems to reflect humans instead. In the poem "Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird" I find it interesting that the author talks about the mind and the eye of the blacckbird in stanzas one and two. It seems as if though the poem Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird is actually thirteen ways of looking at how people think or what they see. In stanza two it says "I was of three minds, Like a tree in which their are three blackbirds." It seems to say that the person is undecisive or he is ambivalent and his mind is split in three different directions. I think stanza nine is talking about a person that is close minded because it says that " the blackbird flew out of one of many circles". I think the circles represent the views of the person. I think the blackbird is used to represent how humans think in thirteen different ways. My question is why would stevens use a blackbird instead of using any other object?
ReplyDelete