Apollonian Vs. The Dionysian: Sharon Term Paper

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Thus, Sharon Olds' poem progresses through a series of interesting images, which analyze the relationship between the Apollonian and the Dionysian states, that is, from the pure individuality to a state of merging with the other and overstepping the boundaries of the self.

Yusef Komunyakaa's poem has a similar structure. In his Facing it, the author rememorizes an experience from the Vietnam War. The poem starts abruptly with the image of the poet's black face that fades "hiding inside the black granite: "My black face fades, / hiding inside the black granite. / I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. / I'm stone. I'm flesh. / My clouded reflection eyes me / like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning."(Komunyakaa, 129) the image that opens the poem is thus already very representative: the author seems to lead a tense struggle with his own self. The black face that fades inside the black granite is obviously a symbol of the war as a transforming experience that throws a shadow over the self or the individual, merging it with the others. In the war, there is obviously no distinction between one person and the other, the individuality cannot be preserved. When he tries to recollect his experience, the poet finds that he can hardly distinguish his own self from the others, and he even starts to look for his own name on the huge list of the victims registered at the Memorial Hospital: "I go down the 58,022 names, / half-expecting to find / my own in letters like smoke.

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"(Komunyakaa, 129) Another image completes this idea: the poet feels that he is like a window, that is he feels transparent, as if his own self were reflected in the selves of all the others participants in the war. All the other comparisons of the self with shadows and smoke, emphasize this idea that the author is in a desperate search for his own individuality. Thus, contrary to Sharon Olds' poem, Facing it seems to follow the opposite trajectory of the self from a Dionysian state in which the individuality is unmarked and merges with all the other individualities, to an Apollonian state. The poet even feels that his own self is the same with that if a "white vet," who has lost his right arm: "The sky. A plane in the sky. / a white vet's image floats / closer to me, then his pale eyes / look through mine. I'm a window. / He's lost his right arm / inside the stone."(Komunyakaa, 129) the title of the poem is also symbolic: the phrase "facing it" clearly refers to the fact that the poet has to deal with the recollection of the painful experience of the war, but more than that, the phrase is derived from the key word "face," which can also stand for individuality.

Thus, the two poems are both structured around the dichotomy between the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, following the progression of the self from individuality and….....

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