Dionysian Myth in Two Poems Term Paper

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The park is clearly preferable to a railway station, not only because it is more idyllic for the scene of an erotic encounter, but also because it is a Dionysian setting, preferable to the crude, structured Apollonian setting of a railway station. In a park, one may readily lose oneself in the eroticism of nature and become one with the natural environment. This is surely preferable to hanging around the filthy men's room of a railway station, "tallying up the merits of each / / of the latrines," in O'Hara's words.

The poem clearly links the theme of homosexuality with Dionysus on an emotional level, as well:

So we are taking off our masks, are we, and keeping our mouths shut? As if we'd been pierced by a glance!

The song of an old cow is not more full of judgment than the vapors which escape one's soul when one is sick;

so I pull the shadows around me like a puff and crinkle my eyes as if at the most exquisite moment of a very long opera, and then we are off!

A without reproach and without hope that our delicate feet will touch the earth again, let alone "very soon."

The references to music and opera are key here, not only because the poem has an operatic lilt to it in tone, but because music has traditionally been associated with the realm of Dionysus, most famously in Nietzsche's famous book on the Apollo and Dionysus myths, the Birth of Tragedy - a book that was dedicated to the German composer Richard Wagner.

Despite this musical concern, "It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate," as the poet states in the following line. Does this not echo the Apollonian quality of ego? Our question is answered in the following lines of the poem:

start like ice, my finger to my ear, my ear

To my heart, that proud cur at the garbage can

In the rain. it's wonderful to admire oneself

With complete candor [..

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While O'Hara teases the reader with an Apollonian reference to "the law," it is Dionysus who is controlling the courtroom, which is why the "investigation" of the poem ends in enjoyment - for it is the Dionysian id that is ruled by the pleasure principle, and it is the pursuit of pleasure - with both the self and among others - that O'Hara's poem is ultimately about. "It's a summer day," he says in the end of the poem, "and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world." This desire to indulge, to desire and feel oneself desired, is emblematic of the Dionysian force that rules over each individual's erotic life. It is captured perfectly in the lines of "Homosexuality."

But the most Dionysian quality that is readily apparent in both of O'Hara's poems is impulsiveness. Each of the poems has a light, airy feel to them, as if they were dashed off in one sitting. In that they capture particular moments of feeling, the poet felt no need to revise them, to give in to the more Apollonian qualities of his personality that may call for refinement and editing. As close as Apollo may come to tempering Frank O'Hara's more wild impulses, he ultimately serves no higher god than Dionysus, that supreme master of boundless desire. Perhaps this is why these poems are so timeless in their evocation of wild nature and lust for life......

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