The Purpose of Andrew Hudgins' Parody

Andrew Hudgins' parody "The Wild Swans Skip School" is a clever use of free association to relate two unlike poems for the purpose of comedy; it has no underlying message, negative or positive, about either William Butler Yeats' "The Wild Swans at Coole" or Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool."

A Child's Interpretation of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"

Like most Latin American countries and former Spanish colonies, Colombia has long been largely Catholic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a native Colombian author, often follows the theme of magical realism in his writing (like many other Latin American writers). His "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," having been published in 1968, surely would have given the Colombian children for whom it was written a different view of clergy people, and even Catholicism, than they were taught in school.

Before 1973, Catholicism was not only stated as Colombia's official religion (over 95 percent of the population was Catholic), but the Catholic Church had a significant place in Colombian society. It, rather than the Colombian government, controlled all schools and many other social services such as health care (Library of Congress Country Studies). Being in Catholic School at a young age, especially in a society of some of the most devout Catholics in the world, children would come to trust clergy figures, especially their local priests, as infallible with regards to the Catholic faith. In "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," Father Gonzaga's refusal to recognize the old man as an angel would perplex the children, as they would have the preconception that he is indeed an angel. This is because the children would believe the first definite interpretation of the old man that is presented in the story, the neighbor woman's proclamation that he is an angel. As a child is read a story, certain sentences, phrases, or words would stand out to that child. "He's an angel (452)" would certainly be something that a child hears above almost everything else when being read the story. As a result, the child would accept it as a truth throughout the rest of the story. When the child would hear of Father Gonzaga's denying the "angel's" identity and that he does not stand up for the "angel's" rights (the angel is kept in a chicken coop, food is thrown at him, and he is branded) simply as another living being, the child would most likely see that not all priests are "good," or respectful to their religion. In a Catholic child's mind, angels are a significant part of the Catholic Faith. This is because of the imagery they evoke in a child's imaginative mind. When the child would hear of Pelayo's mistreating of the old man, "...he (Pelayo) dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the chicken coop (452)," the child would wonder why people would mistreat a being that, according to their faith, is to be respected. Father Gonzaga's and Pelayo's negative treatments of the "angel" would allow them to see that not everyone who claims to be Catholic behaves like a Catholic.


http://www.photius.com/countries/colombia/society/colombia_society religion.html.
Revised 10-Nov-04. Copyright © 2004 Photius Coutsoukis (all rights reserved). October 27, 2008

All human thought can be put on a spectrum ranging from logic and reasoning to creativity and expression. It has always been in man's nature to study his environment through some form of observation and reasoning. Man has also always felt the need to create in order to express himself. The result of this is that all of the modern day societal obligations can be fit somewhere along the spectrum ranging from science and art. For example, salesmanship requires skills with logic and numbers, but it also requires persuasion of customers, for which there is no formulaic method. There is a third category of thought, however, and it encompasses all that is not only beyond our scientific knowledge, but beyond our human comprehension entirely; it can never be grasped by humans entirely. It represents all that is divine and understood only by God. Religion is a human attempt to understand some of it. Another attempt can be seen in the Romatic literature movement. The works and lives of Romantic authors John Keats and Henry David Thoreau show a yearning to understand what is beyond human senses and thought capability.

John Keats, in "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," shows a desire to escape from his reality. In "Ode to a Nightingale," he expresses a desire to leave the world and go into the world beyond human reality, as the nightingale does, "That I might drink, and leave the world unseen/ And with thee fade away into the forest dim (19-20)." In "Ode on a Grecian Urn," the fact that Keats' speaker is speaking to an urn shows desire to go beyond reality (It is not that he creates stories for the pictures on the urn that shows his yearning for the world beyond human reality. While his stories require much imagination, imagination is part of human understanding. It is his speaking to the urn that shows his connection to the world beyond human reality). When newborn infants come into the world, they have just taken up a form with human limitations. Before they come into the world, they are (according to Romantic ideals) still among the divine and have divine understanding. As soon as newborns begin the process of learning the facts of human reality and society, they lose their divine knowledge. Someone who would speak to the urn expecting to accomplish something would have no knowledge of the reality that inanimate objects do not speak. It can be inferred as a result that that person has not been in human form for very long, so he still has divine knowledge. No one other than Keats himself can possibly be the speaker in his poem due to the absence of personal pronouns, so Keats himself is talking to the urn. In talking to the urn, he is using negative capability to try to make himself forget the reality that he will accomplish nothing. By doing this, he is trying to see divine knowledge beyond human comprehension. It is easy to see why Keats wants to escape reality; his entire immediate family died during his lifetime.

Henry David Thoreau decided to live in nature away from the society that man expects everyone to follow. In doing this, he was attempting to let go of the human reality that is society so that he may regain the divine understanding he had when he first came into the world. He would attempt to live in a way that was as close as possible to purely instinctive by a human who had no influence from other humans. To do this, he had to forget everything society had taught him about man's reality and limitations.

Hudgins' Jovial Poem Inspired by Two Famous Poems

Hudgens' poem "The Wild Swans Skip School" shows use of much free association and imagination. Some commonality between Yeats' "The Wild Swans at Coole" and Brooks' "We Real Cool" probably prompted Hudgens to write his poem. It is most apparent that the words "Cool" and "Coole" in the titles of Brooks' and Yeats' poems respectively gave Hudgens the idea of mixing the poems together in a single parody. Because the subject matter of Brooks' and Yeats' poems are completely different and because the words "Cool" and "Coole" have completely different meanings, Hudgens had to be thinking very abstractly to relate the two poems in any way. To mix the poems, he uses the form and simple language of Brooks' poem with the content of Yeats' poem. Also, the poem is "spoken" from the swans' point of view, just as Brooks' poem is "spoken" from the pool players' point of view. The swans speak with the same boastful tone as do the pool players, but they are speaking about their actions in Yeats' poem.

Hudgins' parody is little more than the mixing of two relatively famous poems together in a clever manner. It is meant to be comical, and it has little or no underlying message about the other two poets or their poems. At most, Hudgins' message is one of paying respect to the other two poems by recognizing them in one of his poems. He certainly has no ill intention toward the poems. The title of his poem, "The Wild Swans Skip School," sounds too childish and unrealistic to be a legitimiate attack on the other two poems. The swans themselves are the speakers of the poem, giving the poem a light fable tone. Also, though his poem makes a juvenile yet clever joke about the other two, the premise of the joke- mixing two unlike poems of very different subject matter- brings out no problems with them that he may have. The joke itself is a way of paying homage to Brooks and Yeats and their respective poems.

The poem has a deeper meaning that does not involve either of the two poems by which it was inspired. It compares the carefree pool players in Brooks' poem to the swan. The simple structure and carefree mood of Brooks' poem is repeated in Hudgins' parody,

Brooks: We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We (1-4)

Hudgins: We beat wings. We
fly rings. We
scorn Yeats. We
have mates. We (1-4)

This shows that, like the pool players, the swans are detached from society in that they do not care how they affect it. Also, the structure in both poems shows that, like the pool players, the swans are proud of their rebelliousness. This is because the structure gives a haughty mood to the pool players' and the swans' words. Just as the pool players do not care whether or not their lifestyle fits society and whether or not they are draining society's resources without giving back, the swans do not care if they flaunt their lovers in front of the lonely Yeats. Hudgins possibly is trying to say that the swan are no more empathetic toward others than the pool players (Of course, the swan feel no empathy toward other humans because they are animals. However, because Yeats' and Hudgins' poems personify the swans to a certain degree, Hudgins is trying to say that the swans are no more empathetic than the pool players even in their personified form).

The Trend toward less Flowery, more Scientific Art Work over Time

Imagist poetry, when compared to such classic poetry as Shakespearean , seems like unimaginative prose. One is even tempted to ask if imagism is even qualified as poetry. Imagism lacks many of the characteristics that make traditional poetry unique. "The Red Wheel Barrow," by William Carlos Williams, can be argued to have a meter, but it does not have other poetic qualities, "so much depends/ upon/ a red wheel/ barrow (1-4)." It lacks a rhyme scheme and a reasonably poetic line structure; every couplet consists of a line with three words followed by a line with one. Rather than using a metaphor, the poem, like all imagism, tries to paint a concrete picture in the reader's head by using exact wording to describe what it directly means. Concrete and direct description is always desirable in such prose as an essay, but metaphors are seen as much more dignified in poetry. Also, whether or not Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" truly has a meter (emphasis on different syllables), "Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang, (3-4)" more obvious than that of a "The Red Wheel Barrow," it seems to have a rhythmic quality that makes it roll off of the tongue more easily.

Imagism is the far more modern genre of poetry than Shakespearean, and how it compares to Shakespearean poetry parallels how modern painting compares to classic painting. Many argue over whether or not Jackson Pollock's paintings are even art; they depict dots, while Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel depict Bible stories with much detail. Like imagist poems, it seems that Pollock is trying to express the basics of his art with as little work as possible. One of poetry's main purposes is to create an image in the reader's head, which is all that imagist poems strive to do. The characteristics that make a good painting are indeed expressed in Pollock's paintings; the placing of every dot and speck shows use of perspective. This trend toward more scientific (single-purposed) art work over time from flowery art work that does more than just show the characteristics of its trade shows how our society has progressed. Technology and science are now much more important than they used to be.

The Irony of the Victorian Era

In Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," the irony of the customs of the Victorian Era becomes evident. The Duke's true lifestyle contradicts the ideals and the initially apparent lifestyles of the Victorian Era. The standard of the Era dictates that women are to be kept physically concealed to all except for their husbands, and that men are judged based on their societal class, wealth, and mental stability. Relative to these standards, scandal would occur very frequently among both women and men.

The Duke, with his wealth and renowned name, is the image of perfection in Victorian Society. However, when one sees into his true life through the poem, one quickly realizes that he is certainly morally flawed and that he does not find true happiness with his lifestyle. He repeatedly mentions his collection of material possessions, showing his burden to appear as if there is no material possession he does not have. It is also evident through his tone that he feels a need to appear stable and happy. It is clear, of course, that he has non Christian-like problems: he envies his wife's happiness, he manipulates marriage to gain a dowry, and he eventually has his wife killed. There is also irony in the fact that he talks about having his wife killed as if it is normal. He is not self-conscious of that, but rather of his appearance as being stable or unstable. His views in this way most likely reflect the views of all of his class throughout the Victorian Era. The society itself is upside-down because these aristocrats see it normal to have their wives killed because they are being understandably flirtatious, yet they see it as wrong if an aristocrat is not sure of his place in the world and happy with himself during his lifetime. The scandal in this poem, according to the rest of the Victorian society, is not that he had his wife killed for being flirtatious (the flirtatiousness is considered scandalous), but that he was unhappy with his aristocratic lifestyle.