Meta-Analysis Paper

Part I: Analysis of Poem In Rilke’s “The Gazelle” life transcends art. Life is the unattainable poem that all poetic devices attempt to express. The awesome force of life is exemplified in the movements and features of the gazelle, but by the end of the poem the examples expand to include all natural, living things, even humans. Living things are transcendent. The gazelle is the example of life, object of awe, the “enchanted thing” that is so perfectly, magnificently alive. Rilke wonders at how simple words can express the “harmony of pure rhyme” that “pulses” through the gazelle. The “harmony of pure rhyme” is the lifeblood of the gazelle, a force so moving that it can only be expressed through art. Poetry is art and all art attempts to express that which can not be communicated through our limited verbal language. Rilke invokes the beautiful image of a person “who has put his book away and shut his eyes” while rose petals fall upon his face. This, he writes, expresses the grace of a love song that, sung in similes, could describe the features of the gazelle. Only artistic images and devices, artistic images arrived at through poetic and musical devices, can come close to the wonder of the real living thing, the gazelle. Rilke begins with marveling at the beauty of life, expressed in the movement of the gazelle. The third stanza images the gazelle frozen, listening, with the potential which all living things experience as long as our blood still flows; we have ammunition (“loaded with leaps”) to live. Rilke goes on to compare the frozen posture of the gazelle to a girl “swimming in some isolated spot” that “hears leaves rustle and turns to look.” The girl, a human, is now compared to the example of living beauty, the gazelle. The last line confirms the awe-inspiring force of life in humans, too, though we may have to recognize it in nature, first, to see it reflected in our own bodies. The girl of the last stanza is in the woods, in natural water, “the forest pool reflected in her face.” Her face is not only reflected in the water, as we see whenever we face a mirrored surface. The forest, the den of all nature, is reflected on her face. Nature has made an impact on the girl. Perhaps the rustling of the leaves is symbolic of the entrance of some kind of understanding about humanity as a part of nature, comparable to the leaping Gazelle. Humans are as beautiful as such natural, astounding beings. Both are alive. From the other side of the mirror, natural being such as gazelles are as worthy as humans to live. Rilke has expressed how life transcends art, but he has attempted to capture life in art—this poem. While art can never reach the magnificence that life exudes, art is in the attempt. Part II: Analysis of Analysis I often feel about writing papers as I did today: I wish that someone could insert some device into my brain and extract the finished work. It is in there, but finding and organizing the language to communicate my thoughts is difficult. I have always felt that I can think so much better than I can speak. Writing papers is my most common form of analysis. I feel as if it is a long, slow process of translation, because I must put my thoughts into words. I generally have a strong feeling about something as soon as I read or view it. The word “feeling” is appropriate to describe my first reaction, because while I understand the subject (sometimes deeply), my thoughts are not concrete. They are nowhere near concrete. Admittedly, during the process, I often discover new observations of the subject or even revise my thinking drastically. So the long process of analysis through writing is necessary. Writing is the best way I can analyze a subject, in this case, a poem. My best therapy has always been my journal (with it, speaking with a therapist is just repetitive.) Simply thinking through an analysis of a poem would hardly get me anywhere. As I have stated, my thoughts are too abstract. I read Rilke’s poem “The Gazelle” several times and understood it, but I did not feel as if I had made any progress until I began free-writing. I used to free-write more directly on paper, which is an extremely helpful stage in the analysis process. On paper, I can write in phrases, in incomplete sentences, draw arrows, and not worry about structuring my writing in any way. These days I am always pressed for time and free-write at a computer, where my writing always ends up in complete sentences. It is almost more difficult this way, to convert my free-writing to an actual full analysis paper, because the free-write is structured in some way by my computer-writing tendencies. Nevertheless, I force myself to move some things around and organize my thoughts into a more professional, comprehensive structure. So much of the analysis process is organization. The analysis process is long and, in my opinion, should never be rushed. Papers that I rush through are so obviously not communicating my ideas fully. Today it took me about an hour to write a short analysis of the Rilke poem. I have written some very bad, very long papers very quickly. I have written some of my best analyses in short length, but in a long amount of time. I interpret assigned lengths of papers as suggestions or estimations. The length of my analysis, I believe, should always be however long it takes me. Adding or decreasing the length of an analysis simply to meet an assignment is detrimental to the analysis itself. That does not include careful revising, which is always necessary. I don’t revise as much as professors tell me I should. I think that is because my writing process is slower than most and my first draft is usually close to my finished work. I prefer, or perhaps I can’t help it, to write slowly (most of the time staring at the computer screen thinking) rather than writing quickly and spending a lot of time on revision. Today, for example, I began with reading the Rilke poem several times in my head. I would have (and should have) read it aloud except that I am in the library. I began free-writing, extremely slowly at first. I gained momentum as I continued, though I was still working slowly, with frequent breaks in typing. I used the online thesaurus, as always, because I kept trying to write the same abstract idea using the same words. The thesaurus is my best tool while writing an analysis. Though, today, I looked up “transcendent” several times without satisfaction. I needed a way to express the magical, almost spiritual quality of living things that Rilke was evoking. I didn’t want to use the words “spiritual” or “magical” because the connotations, of religion or fantasy, were not appropriate. It is this attempt to express what I think about a poem (or other subject) in concrete language that is most frustrating for me. I slowed down at the last stanza during free-writing and considered the human element of Rilke’s poem. Once I had worked through these new thoughts, I was at the end of the poem and ready to organize all of my thoughts that I had written down. I re-read, first to understand how cohesive my ideas were, and next to look for the structure that my free-writing was already in. I changed some details and revised an awkward sentence. Then I was ready to write my introduction. I think writing a thesis last is the best way, because the thesis always emerges during the analysis. It can’t be written until the analysis is nearly complete. Working through the analysis process in writing is a familiar task for me. It is frustrating, but satisfying. I often feel as if it is almost necessary, even if an analysis paper is not assigned for a certain subject. Sometimes I have to analyze certain texts in writing before I feel satisfied with them. Discussing the Rilke poem as a means of analysis would have been very different. First of all, I would have held back my initial thoughts at first. Then I would be helped along or deterred, or both, by whomever I was discussing the poem with. I prefer to write, individually. I don’t even like reading literary criticism of the text I am analyzing until my analysis is complete, because I don’t want to be affected by other people’s ideas. Later, I can use others’ ideas to enhance my own analysis. But I believe that individual, unaffected analysis is not just for assignments, it is a healthy part of my life. _________________________________________________________________ More photos, more messages, more storage—get 2GB with Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_2G_0507

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