Term Paper on "Apollonian vs. The Dionysian: Sharon Olds"

Term Paper 3 pages (1084 words) Sources: 1+ Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Apollonian vs. The Dionysian: Sharon Olds and Yusef Komunyakaa

The Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy is derived from two opposed concepts coming from the Ancient Greek mythology. Thus, in the Greek mythology Apollo was the god of light, poetry and music, while Dionysus was the god of wine, drunkenness and everything that meant excess and celebration. Hence, the two concepts, Apollonian and Dionysian evolved describe two opposite states: the tendency towards individuation vs. The tendency towards integration of the self into the whole or the erasing of the boundaries of selfhood. The two poems by Sharon Olds and Yusef Komunyakaa have both Apollonian and Dionysian elements in their structure. In fact, in both cases, the authors meditate upon the relationship between their individuality and the others, attempting to cross the line that separates their own selfhood from the others.

Sharon Olds' poem is thus centered on a key image: the author is on the porch, watching a hair flying off from her comb, over the earth. The image clearly intimates the idea of uprooted selfhood, the individuality that cuts its own roots and drifts away. This idea is supported by the juxtaposition of the image representing the uprooted hair with the poet's affirmation that she was born similarly of the soil that surrounds her: "This is the soil I came from, sour / tang of resin and baked dust."(Olds) Up to this point, the poem obviously describes an Apollonian state, in which the self, like the hair that drifts away in the wind crouches onto itself: It is curled on itself, it folds, kneels, / bows and buckles over onto our earth." (Olds, 33) in the next part of the poem however, the poet confesses to always desiring to "cross over into the other person," that is to surpass the limits of the individuated self, and merge with the other: "I have always wanted to cross over / into the other person, draw the / other person over into me."(Olds, 33) the Apollonian- Dionysian dichotomy is developed even further in the next lines, when, seemingly someone joins the author at the porch rail, coming surreptitiously from behind. The author renders the sensation of this shift from being alone to being with someone. The quick approach of someone else makes the author feel even more insecure of her own self, and her own individuality becomes "like a dream of matter / looking for spirit": "Fast are the naked palms to the breasts / from behind, at the porch rail, fast / is a look. Slow is / the knowing where I come from, / who I might be, like a dream of matter / looking for spirit."(Olds, 33) the context of the poem shifts once more, and the focus comes back to the hair that seems to roll back toward the poet standing on the porch: "Now the hair / rises on an updraft, wobbling, reddish, / in a half-circle, it wavers higher-- / the jelly head of the follicle has the tail of the hair in its mouth, it rolls back / up, toward me, through the morning, as if / someone, somewhere, were saying, to me, we are one now."(Olds, 33) These last lines of the poem clearly imply that… READ MORE

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