Essay on "Motion/Moviento by Octavio Paz"

Essay 3 pages (1093 words) Sources: 3 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Motion/Moviento by Octavio Paz. Specifically, it will discuss the poem and what it implies about life. Octavio Paz is a Nobel Prize winning Latin American author who wrote poetry, fiction, and worked as a diplomat, as well. Paz's poem "Motion" is a study in opposites, creating a feeling of motion and movement in the poem that is hard to ignore. The poem uses language to convey movement, something that is not easy to do, and it conveys the complexities of life, as well.

This complex poem is a series of thirteen lines that seem in direct opposition to one another. The opening lines are "If you are the amber mare / I am the road of blood" (Paz). The first line suggests the natural world and serenity, while the second suggests violence and struggle, and these are two polar opposites, but they describe the complexities of life, which can be tranquil and serene one minute, and violent and full of strife the next. This theme continues throughout the poem, creating a poignant look into what sets a poem apart and makes it special. This poem is beautifully lyrical, but strident too, another way that it conveys the complexities of life and opposition from one part of life to another.

The poem conveys motion, (the title of course), too with the opposing lines. A literary critic writes, "The movement seeks to undo temporality by insisting on relationships, or analogies, where the second part of the proposition provides the ground for the first, in a perfectly reversible operation" (Quiroga 120). The lines feed off each other, but they provide a fluidity of motion that carries the poem from first lines to last, and conclude the poem back where it started, creating the illusion of motion with a full circle closing itself at the end.

Many of the opposite images are violent and a bit disturbing. For example, the poet writes, "If you are the forest of the clouds / I am the axe that parts it" (Paz). As the literary critic notes, each of these images is totally reversible, so the lines are almost mirror images of themselves, traveling in either direction up or down the length of the poem. Paz seems to be saying that people can be mirror images of each other, with a "good" side and a "bad" side, just as the poem creates opposition and examines the complexities of life. There are always to sides to every person, two sides to every story, and two sides to life, one tranquil and the other filled with strife. This poem represents those two sides that exist in everything, and shows that they can blend to create something complex and exhilarating at the same time.

Paz was a firm believer in rereading. Another critic notes, "When Octavio Paz visited Robert Frost in his home, he told him that people were reading too many books, too many different books. 'I like rereading books. . . .I don't trust folk who don't reread'" (Wegner). This analogy is perfect for this poem, which demands several rereads to see the complexities and relationships of the lines and how they literally move the poem forward. For example, Paz writes, "If you are the yellow mountain / I am the red… READ MORE

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