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Adorno’s essay on lyric poetry reveals interesting facts about the origin or the central kind of modern poetry. There is this relationship between a man or a poet being sensitive to the Muse and being able to talk about lyric poetry and society. Insensitivity to the lyric poetry might result in treating lyric works as objects to demonstrate sociological theses (Adorno 343). Adorno’s essay made me realize that it is important for the lyric poetry work itself to reflect the dimensions within it, in relation to the society around it.

The idea of the social interpretation of lyric poetry was another important point in the article. It makes sense that this social interpretation of lyric works should focus on discovering how the society itself is represented in the lyric work. I believe such works should be in direct relationship to the society surrounding it, and should reflect and represent its nature and values.

The language in the lyric poetry is a significant element in the lyric poetry. I agree with the idea that language should be the voice of the lyric work, and not far from it. I think language gives an identity to the lyric work and reflects the situations surrounding it.

Enzensberger’s essay reminded me of Plato’s Book X, and I quote some of his ideas on this matter: “Poetry corrupts even the best souls. It deceives us into sympathizing with those who grieve excessively, who lust inappropriately, who laugh at base things. It even goads us into feeling these base emotions vicariously. We think there is no shame in indulging these emotions because we are indulging them with respect to a fictional character and not with respect to our own lives. But the enjoyment we feel in indulging these emotions in other lives is transferred to our own life.” Enzensberger considers the dangers of poetry on the young people and suggests that these types of poetry be stopped by possible means such as censorship, court, exile … etc. This anachronism concerning the relationship between poetry in the past and poetry in the present is intriguing for one to think of and ponder about. I believe it is true that poetry can have such influence on the lives of the young people.

Reading Rich’s article, I am more convinced of what great role poetry can play when it comes to politics. Westerns and North Americans have always feared the fact that poets/critics of different blood, bread, or race could distort their image in the universe. But as we know, dominance is not only with military force but it could also be more powerful through words. This is a war planned for dominance and for cultural control.

Mallarme's experience with the language of poetry is fascinating. It seems to me that throughout his experience in poetry, Blanchot tried to follow Mallarme's distinctions among the different languages of poetry. The most obvious distinction was the one between the ordinary language of poetry and the poetic language of it. Blanchots also stresses that in the language of poetry, throught Mallarme's experience, the last words are always the most important. I completely agree with this fact, for the ending of a poetic piece has to be strong, intriguing, or rather surprising.

I liked Bernstein’s definition of the “Artifice” in relation to the poem, and how it creates an internal and external world of realism. It seems to me that to read a poem artificially, as Brenstein says, is a necessary part of the poetic reading of the poem. But this obviously would affect the real content of the poem. The relationship between the content of the poem and its meaning is quite a confusing one.

Bernstein also talks about the paraphrasing of the content (stanza) of the poem, which, if anyone interested in this kind of art, is completely intriguing in the way that the formal dynamics of the poem are the most identifiable features and the way they include the content of the poem itself. That is what I understood from what Bernstein wrote about the procedures of dialectical paraphrasing which must be revised in reading poems written in this manner.

I found out that Bernstein strongly highlights the value of absorption as a dynamic of reading, and the importance of considering its nature as a key element in a literary criticism, and how some ideologies in a poem entails various types of absorption (21). I found this article to have a unique argument, but I believe I will have to read it a number of times to get a better understanding.

I find it quite amazing how tone, mode of the poem can be abstracted from the meaning of the words. Hrushovski’s description of expressive sound pattern is interesting as he describes it to be kind of grasping process of the tone, mood or general qualities of the meaning. In the same way, “tone, mood etc” are abstracted from the meaning of the words. These facts lead us to the realization that features of the same sounds may differ according to the context. I like how the sibilants /s/ and /‘s/ may have different features as explained in Poe’s line: “silken", "sad”, and in Shakespeare’s sonnet, “sweet", "silent", and the way they can be realized in each line according to the content.

How the sounds may be “double-edged” is also fascinating. Consider again the sibilants /s/ and /`s/, to express a hushing quality and a hush quality: “silken” and “sad”, “sweet” and “silent”. So, for me, the fact that these “double-edged” sounds can be opposing or “vastly different” is incredibly intriguing. It is the way poetry Masters can play with the meanings of the words through the noise of some sounds and sibilants as clarified in Hrushovski’s examples in Chapter one of Tsur’s book. What’s even more interesting is that this “double-edgedness” can be responsible for the distribution of other sounds in the poems.

I am amazed how sounds also have colors in the expressive way they are, and how each vowel sound is associated with a specific color in our people’s consciousness and how vowels can have oppositions, such as the association of the opposition front/back vowels with the opposition of bright/dark colors. The real experiment explained in Chapter one to find out whether subjects who perceive back vowels as darker than front vowels was a unique one, and its results were unexpected. It shows us how much energy vowels and consonants have in an emotional and mental way. I have found interesting facts in this chapter about how the sound units and meaning units are combined together in real profound ways.

It is interesting how simple, and yet deep in meaning Blake’s “The Lamb” poem is. It carries a moral lesson, but the study of theology might lead us to insanity, especially those who do not believe in God. It is a complicated relationship of the Creator and the creatures. But let’s not go deeper into that, so that we won’t be insane! It is amazing how figurative language can bring such thoughts in us. In “The Lamb”, we find the traditional image of Jesus as a child, and it points out the kindness and peace of true Christianity. The poem is a good example of the Christian beliefs, but why does it only have the good side? We cannot admit to the fact that there is only a good side to the universe and deny the presence of suffering and evil! I am not ignoring the main subject of McLaughlin’s article, but in a sense, the poem might be missing a balance of the idea of good and evil. It is a very symbolic poem, and we can see in its presentation of the child as Jesus a perfect example of innocence. Perhaps, Blake is trying to show his own belief in God through his poem; thus, it poses as an illustrative example of his (Blake’s) belief in God, for his writings about God shows his religious stance or perspective. Moreover, the language Blake uses in “The Lamb” is very simple and accessible, thereby perfectly matching the idea of innocence and purity.

I also like the distinction or differentiation McLaughlin makes between the “figurative” and the “proper” meaning of words. Further, I find his explanation of the latter as the idea which first comes to the mind, and how these two ideas can be brought together in one mental category really interesting and convincing. Here, I think that the invisible (allegorical) meanings give more depth to the poem itself. Likewise, figurative language plays a major, influential, and powerful role in presenting twisted meanings to the words in poetry.

Figures of speech formulate the poem in the way the poet desires. I believe the strongest figure of speech in Blake’s poem is apostrophe (my emphasis), and I like how it twists the acts of speech and controls its direction. It seems to me that the poet’s creativity lies in bringing many important figures of speech in one short and simple poem. Therefore, this poem motivates us to think in a figurative process by going beyond the scenes and “proper” sense. However, the fact that the child in the poem perceives the world as innocent reminds me of Plato’s argument about the world around us and that the fact that we perceive what we see through our senses. Thus, even God is perceived by us through our senses. In other words, God exists only in our thinking and perception. I admit here, however, that this connection to Plato’s assertions confuses me. Still, this article, “Figurative Language” is a valuable and precious source of how figurative language profoundly enhances/intensifies the meaning of the poem.

Exploring this chapter of the book Poetry as Discourse, I have to say I kind of find it little complicated as it deals with the pentameter patterns which I am not very familiar with. However, I know that these patterns are commonly used with sonnets in poetry, and I can find some kind of similarity to the sonnet’s pentameter patterns in Arabic poems, especially the shapes of the syllables as they are the exact same long and short syllables in Arabic pentameter. One difference is that in Arabic poetry, those pentameter patterns are called ‘seas’, and there are several ‘seas’ in Arabic poetry.

I liked the idea of subjectivity in discourse and how pentameter plays an important role in controlling the intonation along the lines of the sonnet, e.g. slowing down the pace of the pentameter makes the stresses more felt. It is also interesting how the stress can only be on the second syllable, or otherwise it might sound weird. Consider, for example, the word tom/mor/row.

But can pentameter really discriminate what is ‘properly’ poetic from what is not? Or poetry from verse? I can find more sense in the second question but I cannot say I understand how pentameter can ‘sort’ the "properly" poetic from the "improperly" poetic. However, I liked the way Easthope explained the meanings of this pentameter hegemony especially in how pentameter can help reading silently and still know where to pause. It is not an easy one but I will try to read more about this subject on the hope of better understand it.