What is the Objective Correlative and controlling idea of this poem? (AP English Help!)?
Edith Wharton, An Autumn Sunset
Leaguered in fire
The wild black promontories of the coast extend
Their savage silhouettes;
The sun in universal carnage sets,
And, halting higher,
The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,
A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine
Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
And in her hand swings high o’erhead,
Above the waste of war,
The silver torch-light of the evening star
Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.
II
Lagooned in gold,
Seem not those jetty promontories rather
The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,
Uncomforted of morn, Where old oblivions gather,
The melancholy unconsoling fold
Of all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life’s perpetually awakening breath?
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,
Over such sailless seas,
To walk with hope’s slain importunities
In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not
All things be there forgot,
Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black
Close-crouching promontories?
Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,
Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of all remembrance and sucked back
Into the primal void,
That should we on that shore phantasmal meet
I should not know the coming of your feet?
I am supposed to describe the story elements of this poem with characters setting and plot. With this im supposed to identify the changes in the poem and describe the objective correlative, and in the very end, describe the controlling idea in order to connect it to each piece of imagery.
I do not even understand the basic idea behind this poem. I know its in the naturalism era but dont know the true meaning behind it. Can anyone help?
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Tagged with: Ap English • autumn sunset • bay mid • carnage • edith wharton • English Help • evening star • Importunities • jetty • melancholy • miserable marriage • morn • naturalism • objective correlative • outposts • promontories • shames • silhouettes • storm clouds • story elements • torch light • true meaning • valkyrie
Filed under: How To Save A Marriage
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See link for meaning of objective correlative below.
Don’t know the context of this poem or much about Edith Wharton but, just reading the words, would suggest she’s using sunset as a way to talk about death.
Verse 1: describes the sunset using images of battle -
fire
savage silhouettes;
universal carnage
storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
Above the waste of war,
Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.
Verse II: The mood of the onlooker / poet changes as the sun sets:
(Now, the skyline with its promontories seems to her more like some deserted land and all the images are of sadness, emptiness, dreariness nothingness, hopelessness and death )
The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,
Uncomforted of morn,
Where old oblivions gather,
The melancholy unconsoling fold
(- and, instead of thinking that the sun will rise again in the morning, she thinks of – )
Of all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life’s perpetually awakening breath?
(She thinks of a time when the sun will go down and not rise again. The repetition of ‘no more, no more’ is profoundly mournful and sad.)
(She contemplates her own future death – )
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore…
To walk with hope’s slain importunities (her hopes that came to nothing)……
Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of all remembrance and sucked back
Into the primal void,
(she will be nothing, no thoughts, no identity, no meaning)
That should we on that shore phantasmal meet
I should not know the coming of your feet?
(don’t know who she’s speaking to – a lover, presumably? (not Christ since she clearly foresees no comforting vision of heaven) but in speaking to someone she presumably loves, she suddenly becomes a character – human and vulnerable – she’s been talking in the high flown terms of the poet, observer but now she comes across as a person with human frailties, love and longings, and becomes a character in her own poem.
The controlling idea seems to be that the sunset is like a vivid bloody battle and once the sun has set, it brings the poet thoughts and images of a barren land that represents her own future oblivion and death – and she thinks that if she met this person whom she loves on that ghostly shore (which is not really a shore because it’s actually the imaginary landscape created at sunset, or else the brink of death), she wonders if she would even know them anymore.