Sri Chinmoy Poetry

Personal tools

Page 6


The poet is relying here on what Brian Vickers calls "one of the basic laws of rhetoric":

Repetition of a framework is not only a prime device for emotional stress but that repetition of a framework will give great emphasis to any new elements inserted into it.[11]


In this instance, the repetition of "I know not" serves to develop the full psychological scope and intensity of the poet's state.

The word "amnesia" in this context is striking. Its connotation of loss of memory due to profound shock or repression or illness accurately exposes the psychically damaging effects of society. This is further highlighted in the subsequent lines by the specifically commercial terms used to describe the poets relation with the world and with himself

Myself I buy, myself I sell.
All I break, again all I build.
All I hope to be mine, mine alone.
Alas, my heart is eclipsed
By dark and wild destruction-night.


Even while eschewing explicit biographical reference, the poet is able to evoke his mode of existence with emotional precision, firstly, on the conceptual level, using commercial terms and, secondly, on the rhetorical level, in the antithesis of "buy"/"sell"; "break"/"build." We experience the suffering resulting from the play of the various destructive and possessive forces within man's own nature. Again, repetition is one of the prime devices used by the poet to translate this spiritual despair into poetic terms. It provides him with a framework that is strong enough to support the considerable emotional intensity he wishes to infuse into it.

 

Sri Chinmoy Poetry - Home  |  Contact  |  Copyright - Media

 

cc

 

© Copyright 2007, Sri Chinmoy Poetry