Kenneth Fearing’s Dirge Essay -- Kenneth Fearing Dirge Essays

Kenneth Fearings plaintTraditionally, dirges are composed in the form of a numbers or hymn of mourning as a memorial to a dead person. The very definition suggests that the particular(prenominal) qualities of the dead individual deserve recognition. The dirge is not just written for anyone, but for those deserving of glorification, who move in the memories of the living as testaments to the greater capacities of humankind. It is against this traditional definition that Kenneth Fearings numbers, requiem, is working, not and as an overt commentary on the social, cultural, and political factors surrounding the destabilization of 1930s America but alike as an abstraction of the prevalent views of reality the dehumanization of the human. Fearing superimposes these thematic projects onto the scene of the Great Depression, a period of American history often seen as representing overarching society decline, the dull malaise of futility, and the alienation of the individual. Through an exploration of the geomorphologic elements of Dirge, one can find just how Fearing constructs a particular vision of modernism.As a prelude to an inquiry into thematic elements of the poem, it is counterbalance necessary to draw out the importance of Fearings use of observational form. Fearing adheres to the conventional use of strophic poetic construction, making use of epigrammatic style, where the vii stanzas separate the lament into isolated combinations and experiments on language and the content suggests apiece might stand alone as organic entities. Putting these highly-varied units into a single poem reflects on the incoherence of openhandeder theme of death and the solution to death, the dirge, as well as the notion that such a broad topic as death contains many sma... ..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a conveyless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The Dirge which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The Dirge the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearings poem take eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite efficaciously established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence seizure and not the presence of meaning in life.