Explication Of A Poem Literature Review Examples

The portrait of “The Guitar" by Federico Garcia Lorca is of a bleak and unfriendly place. Its fares are so awful that even the inanimate are affected—hence, we have weeping guitar. The depression of this instrument is not inexplicable as examples are provided of detached relationships. What is worse is how the tender despair is ignored, and pried at by uncaring fingertips.
If it were not for the title, I would not have realised that the poem was, in fact, actually about the guitar. As in, Guitar the main subject, instead of guitar the supporting character. Very soon and easily, I had misinterpreted the poem as only an observation of unrequited love. That the only possible speaker of these stanzas was a lover who used the guitar as an esteemed instrument, and what was left after all the crying and metaphors was a hindered couples. It was not until I placed “The Guitar” before every sentence that the perspective was rearranged for me, and I observed what the namesake was suffering of.
The mood of this piece is occupied with woe. The potency is meant to be stagnant to bear, almost droning. The situation in itself is meant to be a natural circumstance, because the crying guitar is compared to the water and wind. These are unmanageable, uncompromising things that happen. And given the reason as what urges the guitar into such a spell is the breaking of expectations and unmet opportunities.
The reader is meant to be the indifferent announcer of “The Guitar”. That is, until the effects of yearning (sands/camellias), aimlessness (arrow/target), and imbalance (evening/morning) are meant to disarm us. “O guitar!” we should cry, and join in, too. We should notice this “wounded heart” but we can’t. Despite its inflexible, unstopping state of misery, we choose to tune out the boohooing because the guitar “weeps monotonously”. Still, the guitar is battered, tortured. The strength of the final words is in how we were present at the start but our empathy won’t outlast the tragedy the guitar is aware of.
For myself, the tricky word of “The Guitar” is deceivable simple. I had often mispronounced this word or had to consciously enunciate it. That word is “still”, and I am tempted to stay “steal”. As if it was: “Useless / to steal it. Impossible / to steal it.” I find this exchange to be comfortable considering the message of the poem is to with the unobtainable. But to close read on the original “still”, I realise, it is indeed used as a verb. Excluding definitions to do with motion or sound, “still” can be defined as “to calm, appease, or allay” or “free from turbulence of commotion” (“Still”, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/still). With these particular details in mind, I find the guitar’s sufferings not only insurmountable, but also inseparable from the guitar itself. As in, it is useless to grant ease and reduce the intense confusion of the guitar, and it is impossible to separate the guitar from the stagnant and unseen insensitivities.
The personifications placed on the guitar are expandable in how relatable they are. The value in the meetings, or couples, Lorca supply grows bigger in their tragedy. It starts from the entirely separate and are unlikely to meet (sand/camellias), to items that belong together but aren’t meeting (arrow/target). What hinders the guitar more are the matters that balance one another and are a part of each other, but never need eye-to-eye (evening/morning). And even worse, there are things that merrily coexist but are torn apart anyway (bird/tree).
I can’t help but feel that “The Guitar” is really about Love given the single moment in which a name is used: Camellias. Lorca could have simple said “flower” but the symbolism of a camellias is how the “symmetrical beauty and long-lasting quality of the flower [has] long been appreciated by young lovers as the token for expressing devotion to each other” (“camellias”, http://www.livingartsoriginals.com/flower-camellia.htm). In place of the camellias absence, is an absolute lack of symmetry and barren. It extends to the guitar, though it is compared to a heart, this heart wails in a place that is without growth. Its reality is without recognition. In the end, the guitar is treated with “swords”, something jabbing and sliding at it—something heartless. But the guitar weeps on; being “useless / to still it. / Impossible / to still it”.
The art form of the “The Guitar” is its anomaly, disorientation. What saddens the guitar are the futureless items. These broken relationships are all around us, and unnoticed. If we did, possibly we would stop the music, stop cutting at the guitar as we pluck its strings. Oddly enough, for some of us, the strings of the guitar can be like swords, causing the fingertips to bleed if the conditions are right.