ENG 1121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Oxymoron, Synecdoche
21 Apr 2016
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Myth: stories that are not reality but it are truthful; mythology speaks to a central truth that cultures see about themselves. Foundational myth: the origins of everything we know (where did our taboos come from, our traditions, our beliefs, etc. ) Symbol: something that represents another thing beyond itself. This poem is taking the myth of the sirens and attempting to look at it from a different perspective, by putting it with tension (making it dangerous and exciting) This tension is closely linked to sexual passion. We have an oxymoron: silence of the cry is deafening . Harris is using the myth of a siren as a myth for passion from lines 19 on. Pythagoras was a greek mathematician who wrote extensively about music and how to control it. Certain mythical beings were seen as elemental/having control over the elements (earth, air, water, fire: the sirens were dangerous to humans who had control over water.
