Saturday, September 10, 2011
Imperial Adam- A.D. Hope
"Then he remembered through mysterious sleep /The surgeon fingers probing at the bone, /The voice so far away, so rich and deep: /"It is not good for him to live alone."' These words describe the acts God completed in A.D. Hope's "Imperial Adam." In the poem, God is described as a dominative force, overseeing all that happens as a result of his own actions; as a result of this Creator stigma, God has more subordinates to control. This is evident when the woman, Eve, is created and even more so when she gives birth to a newborn baby. God's desperate need to expand the human population in order to have more power illustrates his obsession to display his omnipotence. This is evident in this stanza and throughout the poem.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
David - I thought you had some good ideas here, such as the "Creator stigma" and how you see God as controlling in this poem. However, I felt the paragraph as a whole was a bit convoluted. I do not think that God created people meant to procreate for the sake of displaying power. Just because there would be more people does not make Him more powerful; there would just be more people over whom He could exhibit power. In addition, when you say that God observes the "result[s] of his own actions," I feel this contradicts your comment later on that He has this apparent "obsession to display his omnipotence." In your first statement, you make it sound like God does not know in advance how His plans will turn out, but if He is obsessively omnipotent, as you say afterwards, why would He not know the results of His actions? I do not think this idea is seen throughout the poem, either, as God is only mentioned (and, in reality, only implied) in that single stanza. Overall, though, there still a couple of interesting ideas to be found.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your constructive criticism, Daniel; I truly do appreciate it. And to respond to your remarks, I do see that the paragraph is convoluted. This is not one of my best works, and I am going to revise it with your ideas in mind.
ReplyDelete