Is rap/hip-hop poetry?

1. yes i believe that rap and hip-hop are poetic expressions. most songs rhyme, have many similies, metaphors and symbolism all put together to something that flows. Who's to say that a rapper's method of expression is not poetic?

2.this kind of music expresses litereary characteristics such as repetition, rhythm, similies, metaphors, structure, and symbolism, almost all of them depending on the song!

3. im a thematic critic, i truly enjoy trying to figure out the underlying theme and meaning of the song. i dont believe a song has to be deep to be poetic, or full of structre and precision, as long as there is that element of emotion and expression i can apreciate it. :)

Hills like White Elephants part 2

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, the second of six children, and spent his early years in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. Growing up with his mother and father, he lived a somewhat deprived childhood because of their strict ways and punishment for disobedience. After finishing high school, Hemingway had two things in mind that he wanted to do: be a writer or join the military. Since his father would not allow him to enlist, he left his home to go report for the Kansas City Star. Some time passed and Hemingway grew anxious and left to do the only other thing he wanted to do most besides writing, which was to join the military. He joined the Red Cross in WWI as an ambulance driver in Europe. He became wounded in a knee over there and fell in love with his nurse Agnes von Kurosky. Their relationship did not last be he did write about their romance in his novel Fare Well to Arms. After recovering, he returned to the U.S to be journalist and married Elizabeth Hadley Richardson but devorced her after the birth of his first son for having an affair with mistress Pauline Pfeiffer. He marries Pauline and has two more children with her and leaves her 12 years later to marry another mistress. This third marriage lasts 10 years but falls apart because he falls in love again with yet, another mistress. Hemingway publishes many more short stories including Hills Like White Elephants. Throughout most of his life he deals with severe problems of alcoholism. After all of his lifes struggles, he is diagnosed with bipolar depression and insomnia. After an unsuccessful elctro-shock therapy session to helps his illnessess, his condition worsens even more and he gets amnesia. The fact of his detteriorating condition and mental health has a serious impact in his writing and life in general. Hemingway commits suicide in the summer of 1961, he was 61 years old.

Three things that I feel that greatly influenced Hemingway's style for his prose where deffinatley:

1. His learned style as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, which was short and to the point.
2. His experience in the military, which I feel made his style even more masculine.
3. His difficult time staying in a meaningful relationship, which might reflect his trouble understanding women as shown in his short story, Hills Like White Elephants.

These three things deffinitaly affected and influenced his unique style of writing.

works cited

"SparkNotes: Hills Like White Elephants: Context." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/hills-like-white-elephants/context.html.

 

Shelokhonov, Steve. "Ernest Hemingway - Biography." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 05 Apr. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002133/bio>.

 

 

Hills Like White Elephants part 1

     The setting takes place in Spain, the American and his girlfriend sit at a bar outside of the trainstation. The narrator mentions that there are no trees or shade on the other side of the two tracks and that the sun is brightly shinning on both of them and the weather oustide is hot. This is a very interesting and clearly symbolic setting. For one, they are in a foreign land this means they are somewhere experiencing something that is out of the ordinary, a different language is spoken around them, but only the man knows what they are saying, this lets us know that the girl is confused or perhaps lost about something. Also they are waiting for the train to take them somewhere, in other words symbolizing their future, but there are TWO tracks. This might imply there are separate roads in their near future, they both want different things. I also felt somewhat when the narrator says that there are no trees on the other side and that the sun was shining on the tracks and that is was hot, I felt that they were being watched by God, being put on the spot by Him on the desicions that they were about to make and the directions those desicions would take them.
        The point of view of this story is third-person limited. Limited only to what he can see, but not to what they both feel or about the future that lies ahead of them, he is not omniscient. His attitude seems to favor more with the girl, making the reader sympathyze with her since she is so clueless, like how would the man know that the "operation" is just a simple procedure? He's a man for Christ sake! he will never have to endure that type of pressure of making that kind of desicion, and it seems like if he will tell the girl anything to just convince her, and makes it seem as if he really doesnt care if she goes through with it or not to make her feel better, but clearly he does.
       I would say Heminway's style is overtly masculine. Short, short sentences, plain, simple, and to the point. Just like a man, not explaining himself, not sugar coating anything like a woman might tend to do. I also feel that he leaves it up to the audeince to decide the outcome of his story, he allows us the readers to interpret.