Generative Criticism of Alan Seeger’s ” I Have A Rendezvous With Death”

Alan Seeger is a poet who lived from 1888-1916 who died in World War I.  After a little research I have decided the more literal meaning of this poem is a literal account of the war. The terms like disputed barricade, battered hill and flaming town demonstrate this clearly when just interpreting the presented elements just as they are. The rendezvous between Alan and Death is explaining the battlefield and how at each confrontation soldiers could be killed or survive another day. I first heard this poem being read for a Gears of War 2 trailer and it stuck in my head ever since. When I first heard this I was unaware the author was a soldier from the First World War and I interpreted the poem in a completely different way.

To be honest I kind of understood the poem as almost a last explanation from someone before they die of age or perhaps commit suicide. After coding the artifact for myself I identified a suggested element for some of the presented elements. First, the lines saying “I have a rendezvous with death” equal a voluntary acceptance of death or giving in to death.  Secondly, the lines describing when spring is returning could represent renewal or new beginnings such as in the afterlife. The lines like disputed barricade and flaming town I interpreted as inner turmoil creating conflict within the writer. These various ideas could be placed into categories like, “giving up”, “natural renewal” and “unsettling environments”.

Using a previously discussed method I would have most likely thought narrative or metaphor criticism would be best for this poem. In my own analysis I may create an explanatory schema using headings or concepts I might call, dynamics, subject context and diction. Dynamics refers to the structure of the poem and how it is set up to be read a specific way. This particular poem reads slow and calm and creates a feeling of acceptance. Subject context refers to all the different perspectives the poem could be interpreted through. This is how I applied my own experiences to create the ideation of a suicidal or elderly person instead of a soldier. This second concept works hand in hand with the diction, the choices of speech and words used by the rhetor. In this poem he chose vague words that produced enough of a definition to imagine something but not detailed enough to exactly know what the rhetor meant. For example, the term “rendezvous” is an interesting word choice. Is it an organized meeting at a time and place? Is it just going to happen at random?

Pentadic Criticism of Prozak’s Music Video for “Million Miles Away”

Steven Shippy, better known by his stage name Prozak is an American hip-hop musician recently signed to Strange Music, the independent record label most often recognized for being started by the popular rapper Tech N9ne. For this pentadic criticism I will be looking at his music video for the song “Million Miles Away.” For this analysis I’ll be focusing mostly on the video as I feel the song and its lyrics could easily provide an entirely separate analysis as he took the video in a very specific direction. The music video features a question being posed at the beginning which reads “if you could change one thing about the world what would it be?” The rest of the video features average citizens from all walks of life writing down their answer to this question, and of course some shots of Prozak rapping.

In Prozak’s music video the agents would be Prozak and then everyone else as a group. The acts would be Prozak posing the question to everyone and in turn, them responding to the question. The agency is simply how the people write down their answer to the question and then silently reveal it. The scene is generally just urban society. The video does take place in the U.S.A but the actual scenery is just simple streets, industrial areas and other neighbourhood settings where anyone could be seen. The purpose of the video is to inspire change by demonstrating all the varying outlooks different people have, but showing at the same time the common goals everyone has in trying to reach a better future for humanity.

The most dominant term here is purpose as all the other terms are somewhat meaningless without the purpose.  As Kenneth Burke explained, purpose is related to the philosophy of mysticism. This is the doctrine that “focuses on unity above individuality, often identifying the individual with a cosmic power.” This video is an awesome example of this as the purpose is to explain humanity must unite to avoid mistakes made in the past. The agents are not truly important themselves as they are all random civilians but this random selection of people unites them. No matter what their appearance was, they all had a suggestion to better the future. The act and agency are also not special either without the purpose.  It is just a question and people answering it. But placed in the context created by the purpose each individual answer adds to a bigger picture of everyone wanting change. The purpose is also not important in creating the scene, but the scene is important in creating the purpose. Since it appears these people were asked to participate right off the street of any neighbourhood it again creates unity, this time even connecting straight to the viewer as Prozak just as easily could have asked you to answer the question.

Finally, when listening to the lyrics it becomes apparent that the rhetor’s motive or worldview is pretty close to the one created by his music video. The song calls for people to realize the damage that has been inflicted on humanity by humanity and to try and change for a better future.

Ideological Criticism of Uncommon Valor (A Vietnam Story) by Jedi Mind Tricks

Uncommon Valor is a song created by Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks and R.A. The Rugged Man and the song paints some vivid pictures of the Vietnam war. The entire song is provided above but for this analysis I’ll only be looking at the second verse by Rugged Man as I feel it is better for this analysis.

Rugged Man sure spits out a mouthful but one of the biggest elements presented in his verse is that the soldier he is portraying is enjoying himself in a situation where he should be facing all kinds of atrocities. A clear example of this is when he says, “Soothing, drug-abusing, Vietnamese women screwing, sex, gambling and boozin’, all this shit is amusing. Bitches and guns, this is every man’s dream, I don’t want to go home, where I’m just an ordinary human being, special OP, Huey chopper gun ship runs shit, Gook run when the mini-gun spit, won’t miss.” Another thing from this quote worth noting is the racial slur “Gook.” I also find the following line powerful: “This ain’t no real war, Vietnam shit, World War II, that’s a war, this is just a military conflict.”

The presented elements are told in a positive light by Rugged Man, who loves the experience and feels like the man. But the presented elements actually suggest much different. Although he is enjoying what he is doing the suggested meanings develop a pretty disgusting image of Vietnam. The verse creates an ideology that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and touches on many issues of race and the inappropriate attitudes of some soldiers. This verse shows how the American soldiers treated the Vietnamese as lesser beings by using racial slurs, abusing their women, and how easily they enjoy slaughtering them. I feel the verse paints a good picture of how dysfunctional personalities in soldiers can thrive during war time and have bad consequences. It also shows how little the soldier cares about the bigger issues of the war and has replaced the purpose with slaughtering the “inferior” Vietnamese.

The end of the song finally reveals a negative outcome for the character yet he says, “My son died he ain’t live, but I still try to think positive, cause in life, God take, God give.” This line I believe shows an ideology of the flaws of religion. He somehow still feels some justification of his horrible deeds, when the reality was he spent years partying with the bonus of getting to murder people. The entire verse is told almost as if he is advertising how great war can be and that more men should join in on the fun but the verse is truly trying to describe how much of a mess the Vietnam War was and reveals some of the horrible realities of America’s purpose in the conflict.

Fantasy Theme Criticism of The Jokerr’s “There With You”

The Jokerr is an underground musician who creates an incredible variety of amazing music ranging from intense extremely lyrical rap to very melodic and enchanting songs like this. He catches a lot of negativity for his eccentric look as he dresses like a jester but his musical talent is undeniable.  If you do not find this song your kind of taste I would still recommend checking him out as his music is so versatile. One of his songs is titled There With You and tells a story about an unknown man trying to reach his beloved Mary Lou. Further in the song it is revealed he is digging up her corpse and that Mary Lou has been dead. After speaking with her corpse he proceeds to shoot himself so he can be there with her in heaven. When he reaches heaven however the angel at the gates informs him Mary Lou is not there. The Jokerr then proceeds to sing out, “well then I guess I’m going down!” for the remainder of the song.

The setting themes in this song are demonstrated in lines like “flowers all in bloom, light on the petals from the moon” “remembering the silo where we kissed.” Furthermore he mentions a fence he is breaking through and a groundskeeper and digging in the earth.  This creates an outdoor, country, farm scenario during the night and a somewhat secluded feeling. The important character themes are an unknown, determined, love sick man, and a dead corpse named Mary Lou. The action themes are most obvious both times the Jokerr sings he is “coming down” to see Mary Lou, once in her grave, and once in hell. However, all of the actions of this unknown man fit the same sort of criteria as he breaks multiple boundaries to join his beloved.

This story fits a fantasy type and perpetuates a rhetorical vision possibly defined as “love can conquer anything.” The setting themes contribute to the rhetorical vision as a feeling of loneliness is developed as the country or a farm could be secluded from many people where clinging to a loved one would help. The character themes develop a very strong bond between the protagonist and Mary Lou. Even though she has died his love has never faltered. The action themes complete the rhetorical vision as the unknown man’s actions break barrier after barrier. He breaks the lock to the property, he stops the groundskeeper from stopping him, he digs past the dirt to get to her physical body, and he breaks the barrier of life and death between them as he takes his life. Finally he even breaks the barrier between heaven and hell. Almost anyone can get involved in this fantasy as when truly in love, many people know the feeling of wanting to move heaven and earth for a loved one.

Metaphor Criticism: Hard As They Come (Act I) by Cunninlynguists

Cunninlynguists are a hip-hop trio who are recognized for their deep and complex songs often with many hidden messages and also their awesome music production. On their album Oneirology there is a song entitled Hard as They Come (Act I) in which all artists in the song tell a verse which is a metaphor about a different “evil” in humanity. For this blog entry I will only be analyzing one of the verses as this song has a wealth of information that I couldn’t possibly get into all at once.

Natti, one member of the trio provides the following verse:

I’m a monster that don’t reside up under your bed
I’m a march to the beat that I put into your head
Send shots to your liver I deliver you death
You can barter your tomorrow but a martyr you’re left
Get you hot under the collar when my name’s on your breath
Click the starter on your Impala I’ll be there when you wreck
Fucking with me you better keep your feelings in check
Be the life of the party or a lifeless body
Get with me thinking you hard, you’ll be hardly standing
I’m the hardest of them all, you’re the hardest landing
Face first in the asphalt, your ass talked
Too reckless, now you helpless from the rounds you caught
I’ll teach your ass a lesson, outlined in chalk
Have you hostage in the hospice, high trying to walk
I am bravery in a bottle, I am courage in a glass
I got the government’s approval, prohibition couldn’t last
I go hard.

The whole verse itself is a metaphor for alcohol, personified as a person who is dangerous and threatening “the drinker”.  The tenor is alcohol and its associated problems, and the vehicles are the various threats of violence apparently coming from another person. The lines “Send shots to your liver I deliver you death”, “Face first in the asphalt, your ass talked, too reckless, now you helpless from the rounds you caught” and “ Fucking with me you better keep your feelings in check, be the life of the party or a lifeless body” are all good examples of this. The tenor alcohol is being explained through the metaphor of someone who you seemingly could have a good time with but who can become angry and violent if you aren’t careful around him.

Natti conceptualizes alcohol as a dangerous substance to be fooling around with that is harming and even killing people. The same vehicle is applied to the same tenor the whole time and I believe it is because Natti really wants you to pick up the message the first time around. The whole verse is filled with war metaphors but more of an urban war. It sounds more like street violence then a battlefield sort of situation which is common of hip hop lyrics. The entire time you are imagining gun play and altercations between people only to realize by the end all the gun play was someone having drinks.

Extra note: I could not find a version on Youtube that was in worthwhile quality so here is a link to their site and album where you can hear every song on their album. Check it out. http://cunninlynguists.bandcamp.com/album/oneirology

Narrative Criticism of Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption is a video game that was created by Rockstar Games in May, 2010. The game is placed in a western setting during the year 1911 where the “Old West” of America is dying off. The protagonist is John Marston, a former outlaw turned rancher. Marston’s wife and son were taken hostage by the government in order to get him to work for them.  The government wants him to hunt down his former gang members from his outlaw days and bring them to justice.

In my opinion the objective of this narrative as a whole is to teach a lesson about the consequences of your actions from the past. A secondary objective I also felt was clear was a somewhat, “enemies have many faces” idea. The major kernels of the story are each time you meet and take down one of your old gang members, and the end betrayal by the government. The objective arises directly from the causal relations. John Marston is being blackmailed strictly because the government has told him he must deal with the consequences of his past life. Marston himself admits to committing murder, robberies and probably many other deeds and knows how many people still view him. They offer to erase his record if he will be their personal bounty hunter.

Marston does eventually catch (or kill) all of his old gang members. Once this is complete the government allows you to return home and see your family again. Unfortunately, after a brief period the government agents return and kill John Marston themselves. He was the final member of the gang their agency was tasked with getting rid of. This again is the direct objective that you cannot just escape the decisions of your past and you must be ready to face the consequences. The second objective is revealed at this point when you realize both opposing forces were your enemy. After spending the whole game hunting your former gang you only find that the true enemy all along was the men you were working for. So who was the true enemy?

This narrative is an example of irony as Marston’s true quest is to leave his past behind and begin an honest life but it turns out his mission is doomed from the start as the government always planned to betray him for his past crimes. Gamers can really feel the negative outcome from Marston as a character. Most games take the approach of a flat or “blank” character so gamers can impose themselves upon it. However, Marston is well rounded and a very versatile character that displays morals but you can constantly break Marston’s character by doing anything you want. Yet Marston’s moral character makes gamers want to fulfill his goals as your own goals. When Marston is killed and you realize his mission is over you can’t help but feel like your own quest was for nothing and instills the objectives even stronger in the audience.

Do The Roots fit the Genre of Rap Music?

The genre of rap music is complicated as so many genres exist within “rap” itself. A few examples of this are gangsta rap, horror-core rap, and conscious rap to name a few. For this analysis the genre of rap as a whole is sufficient as many of the genres of rap conform to the same principles. Stylistically, the word “rap” originally meant rhythm and poetry and all rap conforms to this as they speak their lyrics over the beat of a drum. Rap musicians rarely use the melody of the song to express their lyrics, and if the melody is used it is often in the chorus and can often be sung by another musician, who could be an RnB artist for example. A generic rap song will also tend to follow a pattern of sixteen bars in a verse, and a chorus.

Rap music is also a genre which is not initially about the instruments. The reason rap music is so popular to create is that you do not need to know how to play an instrument. Most rap music is produced in a studio using programs where anyone can manipulate a great wealth of musical instruments and place them in sequences, like a grid. The technique of sampling can also be used in where an instrument or something is sung for example, and then looped into the beat. The content of rap music is often surrounding controversial issues, whether the artists are advocating and glorifying negative issues, or if they are standing against it.

The Roots is a band that consists of a few core members, the other members changing constantly through their long career. The Roots genre of music is hard to define. They conform to many of the elements of rap music and many people classify them as a rap group at first glance. The lyrics of the song are always consistent with the drum beat, their verses are usually sixteen bars and they tackle controversial issues often using questionable language. However, The Roots is a band and all their instrumentals are truly played by instruments. When listening to their music you can feel the looseness and fluidness of it, instead of sounding like a bunch of things placed in specific positions. Their instrumentals are often much closer to being recognized as Jazz or Soul. Also members of the group have pretty good singing voices and many of their songs feature portions of singing for entire verses. There also have only been two or three members of the band who did the rapping.

The audience reception for The Roots is peculiar as well as often people who like music with singing, instruments and no cursing don’t like rap. But The Roots versatile style brings all kinds of people together for different reasons. So is this rap music or not? I think that The Roots fit into rap music but also into many other genres separate from rap. The best way to describe their music truly is that it doesn’t conform to one category, a somewhat quasi-rap/soul/jazz category. This makes it hard to place them in a genre but makes them extremely unique and probably explains much of their appeal.

Extra note: The video above is not a specific song but I felt this video broadcast them as a band well showing them playing the instruments.

Cluster Criticism of “The Day Doesn’t Die” video by Classified

Luke Boyd, better known by his stage name Classified is a Canadian hip-hop musician and producer who is from Enfield, Nova Scotia. His most recent album Handshakes & Middle Fingers featured a song “The Day Doesn’t Die” which had a music video made for it. This video has all kinds of terms/images hidden within it but the key terms/images I will be looking at closest is the drunken father based on the frequency of his appearances and the bottle of Jack Daniels based on its intensity in the video.

The initial scene of the boy’s father shows him passed out on the couch surrounded by empty liquor bottles. A specific one to take note of is the Jack Daniels in his dad’s hand. When he attempts to take the bottle away from his dad they end up getting into a violent altercation where the father ends up hitting the boy. This is the last time you will see the father in an actual present day scenario but images of the father reappear throughout the entire video.

The song itself is about forgiveness and how holding resentment is only hurting you. The father represents resentment and can be seen when every time something unfortunate happens to the boy there are images of the father flashing by. Scenarios involving the father are also often followed by a close up of the boy’s face, only now he is older, and every time you see his face, he is still never smiling. The father is again being associated with negativity, unhappiness and pain. Scenes that are happy such as when he is playing as a child, never includes his father in the scene.

Later in the video the boy is jumped by several men while locking up after work and images of the father hitting him appear in between the violent men. Here a random violent act is being placed in juxtaposition with images of his father. There was no reason this happened to him and no one he could blame but the attackers but instead he still feels the unfortunate things in his life stem from his dad. Towards the end of the video the boy, now fully grown sees a liquor store and images of his drunken father appear again. This happens immediately after he is having some financial problems. Again the father is being placed in a negative context and connected to the symbol of liquor.

The man then purchases a bottle of Jack Daniels. The bottle could represent forgiveness as the bottle was shown at the beginning as the cause of all he had been through. Now instead of trying to take the bottle away from his father, he is bringing “one last drink” to his father’s grave. As he pours out a little whiskey, I’m pretty sure you can see the man mouth “I forgive you.”

Neo-Aristotelian Criticism of Ultimas Palabras by Immortal Technique

Felipe Andres Coronel, better known by his stage name Immortal Technique is an American hip-hop musician who is a dedicated political/urban activist. On his most recent album The Martyr, he gives a spine chilling speech about injustice in the United States. By neo-Aristotelian standards this speech is a success and speaks very powerfully to the audience.

His invention is very effective through his use of pathos and logos. He appeals to the emotions of any who have suffered the pain of inequality, racism, or any other injustice. The audience should feel anger, disgust, even guilt and this is strengthened through his delivery and style. He speaks loud and clear, doesn’t miss a beat and uses strong language such as “slaughtered”, “burnt and damaged children”, and “atrocity.” These images would evoke very strong feelings in anyone. His logos is effective when he alludes to such things as great Empires of the past, theories of humans evolving from Africa, and different polices and laws which have been broken or are questionable. He even uses ethos effectively as those who enjoy his music and know anything about him would know he has struggled growing up in the ghettos of America and Peru and experienced such things as in his speech first hand.

The organization of the speech is good and structured. He separates topics and doesn’t mix anything up, such as the apparent twisted democracy America has become, issues of slavery, issues of immigration and invasion, and skewed laws and corporations.

A final point worth noting is the gunshot at the end. This is a great use of style through a symbol. In his speech he speaks about how his words will be demonized and how those who stand against corruption are often suppressed. The symbol of the gunshot taking him out brings to memory many great people who stood up for what’s right and had their legacy stifled, such as Martin Luther King, John Lennon and many more.