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April 8, 2006
(Forgive, O Lord...)
Hughes and Frost -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy big one on me.
This sounds like lines from a child's prayer with it's ryhme scheme. I am fascinated how poets pack their words with so much. Frost's "The Death of The Hired Man" wasn't as precise. I also enjoyed "Dust of Snow" on page 210. It's another version of the adage to "Stop and Smell the Roses".
Posted by BrendaChristeleit at April 8, 2006 5:20 PM
Comments
I'm curious... What kind of big joke do you think God would play on a child?
Posted by: ChrisU at April 11, 2006 8:35 AM
Voltaire quite famously said, "God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." The poem put me in mind of this.
I think God can play any number of jokes on a child - the children in Flannery O'Connor's work stand out in my mind. Hughes specifically addresses the issue of race in America in many of his poems. I can see where being born black and a genius in a world that sees skin color first, second and third would seem to the young Langston Hughes to be a HUGE cosmic joke.
Posted by: Megan Ritter at April 12, 2006 5:38 PM
Those lines are so versatile virtually anyone could use them since we all might look at our lives and suspect God is playing a joke on us at one time or another.
Frost lost some children if I recall correctly and something like that calls one to question God's motives. But can we discern what God is up to? The conventional answer is no, that God is about bigger things and we can't possibly understand why He does what He does.
We can see no one is spared from His "sense of humor". But realizing correctly that something is a joke is to understand the prankster's sense of humor. Can we really tell when God is playing a joke or not? Tough to tell, I'd wager. Thus, as Megan points out, the audience is afraid to laugh.
Posted by: Matt Hampton at April 23, 2006 10:00 AM