Thursday, November 1, 2012

Billy Collins' "Aristotle"

After reading Billy Collins' "Aristotle" poetry Please blog on the following entry: Why is this poem called "Aristotle"? (Read the selection's head note before you answer this question.) Do you see this poem as a commentary on poetry or on life? Please take you time and think deeply about your response.

27 comments:

  1. Why i think this poem is called "Aristotle" is because the poem describes "the best of all". Everything has a beginning, middle, and end. The poem describes everything as it is meaning... The beginning for instances, "the creation of light" was written in the bible and in this poem. Well in the bible it says in the beginning. there is no end or middle to it. Describing middle, "things have had time to get complicated", this is where it mainly happens whatever you may be talking about. But the point is thats where everything happens. Now talking about the End, it pretty much sums it up. It's the final part of a period of time, and activity, or even a story. I do see this poem as a commentary on life, because it talks about life events that are happening in the poem. It is not commentary on poetry.

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  2. The poem, “Aristotle” is named so because of its rhetorical structure. Aristotle, among many other contributions to society, is considered to be one of the founders of this poetic structure. Rhetoric poetry has a beginning, a middle and an end. The poem is quite obviously partitioned likewise. “Aristotle” can be viewed as a commentary on life. Life begins simply with little worry and stress. Over time as you get older, different factors are adding to the mix making living more difficult in some ways but more worth living in others. For example, falling in love can be good and bad. Giving your heart away you makes it susceptible to damage; getting your heart broken, but getting to give your heart to someone and be happy with that person makes the risk worth it. Life ends similarly to how it began, simply. The end of “Aristotle” includes imagery that induce a cold, lonely feeling, “a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.” This leaves the reader feeling somber and quiet.

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  3. I think the poem is calle4d " Aristotle because the describes what is really an everyday thing. It states that a whole is that which has a beginning, a middke, and an end and which you really look at every day life it consists of all three of these in order to have an entire day. AIn the beginning you see the creatin of light and that is the beginning of the day which is light after darkness or in his poetry think of an egg, before the baby is born it's an egg the beginning process and the letter A is the first letter of the alphabets which is also the beginning. The middle is where you have come to reach the halfway mark. By the time you get to the middle of the day you will have made things a klittle complicated or gotten things messy, but in order to get to the end you must have a middle. The end is the final part while every thing you have tried tod will either be successful or be a failure, but it all boils down to how you handle yourself from the beginning to the end and to have a succesful end make sure the middle is okay because once you get to the end that is the final straw. I look at this as a day on the job where you get u0p and go to work and work til 12 and it's time for lunch and once you get over lunch it is all downhill from there becasue it is not long before it is the end of the day and that is what you waited all day for to get a chance to go home and do it all again the next day. I see it as a commentary on life because of the events that is happening in the poem and those are things that we as humans experience on a daily basis.

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    1. Wow! Well put this was very though out and Well communicated. I especialy like the part about a day of work - lunch is definatley the middle. The only thing I would add at the end (Just at the end, and not at the beginning or the middle) is that Life has a beginning middle and an end. Again Bravo.

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  4. I think this poem is named "Aristotle" maybe as a promotion of his work. How he poetically describes The Beginning, Middle and End almost says how much he wishes to honor Aristotle, I think. Collins knows how Aristotle gave his poems structure, a plot, and a reality, so he stuck certain hints of stories linked into each part of the plot. "Almost anything can happen." tells us that we are only beginning this mystery; we don't know where we are yet. "Things have had time to get complicated," says that we now know what's developed/developing from the events that unfolded in the beginning, and now "the car is running out of road," is the author saying that things are closing. When Collins says "This is the end, according to Aristotle," I see Billy giving him credit for Aristotle's structure in his poems.
    I see this poem as a commentary on life. As Dalina stated, he starts off with "the creation of light,". Clearly he is making a statement that the story is coming to life and things are making sense. In the middle, life gets frustrating at times and not easy; this refers to "Nothing is simple anymore." And then he ends it completely with a reference to "falling leaves." as the story is over. In poetic terms, this can be how life is.

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  5. The poem is named "Aristotle" because it is structured the same way Aristotle wrote.Aristotle was "a foundational figure in Western rhetoric..." Aristotle insisted that literary works should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Collins structures his poem in the same way with clear divisions in the sections of the poem. He quite plainly says "this is the beginning" or "this is the middle". By doing so I think he is trying to emphasize the rhetoric style he is going for. If you look a but deeper and read the poem in its entirety, you can see that it really is a commentary on life. He uses many, many literary techniques and poetic words that tends to make it a bit confusing, but the big picture is that of the story of the world.

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  6. The poem by Billy Collins was name Aristotle because of the relationship that he shared with the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle beliefs consist of "a whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and end." I believe this poem is a commentary on poetry and his life. At points in the poem I see strong informal messages, focusing more on the experience of the authors analysis and how the poem affected him. Yet, at times in the poetry I experienced interpreted statements about personal choices. The poem carried strong imagery and individualism on subjects that don't relate to him.

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  7. This poem is called Aristotle simply because the way it is structured it has a beginning a middle and an end. He starts off talking about creation or the beginning in a way that is easy to follow to the middle and eventually the end.I strongly believe that this poem is a commentary on life he uses strong and vivid images on life.I think that this poem would help a person understand things about life and what happens. He does a good job explaining things in detail maybe things that he experienced or things that he thinks every human can experience in life.

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  8. Billy collins named his poem "Aristole" because Aristole is a Greek Philosopher and examines the principles behind effective poetry. Aristole poems are complete, and are unified whole. Which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Collins adopted Aristole's principle guides in his own work. Collins believe his work has a rhetorical structure just like Aristole. Both writers work share a beginning, a middle, and an end concept. I see this poem as a commentary on life. In life we all are given a beginning(birth), a middle(high school), and an end (adulthood). The end is what we make it out to be.

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    1. I agree with Elizabeth blog because in life we do all have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I never realized it, but the poem made it so clear. That's why i agree with Elizabeth because we both see that the poem was a commentary on life.

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  9. Aristole is a greek philosopher who studies the principles behind good and effective poetry. Aristole writings are incredible alot of his writings are still used today. I believe Collins called his poem Aristole because he believed that his writings had the same structure as Aristole. I believe this poem is a commentary on life. I say this because Life has many different stages as so does Collins poem With A beginning, Middle, and End. Collins also uses a lot of analogies based on life in his poem.

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  10. The poem is titled "Aristotle" based on the rhetoric structure Collins uses. The Greek philosopher's style was to include a beginning, middle, and end. Collins reflects that in this work. I also believe that this work is a commentary on life. In life, like this poem, we each have a beginning, middle, and end. The way he starts off, using the image of light, shows our basic understanding of the world at a young age. As the story continues, things get rough and confusing, as does life.

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  11. This poem is called "Aristotle" because this is the name of the man who wrote this poem. He is described as a "foundational figure in Western rhetoric, physics, logic, and politics. He believes that every poem needs to have a beginning, middle, and an end. I believe this poem is like a commentary on poetry because it describes in each paragraph different ways you could go with your poem. Every paragraph gives different suggestions on how to start a beginning, middle, or end. This poem makes you think.

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  12. It is called “Aristotle” because it is based on his three elements necessary for a complete plot of a play: the beginning, middle and ending.

    I think this poem was meant to be more about Aristotle’s elements than life itself. It used examples from our lives but only as tools to more effectively portray Aristotle’s idea.

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  13. Billy Collins named this poem Aristotle after the greek Philosopher Aristotle that believed that the plot of a play is not complete without a beginning, middle, and end. This poem directly talks about what people expect in the beginning, middle, and end of anything. I dont think this poem is directed towards only nature or a poem structure, I think it refers to life as whole. When we are first born we are immature and meek. Then we grow up and things start to get complicated; Jobs, education, figuring out your purpose in life. Then at the end you find out whether everything you went through was worth the struggle and if you accomplished what you worked so hard for. A dramatic close to anyones story.

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  15. I think this poem is called "Aristotle" because he uses Aristotle's philosophy in his poem. Aristotle defines a whole as having three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. In Billy Collins' poem "Aristotle", it has three parts a beginning, a middle, and an end. This poem is a commentary on life. It talks about the beginning where like a child any thing is possible and anything can happen. In the middle, you are stuck in everything and can't do anything anymore. In the end, everything or life is starting to slow down and things aren't as busy.

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  16. It is named Aristotle after the philosopher who believed the plot of a play should have a beginning, middle and an end. I believe the poem is talking mainly about life. It starts as the beginning of a person's life, when we are born(Young, immature, etc) then moves on to the middle where life gets a bit more difficult(Jobs, School, etc) and lastly at the end where you find out the struggles and pains were worth the work you did.

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  17. I believe that they called the poem "Aristotle" because of how the poem was written. Aristotle was a a Greek philosopher. He believed that everything has beginning , middle and end. With this poem Billy Collins went from the beginning and work his way to the end. He basically went through and a story on how different things can happen in each stage. I see this as a poetry about life.

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  18. Billy Collins named his poem "Aristotle" because of the views that the Greek Philosopher himself had. He believed that everything had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is a commentary on life because like the poem, life can be catagorized as having a beginning, a middle, and an end.

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  19. Billy Collins poem was titled Aristole because it defines the principles behind effective poetry and drama. Pretty much saying a poem should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In this poems he tells you his self where the beginning is, then the middle, and then the end. Simple as that. I see this poem as a commentary on life because the poem is just describing how the world is. Like when he said "The car running out of road, The river losing its name in an ocean" to me this means sooner or later we will hit our dead end with no where to go. Oceans over rising rivers and soon will over rise the world. We live in a world that can change any minute and to me Billy Collins was trying to state that in his poem Aristole.

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  20. I believe Billy Collins named the poem "Aristotle" simply because of the Greek Philosopher "Aristotle" who lived his life to the fullest. I feel he tried to make a connection between the life of Aristotle and his poem, by highlighting their main similarities (beginning, middle, and end). I also feel that this poem is a commentary on Life, because of the the things that follow (In the beginning, This is the middle, At this is the end) are all true statements about life.

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  21. I believe this poem was titled "Aristotle" because Aristotles philosophy was used in the poem. I feel that the author tried to form a connection between aristotles life and the poem. He talks about a Whole being three parts (begining, middle, end). I also believe that it is more of a commentary due to the way it is written and how each paragraph tells you how you could write your begining, middle, and end.

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  22. I think that Billy Collins' poem "Aristotle" is called such because Aristotle was the first one to come up with the idea of the three part writing system - beginning, middle and end. Billy Collins agreed with Aristotle and used the form in his poem, marking three clear sections. Then he wrote on the beginning, middle and end. The entire poem is based off Aristotle's "three elements to be a complete unified whole," in both structure and the content of the poem. I see this poem as a commentary on life, showing you different signs of each step and how they connect to together to form something we know.

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  23. The poem is titled "Aristotle" because in a way it is a form of sattire based off of Aristotle's theory that a plot of a play requires a beginning, a middle, and end to be complete. Billy Collins took this theory, exaggerated it, and molded it to relate literature to life. The poem starts off speaking about how in the beginning anything can happen. Then life begins and choices begin to mold our journey in this life. We get to the middle and as the saying goes, life happens; things start to get tough, we hurt, we fall, we break. Then just when we get to the point when we feel life is almost pontless, things make sense and we begin to understand more and more about our lives and about life in general. Finally we reach the end, we all reach it in different ways, but this is the end and just like that we are gone from this world and onto the afterlife.

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  24. This poem is called aristotle, because Aristotle wrote some of the earliest known works on literay theory, and each poem, story or play needs a beginning, middle, and end to be considered a whole. This Poem is all about beginnings middles and ends. I believe that this poem is a commentary on life because life has a begining middle and an end. This poem is deep, its funny, it sad just like life. It includes life events that are beginning, middle, and ends. Somtimes life can be like poetry especially when you see a beautiful sky or a beautiful landscape.

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  25. The idea of a story having a beginning, a middle, and an end was first brought up by the most famous Philosopher Aritotle. That is why Billy Collins names his poem after Aristotle because this poem talks about life. How life has its wonderful beginnings, it's ups and downs in the middle, and the lessons that are learned at the end. I personally agree that the title is amazing for what the poem is talking about.

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