Courage by Anne Sexton

• I chose this song because the artist is making a comparison to her being like titanium, the metal.

• She is resilient and will not be held. She will be courageous through anything life throws at her.

Tone

• Depending how the reader interprets the poem, the tone can vary.
• I find the poem to contain dark subject matter like death and illness, but it bring it bout in a positive way
• Sexton does so by using optimism and courage as a positive outlook on things that are inevitable such as death.

Structure and Theme

Specific Lines

• "It is in the small things we see it. The child's first step,as awesome as an earthquake."
• "The first time you rode a bike, wallowing up the sidewalk."
• "Later, if you faced the death of bombs and bullets you did not do it with a banner, you did it with only a hat to cover your heart. You did not fondle the weakness inside you though it was there."
• "Later, if you have endured a great despair,then you did it alone, getting a transfusion from the fire, picking the scabs off your heart,then wringing it out like a sock."
• "Later, when you face old age and its natural conclusion your courage will still be shown in the little ways, each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen, those you love will live in a fever of love,and you'll bargain with the calendar and at the last moment when death opens the back door you'll put on your carpet slippers and stride out."
• These describe all the stages of life in which a person needs to be courageous.

• Every 9 sentences, Sexton breaks.
• Each grouping of sentences represents a different stage of life.
• The word courage of repeated multiple times throughout.

Anne Sexton

Summary

• Formerly known as Anne Harvey.
• Born in Newton, Massachusetts: November 9, 1928.
• Attended Garland Junior College.
• Also studied with poet Robert Lowell at Boston University working as a model and a librarian.
• Married Alfred M. Sexton in II in 1948 when she was only 19.
• Suffering from postpartum depression, Sexton was admitted to a psychiatric hospital multiple times throughout her life.
• Much like Sylvia Plath, Sexton led a life of mental anguish and immense creativity.
• Sexton got her start in poetry because her doctor suggested it as a coping mechanism, and enrolled in a local poetry workshop.
• Sexton published her first collection, To Bedlam and Part Way Back, in 1960 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1967.
• Sexton died October 4, 1974 by her own hand.

• The meaning of the poem is that throughout a persons life, he or she will be faced with obstacles in which they will have to be courageous to overcome.
• Whether they are as small as taking a first step or even as trivial as approaching death, couarge is needed to overcome these struggles.
• Courage is an ongoing, life long quality needed through life.
• Ex: " When death opens the back door you'll put on your carpet slippers and stride out.
• This means that when deaths comes for you, you'll be ready and will go willingly knowing you had a great life.

Literary Devices

Literary Period

• "Courage" was published in a collection called The Awful Rowing Toward God in 1975, a year after her suicide.
• Absurd literature of the 1970's responded to the seeming illogicality and purposelessness of human life in works marked my lack of clear narrative, understandable psychological motive, or emotional catharsis.

• Examples of literary devices in this poem are similes, personification, enjambment,and alliteration.
• Simile: "The child's first step, as awesome as an earthquake.
• Similie: wringing it out like a sock
• Personification: "The first spanking when your heart went on a journey all alone".
• Personification: "when death opens the back door''.
• Enjambment: "Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone,

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock".

• Alliteration: "Later, if you faced the death of bombs and bullets you did not do it with a banner...".

"Courage" by Anne Sexton

"Courage" by Anne Sexton

Lindsay Clements