The shear volume of classic / canonical poetry on the internet is awe-inspiring. I would like to use T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" as a starting point for poetic analysis on the internet.
I've already done a Google search for the poem, and I would like you to read these three versions of the same poem. Note that before the URL, I've named these web pages in the same manner as their authors have. Hopefully this will allow us to begin to distinguish them.
- The Hollow Men - http://www.blight.com/~sparkle/poems/hollow.html
- "The Hollow Men" - http://www.columbia.edu/itc/tc/scfu4016/hollow.html
- A Hypertext Version of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" - http://www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Poem.htm
- Read the identical poems in this order.
- Read each version before you move to the next one.
- Do not scan them, take note of their differences and similarities.
- Make notes as you read to help you understand the meaning of the poem.
- Look up, and then write down all the words you do not understand. I suggest the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, but since you are already online, go to www.m-w.com (The Merriam - Webster Online Dictionary).
- Ask yourself, are the poems different from one another?
- Is one version harder to read than another? Why (Consider colour and layout)?
- Does the reader's understanding of the theme of the poem change from any particular version?
- How can a reader be sure of the authenticity of a poem on the internet?
- What are the benefits and disadvantages to having poetry on the internet?
- Are there historical or editorial reasons for changes in these poems?
23 comments:
No doubt ably, the Format and View Will affect your Overall Opinion
I know the themes of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness well enough to know that a poem being written in direct comparison to Marlow’s experience up the Congo river not to be written in a cheerful, bright yellow font with a purple, spring-like coloured background. Luckily, I knew of the Hallow men in the novel that helped while reading through T.S Elliot’s “The Hallow Men” allowing me to grasp a clear understanding of what was being depicted.
Imagery of a surreal ‘kingdom’ where the sunlight was broken, the trees’ leaves blew in the wind as you can hear faint voices singing quite far away was portrayed in the beginning of the poem. As Elliot wants his readers to understand the place he described – he compares ideas of the imagination and these ideas becoming a reality, “Between the conception and the creation” (78-79). When what you think might happen combined with your worst fears actually occurs, you have found yourself in ‘deaths dream kingdom’. Living in a place that is dreamlike to the point where you feel meaningless is the feeling I felt as I continued on reading stanza for stanza of a bazaar suffering. The hallow men were capable of evil, and are now living in a hell which may be where Marlow’s journey is taking place.
To feel the evil theme as well as the emptiness and the suffering themes – the poem is best displayed in a simple, clear cut format; otherwise the readers understanding may become distorted of Elliot’s message. Although it is convenient to be able to have an online library to use twenty-four/seven, if a searcher was not as fortunate to have read Heart of Darkness and stumbles across and yellow and purple, joined stanza version of T.S Elliot’s poem – they won’t have the right information. Readers can be sure that a poem is sending of the right message by doing background information on possible reasons to what the poem is related to and maybe even on the author of the poem.
With underlined, highlighted in blue phrases being selectively picked out in the poem on one of the websites, I found myself reading over the same sentence again and again. Subconsciously my mind thought these were the lines that directly influenced the theme of the poem which may or may not have been correct (who am I to know if the source is reliable or not) and this may have made me miss out on some very important lines. The structure of the poem-whether it be the italicized words or the breakup of stanzas- are all necessary because it contributes to the meaning of the poem by breaking up the imagery. It is unsafe to trust a website without background information on the poem because the understanding may be drastically different.
No doubt ably, the Format and View Will affect your Overall Opinion
I know the themes of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness well enough to know that a poem being written in direct comparison to Marlow’s experience up the Congo river not to be written in a cheerful, bright yellow font with a purple, spring-like coloured background. Luckily, I knew of the Hallow men in the novel that helped while reading through T.S Elliot’s “The Hallow Men” allowing me to grasp a clear understanding of what was being depicted.
Imagery of a surreal ‘kingdom’ where the sunlight was broken, the trees’ leaves blew in the wind as you can hear faint voices singing quite far away was portrayed in the beginning of the poem. As Elliot wants his readers to understand the place he described – he compares ideas of the imagination and these ideas becoming a reality, “Between the conception and the creation” (78-79). When what you think might happen combined with your worst fears actually occurs, you have found yourself in ‘deaths dream kingdom’. Living in a place that is dreamlike to the point where you feel meaningless is the feeling I felt as I continued on reading stanza for stanza of a bazaar suffering. The hallow men were capable of evil, and are now living in a hell which may be where Marlow’s journey is taking place.
To feel the evil theme as well as the emptiness and the suffering themes – the poem is best displayed in a simple, clear cut format; otherwise the readers understanding may become distorted of Elliot’s message. Although it is convenient to be able to have an online library to use twenty-four/seven, if a searcher was not as fortunate to have read Heart of Darkness and stumbles across and yellow and purple, joined stanza version of T.S Elliot’s poem – they won’t have the right information. Readers can be sure that a poem is sending of the right message by doing background information on possible reasons to what the poem is related to and maybe even on the author of the poem.
With underlined, highlighted in blue phrases being selectively picked out in the poem on one of the websites, I found myself reading over the same sentence again and again. Subconsciously my mind thought these were the lines that directly influenced the theme of the poem which may or may not have been correct (who am I to know if the source is reliable or not) and this may have made me miss out on some very important lines. The structure of the poem-whether it be the italicized words or the breakup of stanzas- are all necessary because it contributes to the meaning of the poem by breaking up the imagery. It is unsafe to trust a website without background information on the poem because the understanding may be drastically different.
The Internet: A Hollow World
The three versions of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”--although identical at first glance—have slight differences; some parts are missing and there are spelling errors. As minor as these might be, in poetry, every tiny detail is an integral part of the poem as a whole. The version found at www.blight.com begins with a spelling error in the first line. I really doubt Conrad or Eliot intended a Mistah “Kurz” to be announced dead instead of Kurtz. The www.comlunbia.edu version didn’t even have the line. No internet source can be trusted to provide a poem in its exact original form.
The easiest of the three poems to read was the one found at www.aduni.org. It was clear and even had numbered lines. It provided explanations for parts of the poem that were easy to access with only one click of the mouse. These explanations are mainly focused on the sources of Eliot’s ideas, providing insight on the overall theme of the poem by presenting the reader with other themes that Eliot has used. The first version uses yellow font on a purple background, two very inappropriate colours to use for a poem about hollow men. There is no need for any vibrancy of colours for a poem with a central theme of the emptiness of humanity.
The internet is littered with poetry but as with the example of “The Hollow Men”, online poetry cannot be trusted to provide accurate versions of the poem. Anyone can post a poem on the internet which is what makes it an unreliable source for studying literature when compared to a library. On the other hand, the internet does provide easy access to the poetry and also encourages the reading and studying of it. Whether the convenience outweighs the possible inaccuracy is up to the internet user to decide but background research on the poem can make certain of its authenticity. Surfer beware.
Is the one who posted the poem a hollow man?
T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” is a very dark and descriptive play. I feel that it needs to be displayed in the right way so that the meaning can be received by the reader in the best possible way. These three poems are very different in appearance, but are exactly alike text wise. However, just because the poems are the same in their text does not mean that you receive the same meanings from them.
I found that no particular poem out of the three was easier to read than another, however I did get a different feel for each poem when they were read individually. The first poem was possibly the hardest poem for me to read because of the tacky visuals. The colors do not seem to fit this dark poem. I would have probably had an easier time reading it if I copied the text down and just read it off my paper. The second poem was my favourite one to read because of its simplicity, and its layout. I think that the text was laid out perfectly, making it easier to read and understand. The third poem was typically the best version of the poem of the three choices because it provided information on lines that the reader may not understand. The understanding of the theme may differ from reading the first and second poems to the third poem since the first and second poems do not feature any background information about anything. I think that if the layout of the second poem was mixed with the information that the third poem gives, it would result in a really good and easy to read version of “The Hollow Men”.
A reader cannot be sure about a poem’s authenticity on the internet without some sort of copyright by an author or book. For all I know, these versions of “The Hollow Men” could be fake because there is nothing there on the websites to prove their authenticity. It could have easily been edited by the artist, giving me a completely different meaning from the original poem. Along with this, the explanations on the third poem could be false, and could give you a false meaning of the poem. These are things that you must keep your eye on when using the internet. Nobody will really look into the authenticity because of the simplicity of finding it on the internet. If two or three versions of the poem are found on the internet, and they contain the exact same text, then it is assumed that the poem is authentic. This is the disadvantage of finding poetry on the internet. Most people will look past the authenticity of the poem because it is so much easier to just look it up on the internet rather than actually going to a library to search for the poem.
The Hollow Men of the Internet
The internet is perhaps one of the easiest ways for any individual to gather information these days. However, due to it being so accessible, it has become difficult to distinguish useful and relevant information, as opposed to that which was put there by everyday individuals. Any person with internet access could easily post information on the internet, and claim it as true. In the case the poem “The Hollow Men”, by T.S Elliot, it is evident that the internet has both its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to finding forms of literature on the internet.
At a glance, I already knew the first poem would be a mission on its own to read simply because of the horrid background colors. A purple background with a yellow font not only makes the poem much more difficult to read, but even more difficult to focus on because of having to occasionally look away from the bright yellow font. Additionally, it did not suit the theme of the poem at all. “The Hollow Men” has a very dark theme to it, and the host of this website chose to use a purple background with yellow font. This really took away from the effect of the poem. The second poem was defiantly the most pleasing to the eye. It was very straightforward and clear cut, which made it much easier to read. Overall though, the third poem helped me understand the poem much more because information was easily accessible. At the click of a mouse, I was able see additional information about the various lines in the poem. Furthermore, the layout of the third was still easy enough to read, which made the additional information displayed very effective.
The authenticity of the anything on the internet could be easily question. In the first poem, the line first line “Mistah Kurz”, has a typo! There was no Mr. Kurz in Heart of Darkness, but there was definitely a Mr. Kurtz. The simple fact that the lines have not even been edited enough to notice such a simple typo shows that the poem could not be completely true. The second poem did not even contain this line. For all I know, all three of these poems could be completely false as I have never read the original. There are no forms of citation from any publisher, and therefore these three poems could be false in its entirety. With the internet, it is not always very clear, and sometimes we must do some research to be more accurate. It has just become easier and more convenient to use the internet rather than a book. Even when looking up the words I did not understand, I used the internet because it is much faster than opening up a massive dictionary to find the two or three words I needed to look up.
Finally, I did not find the theme of the poem to change between the three versions. Overall, the main differences I found of the three poems were cosmetic. The fact that one thing was spelled differently from another, or the page being formatted different does not change what the author is trying to say. Someone did not take their time in order to make the poem visually appealing in the first website. The second website had the most visually appealing way to show the poem, and the third one had a lot more background information. This shows that an advantage of having poetry on the internet is that it makes it easily accessible, and could ultimately help readers with poetry. If the layout is nice, and there are hyperlinks to annotations on the text, the reader will get a much better understand of the poem; providing all the information is true. It is also much easier and quicker to access. On the other hand, a disadvantage of poetry on the internet lies in its authenticity. Everybody has access to the internet, and therefore they could post they want and claim it to be true. With a publisher, you must have it edited and copyright information to enforce its authenticity. Also, there may be changes due to historical reasons. Though I did not notice any historical changes, there very well may be some. History is constantly being revisited and occasionally proven false. Should this happen, the meaning of some poems may change.
Overall, poetry on the internet is extremely useful and easy to access, but nothing beats grabbing an actual book and reading it from that. By taking the time to look up the poem in a book will simply make the experience much more worth while, especially if the internet version does not have any proof of where it was taken from. It may not be as quick and convenient, but rest assured it will be true.
Validity is Sensational
The internet is a great source for information, but when searching for this information, it is important to discern the validity of the text being read. There are many websites dedicated to poetry, providing copies of poems available in an instance. However, it is often that these websites are deemed unacceptable due to incorrect or inaccurate versions of the poem. When reading through three versions of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”, there were certain details that differed from each poem. The style, text, and understanding of the poem changed from each poem.
Websites created for scholarly purposes should be written in a professional manner, eliminating spelling and grammatical errors. If a website has mistakes and is written poorly, it will be seen as unprofessional. There are spelling mistakes and words removed within the first two poems. These errors create doubt in the readers mind, making it difficult to trust the authenticity of the poem. From the website Blight.com, the first version of “The Hollow Men” contains an incorrect spelling of Kurtz. The last line from the first website, “Not with a bang but with a whimper,” differs from the Columbia version where the second ‘with’ was removed. While these spelling mistakes and word eliminations are minor, they are essential when determining the legitimacy of the website. The website that proved to be more legitimate, as well as more helpful, was the hypertext version of the poem. Nicely formatted, the layout allowed the reader to understand any unknown phrases that are highlighted in blue. Providing information on the allusions found within the poem and the history of the author makes it much easier to understand the purpose and theme of the poem. This version of “The Hollow Men” provides the date the poem was written, line numbers, and appropriate spelling and format.
It is obvious that the purpose of “The Hollow Men” is to illustrate the struggle of evil and emptiness within oneself. However, the process to develop the theme was intricate. While reading the first two versions, it was difficult to understand the poem’s theme. The hypertext version provided historical facts, the author’s history, and allusions found within the poem. The details and facts provided by the creator of the website allowed the reader to realize the purpose and meaning of the poem more completely. The simple white layout, much like the Columbia website, made it easier to concentrate on the poem itself, without a beginning influence from colours or pictures.
Except for a few differences, the three websites providing a copy of T.S. Eliot’s, “The Hollow Men”, are very alike. Unless one owns an original copy, it is hard to determine the correct version of the poem. This is the disadvantage to having poetry on the internet – the unawareness of what is real or false. While having poetry available within seconds in beneficial, it is important to remember that not everything is correct. Taking caution when reading poetry on the internet is critical.
Accessibility before Authenticity
In the time of computers and the internet, students will often not even leave the comfort of their own homes to search for research articles, newspapers, novels, and even poetry. The Internet is a great tool which saves time and can immediately find you a million hits for one topic, providing you with a great database of information for assignments, projects and papers. But how can one really be sure of the legitimacy of what they are reading? Can these one million hits all be linked to the exact same article, error-free? Are the way things written on the internet affect ones personal interpretation of what they are reading? I was about to find out by reading through three identical articles of T.S. Elliot’s, “The Hollow Men.”
I start off with the first poem at http://www.blight.com/~sparkle/poems/hollow.html. As the page loads, I find myself staring at a bluish-purple screen which causes an instant surprise. The font appears on the page in a yellow colour which does provide a good contrast to the purple background. The poem itself is very easy to read and the font was a standard one without any undistinguishable letters. I got through this poem pretty fast and without and misunderstandings as to what I was reading. At the last minute, I notice the spelling error on “Kurtz” which was spelled “Kurz”. I wonder as to why someone would leave the spelling error on the first line of the famous poem, but shrug it off and move on to the next poem.
As the second poem at http://www.columbia.edu/itc/tc/scfu4016/hollow.html loads, I see the Courier New font and do not even want to read it. It’s written on a simple white background with the standard black font to go along with the old-fashioned typing. I did not enjoy reading this version at all. One thing I noticed after reading the poem and then looking over it again was that the first line of the poem was completely eliminated. Did the writer not see the first line? Was it done on purpose? I wasn’t sure but was starting to get worried after reading two versions of the same poem, both with errors.
When I saw the layout of the last poem at http://www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Poem.htm the poem immediately looked longer. It took me a while to figure out what all the text was on the right-hand side of the page, but I realize that it was linked to the poem. This poem really helped me to understand some of the poem regarding books and other poems that I have not read but which have an influence on “The Hollow Men”. I enjoyed reading this version because of the analysis on the side but after seeing the errors in the last two poems, I was skeptical as to the authenticity of this analysis.
All in all, the poems were very similar to one another and only really varied in their layouts. The first poem was very easy to read thanks to the contrasting colours of the background and font. I was discouraged by the second poem thanks to the Courier font. The third poem was also a plain layout but the page was filled with text and analysis which got me into the poem.
As noted earlier, the first two poems had errors which led me to believe that some of the analysis in the third poem might be false. There is no way one can be sure of the validity of anything on the internet unless you are familiar with the work. If you were to search “The Hollow Men” on Google, and read only the second poem I read, you would be completely unaware of the first line in the poem. Despite these disadvantages, there are many advantages to the Internet. For one, you can read also anything without leaving your home to go to the public library or your local bookstore. The Internet is also fast, leading you to thousands of copies of one work of literature.
After seeing how the text of a poem can change from one website to the next, I will surely be more careful when reading works on the Internet. It is always best to read from books and not text re-typed onto a website but sometimes things can be found much faster on the Internet. To many people, accessibility will come before authenticity.
Define “Hollow”
The internet is a wonderful tool that aids everyone in everyday life. Whether it is used for school projects, business, or entertainment one must always be careful and look out for any signs indicating the website is invalid. A prime example of this is T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men”. A simple Google search of “The Hollow Men” retrieves about 155,000 results; all of which are probably not identical to one another. Out of the three poems assigned, all are not equal.
The first of the three poems is the easiest to read, with larger font than the other two this poem has another interesting aspect – colour. The dark purple/blue backsplash creates an omniscient feeling and the contrast of the mysterious mustard yellow text pops out from the contrasting purple. The colour used is representative of the theme of man and the ‘hollowness’ inside all humans. The other two poems are simply in black text with a white background creating somewhat of a blank slate. However, the last version is in hyper-text and at first glance seems impossible to read. Yet the poem itself is present with something that none of the others include: background information. The hyper-text poem allows someone who has no knowledge of events relating to “The Hollow Men” or "Heart of Darkness" fully understand the concepts of the poem and the important allusions it contains. Although confusing to look at this poem presents itself with all the information needed to make conclusions about theme and overall understand the poem itself. Textual differences in all three poems are only minor, yet vital when researching the validity of each poem. The understanding of the theme of “The Hollow Men” remains the same for each poem.
The rest of “The Hollow Men” poems on the internet probably have, more or less, the same mistakes as the three assigned poems which just enforces the importance of researching sources and making sure what you have found on the internet is legitimate. Just like everything in life, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, if you want a secure internet source, you must research it thoroughly and trust it.
On Reliability of the Interweb
However abundant the amount of classical poetry found on the internet is, it takes a critical eye to pick which versions are worth reading. Having thoroughly studied three versions of T.S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men”, it is hard to ignore the effectiveness of one adaptation over another. Somewhere between the riddling of erroneous spelling, and neglectful omissions, some of the poem’s influence is lost. Elliot would undoubtedly have been appalled by the way his famous and acclaimed poetry has been so ignorantly typed up by someone with no sense of its value (taking into consideration that the errors in the poem on these pages remain uncorrected). These errors and alterations would most obviously skew my scrutiny of the poem, even without having read the poem in its intended hard copy edition.
The poems differ most obviously between versions being closer to how the poem is intended to be published. Of course the transcriber of “The Hollow Men” on the first site, www.blight.com, remains unnamed; who would want to be held responsible for the destruction of a piece of great modern literature? It is clear that whoever published the first poem loves literature truly, as only one with the dedication to raze the pieces of not only Elliot, but Conrad as well by calling Kurtz “Kurz” could. However, a typo could not stand up to the disgrace of the exclusion of one of the most famous lines in modern literature, as the scholar from Columbia University who copied the poem for did. Yet the obvious are not the only misrepresentations I believe are apparent in the various internet editions of “The Hollow Men”.
The formatting of the poem on the first site not only made it an eye sore, but I found it to be a terrible perversion of the nature of the poem. Yellow on purple, ouch is what first comes to mind, but upon second thought, such joyous and royal colours are in opposition of not only the poem’s dark nature, but also the ties that it has to the trek up the Congo, and the seven levels of hell. The formatting of second poem, on the other hand, I found great. I found a bit of control+scrolling necessary, but aside from that, it was clear and concise, without taking anything away from the poem.
My reasoning for neglecting the edition of the poem from www.aduni.org is because, in my opinion, it is flawless in its usefulness. Between the understandable and to the point formatting, and the Godsend that is its referencing notes, it made the poem not only more visually appealing, but it made all the difference, only having a high school understanding of the concepts from Heart of Darkness, and never having read any of the other referenced literature applicable to the poem. My understanding of the poem increased vastly, and without the third version, I most likely would not have grasped the poem as a whole at all. The numbered lines would also be very beneficial in referencing had I been writing a critical essay of the poem or something of the like. Overall, the third edition has been found to be easily utilizable; however, the accuracy is still in question.
The authenticity of any work can only be truly verified by cross referencing it with its original, hard copy version. Just comparing internet versions who do not even have an author owning up to them is highly unreliable, and should not even be considered in determining its authenticity. However widespread and accessible the internet makes not only poetry, but all information, without reputable or authorized sources, it could possibly severely skew the meaning of the piece for young and impressionable readers who do not know enough not to give the internet the benefit of the doubt. No matter the conflicts and changes of current times regarding political correctness, art is hard; changing a piece as monumental as “The Hollow Men” is a disgrace to art in all forms.
Virtual Poetry
The poem "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot's, portrays an image of humanity that is disturbing as well as insightful. It does not matter whether you read the first, second or third Internet version of the poem, the theme is transcendent enough to overcome any of the punctuation and small literary differences in the three versions examined.
The poem itself is very difficult to understand. Due to the complexity of the theme of the poem, Eliot uses a lot of symbols and imagery and many other literary devices to present his ideas about humanity and its nature to the reader. However, in the end the theme remains unchanged and Eliot's message is still delivered effectively although, some versions of the same poem deliver his message more effectively.
The third version is the easiest version to read. It has notes on the side that help the reader understand Eliot's message by referencing other works of his and making direct comparisons between the themes found in Heart of Darkness alluding to Marlow's experience in Africa. Personally, I would not have understood the theme clearly without reading the side notes found in the third version of the poem because I could have only linked the poem to Heart of Darkness and not to the other literary pieces that are mentioned -such as the Bible- in the poem.
As for the benefits and disadvantages to having poetry on the Internet, it must be clearly emphasized that the Internet is a very accessible and useful tool used to acquire any type of information, having said that, it is a sword that can cut both ways. Because it is easily accessible, anyone can post and write anything they like and this can lead to issues of authenticity and modifications of a text. In order to avoid such problems, one should read copies of the same text from different sources or visit a library and look for a book that has the poem.
What It’s Like To Be Hollow
The poem by T.S. Elliot “The Hollow Men” has different versions to it. The only difference between the poems would be the last line of the first version. The last line “Not with a bang but with a whimper contains the word “with” after bang. The other versions only say “Not with a bang but a whimper.” For some reason the first version with the purple background is the easiest to read, something to do with the color. The white backgrounds of the other ones don’t help me to make a picture of what I read, hollow men in a cellar. I don’t know how the color of the background does that.
From all of the versions I think the writer is trying to get the readers to think of hollow men and what that must feel like, putting us in the shoes of someone like Kurtz from “The Heart of Darkness”. A reader can’t really be sure of the authenticity of a poem on the internet. I think the benefit of having poetry on the internet is just the fact that students, who use the internet a lot, have easy access to poetry to do their homework. I can’t think of the disadvantages of having poetry on the internet.
The editorial and historical reasons for changes in these poems are that people in the past found writings with color to help them think of images and would be easier to read. Maybe people in the past weren’t very different than people today.
A New Type of Library?
T.S. Elliot’s poem, The Hollow Men can be interpreted in several ways, with several meanings. The first impression that the reader has when reading the poem, can be effected, sub-consciously, by the color, layout, and location of the poem. Personally, I found the most effective version of the poem, to be the first one, from the link: http://www.blight.com/~sparkle/poems/hollow.html. This was the most effective, for me, because it was the most complete version of all three. The color of the background reflected the theme of the poem, so right away, as a reader; I had some sort of idea of the theme before I even read the poem. This helped me to get into a certain mindset, which allowed me to understand the poem with more clarity. At the beginning of the first poem, right under the title, it had the quote: “Mistah Kurtz – he dead,” followed by: “A Penny for the Guy!” Which I found helped, because of the background I have, in reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This too, helped me to understand the theme, and relate it back to something that I was familiar with, which is a goal of all writers.
I found the second version from: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/tc/scfu4016/hollow.html too plain, with a white background, as well as an eliminated sub-title sentence: “Mistah Kurtz – he dead.” This line may have been removed for historical reasons, as; to some people it has a racist implication, as many view Conrad to be a racist. Although this line being removed may have left more to the imagination, for someone like myself, it was not good, because I could not relate it, right away, to something that I am familiar with. The indentation in the stanzas, after the first stanza in each part did not really have an effect on me, as I am not sure what the creator of this version was trying to do, or get across. However, what I did like about this version of the poem was the centered lines in part five of the poem. The fact that they were centered made myself, as a reader, sense that they were lines of importance, which, in the end, I believe to be true.
In my opinion, the third version (Hypertext) of T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men was the most difficult to read. Although it may have been the most complete version of the poem, including all titles and sub-titles, along with the year it was written and an analysis, it was definitely the hardest to read, and form an opinion around. I think that the location of the poem, at the left side of the page, makes the poem seem of less importance, as well as the color scheme being a white background does not tap into the reader’s senses, as I thought the first poem did. I did not enjoy the fact that the meanings of what other people think T.S. Elliot was trying to get across in this poem, took up most of the page. I think that the analysis is not a good idea, because before I read it, I had an opinion of what I think the poem is about, and after reading it, I was second guessing my meaning, which had similar aspects, but was not as formal. It goes back to using ‘Sparknotes.com’ for the meaning of theme in a book, it is not as special if you do not come up with it on your own, even though your meaning may be incorrect in some aspects.
A reader can never be one-hundred percent sure that the authenticity of the poem that they got off of the internet is completely correct. Chances are that many of them will have slight differences, as seen in the three versions disguised above. However, the majority of these poems will be relatively the same; some may be watered down slightly more than others, but the reader should still be able to find the theme if they are educated enough.
The advantages of having poetry on the internet is pure convenience, almost every poem ever published can be found somewhere on the internet, if you are willing to look. However the disadvantages are that some versions may not be the original; they may be chopped up, so they are ‘easier’ to understand. But in the end, the reader will most likely be able to get from the poem, what the author originally intended, and establish their own meanings, and it is for that reason, I would say that poems on the internet are more of a tool than not.
"Mistah Kurz"?
T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”, describes Eliot’s view on man’s ability to be completely spiritually empty. He does this through illustrating several fictional characters that he believes to have been overtaken by their hollowness, one in particular being Kurtz, in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Throughout the novel, the reader is lead to believe that a group of incredibly hollow men are searching for a man that is the completely opposite, but upon meeting Kurtz, the reader learns otherwise. Although incredibly bright, Kurtz enters the Congo spiritually empty, and is eventually taken over by the prospect of power, representing the result of being a hollow man. Like most great poems, “The Hollow Men” has been absorbed by the internet and there are several different versions available at the click of a button. Three selected versions, although incredibly similar, have a few distinctions, and are an example of the web’s ability to present poetry in different manners.
All of the words in the poems are identical, and the only obvious variances between them are the differences in background and font selection. However, when taking a closer look there are several differences to be noted on the three versions. For example, there are a few grammatical changes from version to version. The first website, titled “The Hollow Men”, has a stanza, with lines 68-71, in normal text, while the other two sites have them italicized. It seems as though Eliot uses the italics to indicate someone else’s words, or a reference to a famous quote. By leaving the words, “Here we go round the prickly pear […] At five o’clock in the morning”, in normal text, the reader does not get the full understanding that Eliot wanted to portray. This section of the poem seems to have almost a lyrical and tuneful intonation, but without the italics, the reader is left to assume that it is part of Eliot’s normal speech. Also, the third version, “A Hypertext Version of T.S. Eliot's ‘The Hollow Men’”, did not have breaks between stanzas, making it incredibly difficult to tell where the stanzas began and ended. A strange difference between the websites was that they all had the lines “Mistah Kurtz – he dead. / A penny for the Old guy” in different forms. The first had a spelling error on the word Kurtz, and said “a penny for the guy!”, the second did not have “Mistah Kurtz – he dead” at all, and the third separated the two lines with the title of the poem. As far as legibility is concerned, the most difficult to read was the first version, “The Hollow Men”, primarily because of the purple background and yellow font. The second version, “‘The Hollow Men’” is very plain and incredibly easy to read. The third version, although extremely educational, has frequent blue underlined font linking to historical explanation, which becomes distracting.
Through reading the three different versions, I did not find that the theme changed at all. It is easy to recognize Eliot’s theme that one who is spiritually dead, is essentially hollow inside, and therefore can very easily become corrupted. Although it is incredibly easy to find what you are looking for quickly on the web, it is exceptionally difficult to be able to tell whether or not an internet source is reliable. Even when looking at these examples, it is easy to see that there have been few, but important changes made. If one chooses to use the internet as their chief source to find a poem, they should be sure to find several versions so that they are able to compare the differences and errors between them.
The Hollow Scripts
The poem by T.S. Eliot Hollow Men is a poem that goes into someone’s mind, a person who has seen many things and done very much.
I can see how the poem relates to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The poem can be related to Marlow’s experience in the Congo and all the things he saw and how it ultimately changed him and leads him to see himself in a new way. All three of the poems carry the same message across but all of them are different in certain ways and these slight differences give the reader a different experience from another poem. Also the different backgrounds and colours that the different pages had also contributed to the overall affect that it leaves on its reader.
The different layouts also make a difference; the http://www.blight.com/~sparkle/poems/hollow.html layout adds a very eerie and dark feeling. The sources on the internet can not really be trusted because of all the different sources and different people who put them up the chances of it being consistent are very slim. I personally would rather read the original text to ensure that I was reading it the way the authour originally intended it to be read. All in all the three texts all get their message across and have a certain way of impacting the reader.
The slight differences include the minor spelling mistakes from one to the other. Also some are missing certain sections that have been completely cut out all which in a way takes away from the whole theme and atmosphere the authour tries to create.
If we are on the same page…
The understanding and meaning of T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men can be altered based on the type of source that it is presented in. This is the case after reading three versions of Eliot’s poem from the internet. As a student who researches and uses the internet to read written works like poems, the differences in interpretation and presentation can be found based on the outline, perception, and use for the reader.
The way the poems are each laid out has an affect on the way readers like myself read and grasps the words and meaning. The understanding of the poem is based on what appeals to the reader, what is emphasized and whether it is easy to read. For The Hollow Men the font and background have a different colour, which stands out and appeals more to the reader. Yet in “The Hollow Men” the layout has less of an appeal and is also difficult to read since the font is smaller and text seems more compressed together. The only positive aspect about the layout is it emphasizes certain lines like “For Thine is the Kingdom” (“The Hollow Men”), showing greater meaning and a focus for the reader. In the hypertext version of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” the page is filled with links for certain lines which give explanations towards the poem. Overall it all depends on how the author of each website presents the poem. Each version is different from one another in how the author chooses to show what they believe is significant about the poem. As a result it can skew the way the reader comprehends the poem away from the original.
For this reason the meaning of Eliot’s poem can change based on what the reader comes to understand. By reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness the reader can see the reference and connection to the poem with the line “Mistah Kurtz – he dead” (Hypertext Version). It is an allusion, which gives the reader the understanding of what Eliot is trying to describe. In “The Hollow Men” it does not display the quote which loses the connection to Heart of Darkness and without this connection the reader cannot fully understand the concept of hollow men. The biggest difference in the hypertext version of the poem is the topic references, which reveals more significant allusions that give the reader a more informed understanding. The links for the highlighted lines show explanations to relate to other literary works including Heart of Darkness. The allusions in the poem allow the reader to perceive each line giving a better understanding of the concept. Each websites version of the poem allows different ways for the reader to interpret and understand the poem itself. The way readers like myself perceive the poem changes with different versions on the internet.
Overall the three different versions of The Hollow Men have advantages and disadvantages for the reader. Since they are all found on the internet it is much easier to access and read it. It is good for students like myself who need to research and study specific titles of written works. On the other hand there are problems too with using the internet as a reliable source for poems. Often people who store the poems might change and alter it based on what they are conveying and emphasizing. They can even make careless errors like misspelling “Mistah Kurz” (The Hollow Men) which shows how authentic it really is. None of the websites sighted where they got the poem, which also shows that it might not be accurate. It really depends on the reader to decide if it is authentic or not and reliable to their research.
Using the internet to read a poem like T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men, I found that there were flaws which can change the way we study and understand the meaning of the poem. The way the layout is change can affect the perception of the poem and in the end alter the meaning for the reader. People who look for poems on the internet should be aware of how accurate it is and should look up the poems from other sources like books. After reading the three versions of Eliot’s poem I discovered that it depends on the reader to understand the overall theme. It is up to the reader to be critical of what they are reading so they can perceive and understand the actual meaning of the poem.
The Internet Destroys Literature
“There is no direct address in literature: it isn’t what you say but how it’s said that’s important there.” This quote from Frye’s The Educated Imagination applies to all pieces of literature. I thought it would be appropriate to begin my response with this quote because I will be comparing three different versions of one poem and exploiting their differences. I do not know if any of the versions I will be talking about is the one written directly by Thomas Stearns Eliot. However they are all written differently, for a reason.
While poems 1 and 3 both start off with references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Guy Fawkes, the second poem only starts off with the reference to Guy Fawkes. It is not by chance that poem 2 does not have the reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. After research, poem 1 and 3 has the correct epigraph. I know poem 1 and 3 have the correct epigraph through research. This brings up the question of authenticity. Does the internet ruin literature? The internet is a breading ground for plagiarism. Poem 2 has an edited part of the epigraph; they deleted the reference to Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness. The person editing it did not want it there. Throughout poem 1 and 3, there are no indented lines, but poem 2 has many; stressing certain lines. While poem 1 is the most visually appealing, number 3 is explained very thoroughly while poem 2 is very plain.
The internet destroys literature. It allows it to be edited and reproduced differently then the original copy. These 3 versions of The Hollow Men are prime examples of this. Also, as our English course progresses I am beginning to respect Frye’s work a lot more as I see more connections between his work and other pieces of literature.
The Affect of a Display
All three versions of the poem “The Hollow Men” are, as a whole, the same. By taking a closer look at these poems we may notice that there are various minor differences, ranging from spelling errors, to page layouts to the detail involved in explaining the poem. Even though these slight variations may not seem to make a drastic difference, by reading through them all, I can assure you that they do.
The first poem, “The Hollow Men,” displayed a dark blue background with mustard yellow writing, which I found to be an obvious distraction and tended to make the reading process much longer. Although the colours may have been used to entice the reader it seems to me that this would lead one to believe that the story was not as dark as it was meant to be, which takes away from the poem’s theme of hollowness. After reading the first colourful poem, the next two poems were an easy read. The original black and white, found in both “‘The Hollow Man’” and “A Hypertext Version of T.S. Eliot's ‘The Hollow Men’” is a more clear and concise poem; allowing one to focus solely on the words and not the display colours.
The hypertext version is also very distracting with its various links scattered across the poem, although these links are indeed very helpful. They provide the reader with background information on why the word was used and what Eliot was referring to when he placed it into his poem. Theme was also referred to for particular links, allowing the reader to get a further understanding of the major themes present and be able to pinpoint sections of the poem that proved them.
As demonstrated in this exercise, there are many forms of the same poem all over the internet that are not identical. The internet can not be trusted for authenticity, and if you are looking for a reliable source, the library is the best place to go. This may not be the easiest way to find poetry for those who do not have access to a library, and that is why internet sources are more commonly used. When using these sources, you have to be aware of the errors you may come across, and use more than one reference to be able to rule out these mistakes.
We write, as we dream- alone
In a society under the influence of corporations and the copyrights they enforce, authenticity is established evoking the sense of reassurance that a product has not been altered from its original and intended source. However, copyrights expire and its owner are unable to legally persecute the individuals who make those products more accessible to consumers, a situation that is particularly evident today in literature in which a writer’s work such as Shakespeare or Conrad can be viewed on the internet, despite their work being altered from its intended perspective. As a result of how prevalent literature is posted on the internet, it is not surprising that T.S. Elliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” is featured on three different websites, all with notable differences.
In T.S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” it describes the journey of a corrupted soul of a man, one whose priorities in life are distorted, and ultimately leads to their demise which enforces the theme about the stupidity of a close-mind and vanity, and how vital it is to re-evaluate the priorities of life to see what truly is important. Through the first site featuring “The Hollow Men”, http://www.blight.com/~sparkle/poems/hollow.html, Elliot’s poem is posted with comparably large font that makes the poem seem a bit tedious the first time reading it, it does help the reader focus on the words Elliot dictates, which in turn, focuses on the theme of the poem, but the background and colour of the font does make the poem a bit of an eye sore as well as the grammatical error of Mr. Kurtz and the inconsistent line breaks, particularly in part V, disputes the legitimacy of this version of the poem. In the third site with Elliot’s “The Hollow Men”, http://www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Poem.htm, the reader not only has access to the poem, it also has hypertext that explains the outside references Elliot makes which while it makes the poem considerably easier to understand it loses the reader’s attention to the actual poem by the constant references and reduces the reader’s ability to formulate their own intellectual response to the poem by making them dependent on another’s idea. Finally, in the second version of Elliot’s “The Hollow Men”, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/tc/scfu4016/hollow.html, the poem is posted on an aesthetically pleasing white background with black, small font, but omits the direct reference Elliot makes to Heart of Darkness, Mistah Kurtz- he dead, while being a minor omission opens up a large set of problems. Although the three versions of “The Hollow Men” have the theme of the poem set down, they also have their set of differences that detract the way Elliot wanted his poem from being read.
Through the grammatical errors present in versions 1 and 2 of the “Hollow Men” it presents the problem of transcribing, the reader can never be sure whether the written work has been perfectly transcribed or an error has been made. As a result, these small errors are not only present in the “Hollow Men” but can also be present in later works such as the Bible, in which even an entire parable or story could have been omitted or added, causing the theme of the Bible to be drastically changed without the reader even knowing it. As a result, it is important to read a written work knowing that errors can be present and to have a healthy mistrust of authenticity.
Live and breathe your nightmares
We may be the ever so hollow and stuffed men, yet, Marlow in Heart of Darkness takes that leap of faith to live out his life, disregarding ‘the horror, the horror’ he witnessed throughout his journey through ‘the dead land’. “I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end” (Conrad:106). Consequently, Marlow rejected the bargain for redemption of his soul and the memory of Kurtz, as Marlow believed it was his duty to carry out the white-washed knowledge of Mr. Kurtz’s accomplishments. Yet, Mr. Kurtz was nothing more than a hollow man – a “stuffed man” – who had the chance to peek at the inner truth of his soul, and only lived solely for himself as he had no morals or values to abide by, as depicted in T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.”
Firstly, the three versions of “The Hollow Men” are clearly different in style as one web designer decided to be creative with the background and fonts, while another – the hypertext version – focused on the dissection of the poem in order to aid the reader in realizing linking ideas depicted in the poem, Heart of Darkness, as well as many other literary works such as The Wasteland and The Golden Bough. Even though in the essence of the poem the versions are barely distinguishable, the conveying message is adjusted to a personal level, ergo the need to put purple and yellow colours for contrast or simply plain, black and white lettering
to emphasize the feeling of uneasiness and time slowing down, as any reader of “The Hollow Men” experienced a certain level of discomfort because of the size and structure of the font. Accordingly, a reader would find this version of T.S. Eliot’s poem slightly harder to read since the layout consists of so much predominant white space and as if the tiny, black words are encased in their surrounding – a possible parallel to the uneasiness presented in Heart of Darkness as the European intruders put forth a dominant environment over the native inhabitants.
The intended message of the poem is not lost or made personal throughout the three versions because T.S. Eliot’s words are still intact and remain in the same order, accordingly, the reader would come to conclusions based on the imagery and the metaphors within the body of the poem instead of a quote simply referencing to other literary works that are rich in depicting mankind’s hollowness. Personally, authenticity cannot exist on the Internet as web pages can be created and unlimited versions of the poem can be produced to intend a personal view or put forth something primitively ideological like Achebe’s essay on racism in Heart of Darkness. Also, through some minor methods, the poems do differentiate and this leads to re-writing and re-wording of literary work in order to suit one’s interests – this can be dangerous – as the poem continuously becomes rephrased, one can see the relation to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, as the Ministry of Truth continuously re-writes the history and literature to suit their ideologies and form of structure. The obvious downfall of literary work on the Internet would be that it can be rephrased to whomever’s liking and no credit may be given to the original author/creator. However, the advantage of literary work open to the public through a wireless source is the quick access and the ability to view unlimited sources at the click of a button. Throughout these poems, it seems as there is only a need for editorial changes as the creators of those three different versions probably came upon similar revelations, therefore, the indented meaning – right from the beginning, as worded by T.S. Eliot - does not require an edit.
Poem VS. Poem VS. Poem
The Internet is a great source to search for a work of literature; it is fast and for the most part very reliable. T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” is a very popular and well-known poem. Because of its popularity “The Hollow Men” can be found on multiple sources throughout the Internet. There is a downside to having works of literature posted on the web. Just like “The Hollow Men”, had experienced, many of the words were not exactly where Eliot had originally wrote them. This poses as a major problem because when you have a short poem and the words are slightly mixed up or missing a couple words here and there, it can change the whole writing style around, which in return can change the most important part of a work of literature, the theme.
In the three versions of “The Hollow Men” that I read the poems were definitely different from one another. I noticed a couple of words missing in sentences and a couple words being added to sentences. The mixing up of words was not the only thing that made the poems different form each other, the background color was also different in each of the three websites I went to, to read “The Hollow Men”. Now most people may think that the color of the background to a poem has no effect on the reader, this in fact is very wrong. I found the first poem much easier to read and the last one the most difficult. The first poem had a very dark background with big bold letters that appeared to pop out of the screen. The second poem was very simple; it had a white background and black colored font. The last poem had highlighted words in various sizes, and I found that the size and color change made it very difficult to really understand the words I had read. When I read the simple font I could picture what I was reading and form a picture in my head. With the more difficult font I found that I had a very tough time achieving that, making the poem much harder to grasp.
When I was re-reading each poem and trying to come up with a theme for each one I thought that I would come up with the same them since all three poems were the same. Although the themes I came up with were very close to one another, they were still different. This is based strictly on the fact that changing the words around even the slightest bit changes the flow and the way that the words are pronounced or spoken. When the flow of the words varies from each of the three poems, they are spoken differently, which in return gives the reader a different picture of what he or she reads. This can alter the reader’s final decision of the theme of the poem.
To be sure of the authenticity of the poem the reader has to check the web site he or she is viewing the poem on. The best way to ensure 100% authenticity of the poem is to have the poem in print and then go onto a website that the reader thinks is legit, and match them. As well some websites have a better reputation and are official sites or are the website of the publisher of the poem. If it is just any typical site that contain “The Hollow Men” then it’s a safe bet that the poem will not be the official poem written by Eliot.
Of course the obvious benefits of having poetry on the Internet is for convenience. Instead of having to go out and buy it, or make a stop at your local library, you can just run to your computer and in a few clicks have the poem in front of you. As well as having some pros there are also a few cons to having a poem published on the Internet. It is very hard for the reader to check if the poem is exactly the same one that the author originally wrote. If the reader thinks the poem is official and it is slightly altered, then they may come up with a completely different analysis of the poem. This could be a major problem if the reader is a student handing in a poetic analysis for his or her class.
Some of the poems are edited for prejudice - such as racism - and some of the words are changed to fix this problem. If a poem has a historical fact wrong then the poem may be changed for this reason to correct the problem. I personally do not think that poems should be changed because it takes away from the theme and writing style of the poem. Some of the words are used to describe or reflect how the words were used in the past. Taking these words out takes away form the effectiveness of that style of writing.
T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” is a very descriptive poem written in the past when many people had different views. If a poem is published on the Internet it should have to contain the same words without moving them around or adding in new words. This way the originality and the writing style of the poem are untouched. With the poem left the way it was written the reader can come up with the same theme regardless of what website they are reading the poem from. This is a more effective way to preserving the genius of the poem and keeping it the way T.S. Eliot wanted.
Different levels of understanding
In three different versions of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” there are three different levels of understanding by the people who created those pages.
The first version shows that the creator of the page likes the poem for its poetic structure and has no understanding of the theme. The second one shows the creator has an understanding of the theme but no idea of where that theme comes from. The third version shows the creator has a full understanding of the theme and where all the references from the poem are coming from. The internet has given us the opportunity to share our ideas no matter the accuracy at which we project those ideas.
The first version shows that the creator of the page likes the poem for its poetic structure and has no understanding of the theme. This is apparent by the text colour and the background used by the creator of the poem. These colours were used to make the poem more aesthetically pleasing to the reading. The yellow text font makes the poem seem more joyous than it actually is, while the purple background seems to suggest the hope of new and different life. The colours that are used completely contradict the theme of the poem and take away from the reader’s understanding of the poem.
The second one shows the creator has an understanding of the theme but no idea of where that theme comes from. This is shown by the simple text that is used and that the creator chose to leave it as black and white. This also shows that the creator has some understanding of theme and chose not to take that away from the poem by adding unneeded colours.
The third version shows the creator has a full understanding of the theme and where all the references from the poem are coming from. This shows that the creator of this page has a thorough understanding of this poem and where all the different words and themes come from. It is this full understanding that played a part in the creation of the web page and had the two different columns, which contained the poem and all the references to the books that helped create the poem.
If their were more web pages about poems like the third version of “The Hollow Men”, then the internet would not be flooded with inaccurate pages created because people liked the words and try to add flashy colours which ruin the poem. The third version also helps people understand and confirm what they believe the poem was about and it also gives insight into the creator of the web page and into T.S. Eliot as well.
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