Ji-Hae Kim Assignment 3

1.) D.H. Lawrence's poem, "Piano," has a nostalgic tone. The narrator yearns for something from the past. He uses imagery to describe a moment when a women singing softly reminded him of a memory where he was "[a] child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the / tingling strings / And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings" (ll. 3-6). There is something sweet about the image of a child looking up at his smiling mother as she plays music. The memory of that made the narrator feel as if he were a child again and he wept "like a child / for the past" (l. 11-12). His heart longed for "old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside / And hymns in the cosy parlour, the thinking piano our guide" (ll. 7-8). That image reminds one of something comfortable and warm. These sweet and warm images emphasize the sense of loss and nostalgia because it was no longer there.

2.) "The artist speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives, to our sense of pity and beauty, and pain." --Joseph Conrad
I agree with the quote from Conrad. There is something about art that amplifies emotions like delight, wonder, mystery, pity, beauty, and pain. An artist takes those emotions and find a source that not only expresses them, but amplifies these feelings and makes others feel them too. That is what an artist does-- an artist takes emotions and puts it into a recognizable form that speaks to others.