“Two Songs” and “Like Flowers Continually Perishing” Aztec Poems

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Literary Analysis
Conclusion

Introduction

The use of literary analysis focuses on comparing and contrasting fiction texts. This allows not only the consolidation of accumulated knowledge of literary mechanisms and their application in practice but also a deeper understanding of the themes and focal points of the works analyzed. This paper examines two texts authored by Native American authors. The first, “Two Songs (Aztec)” by Arthur J.O. Anderson, is one of the oldest texts written in the original Aztec language and translated by Anderson. The main message of this poem is an existential quest in which the Aztec people try to answer the question of the connection between soul and body; an excellent quotation reflecting this meaning is “Is it yet true there is living on earth?” (Anderson, line 11). The second poem is “Like Flowers Continually Perishing (Ayocuan Aztec)” by Birgitta Leander, also written by ancient Aztec peoples and translated into English. As with “Two Songs,” “Like Flowers Continually Perishing” seeks to explore existential meaning in the context of nature’s splendor and the human body’s earthiness. This paper explores the mechanical characteristics of the two literary works and compares them.

Literary Analysis

Themes

After reading the two poems, at first glance, it is evident that both explore similar phenomena and ask identical questions: what life is, what faith is, and the role of man and nature. However, both authors explore these issues from somewhat different angles. One of the most apparent comparisons is the thesis of man’s coming to life. The second poem contains the lines “In vain we come to this place, We come to live on earth,” the message of which lies in the insignificance of the physical life of the body with the hope for an afterlife of the soul (Leander, lines 37-38). Similar thoughts are captured in Anderson: “It is not so, it is not so, That we came to endure on earth” (Anderson, lines 3-4). Both quotations’ syntactic and semantic constructions are highly similar, and both authors lament the insignificance of human life compared with the divine extension of the soul. It is noteworthy that Anderson, unlike Leander, turned to the repetition “it is not so,” reflecting either the doubling of the negative meaning of life or the drawing of more attention in the following line. Repetition, in general, is one of the most common tools in both poems, with anaphora predominating in both cases. This representational strategy makes sense and helps the author keep the reader intrigued and build expectations that can either be shattered or satisfied.

Descriptions

The constructions of the two poems contain plenty of descriptive elements. Anderson uses nature as something purer and more pristine than man: “verdant spring,” “our bodies are like the flowers,” and “if it is jade, it shatters” (Anderson, lines 6, 9, 13-15). Leander has many more descriptive elements: “The beautiful flower, the beautiful song,” “The exotic perfume,” “belling bird,” and “branching flowers” (Leander, lines 2, 8, 15, 19). In both cases, they are intended to create the necessary atmosphere of a divine and magnificent nature, forming a contrast with the lowliness of human life in it.

Semantics

Also different are the semantic burdens prescribed by the role of flowers in both poems. Thus, Anderson compares human life to flowers: “But our bodies are like the flowers: Some blossom; they wither away” (Anderson, lines 9-10). Meanwhile, Leander contrasts the divinity of flowers with man’s destructiveness: “The beautiful flower,…, Our eagerness destroys them, Our diligence destroys them” (Leander, lines 2-4). The role of flowers in these contexts is almost opposite, as Anderson points to the vitality, the routine nature of such flowers (people), which can follow different paths of destiny, while Leander directly reports that man is not worthy of flowers, as he tends to destroy all the beauty of nature.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing that both literary works were written by representatives of the ancient Aztec peoples, and both are aimed at exploring the existential meaning of life. The poems are semantically and syntactically similar, as they contain many descriptive elements and anaphors. Although differences have been found between the texts, they seem natural and subjective and cannot outweigh the similarities between the two poems. This leads to the conclusion that the poems analyzed are characterized by identical thoughts and rhetorical devices of the same time and ethnicity.

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“Two Songs” and “Like Flowers Continually Perishing” Aztec Poems

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