{"id":5543,"date":"2020-09-21T01:40:19","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T06:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doxaweb.blog\/?p=5248"},"modified":"2020-09-21T01:40:19","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T06:40:19","slug":"young-goodman-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doxaweb.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/21\/young-goodman-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"young goodman brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Smoker<\/a>I wrote this poem as part of my senior thesis in 1992, shortly after reading Young Goodman Brown<\/a><\/em> <\/strong>by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
\nIt was an exploration of Puritanism as it manifests itself in modern life… which was on my brain because of a paper I had written<\/a><\/strong> for the course\u00a0American Literature to 1865<\/em>. The instructor mentioned in one lecture about the perennial legacy of Puritanism (and, on the other extreme, hedonism) in American life.
\nSee also: a post I wrote back in 2008<\/a> <\/strong>on the RCIA Hollywood<\/em> blog.
\n***
\nStriking a match,
\nhe lit up,
\nthen gave a light to Steve and Dan.
\nBetween puffs, Steve turned on the stereo.
\nThe only lamp was in the corner,
\nbut still I could see the smoke,
\nrising between my face and theirs.
\nThey drew regularly,
\neven Dan —
\nespecially Dan,
\non the couch,
\nwith his toes gripping the edge
\nof the coffee table.
\nI emptied my glass of water
\nand excused myself to get another,
\nwhile the music pounded the glories of rebellion,
\nchaos, libido, anger —
\nI returned.
\nSteve, on the floor,
\nrelaxed as ever, leaned back against the wall,
\ncrossed his legs,
\nand bowed his head slightly to draw.
\nThey talked about the music,
\nI think.
\nI couldn’t hear too well —
\nI wasn’t really listening.
\nI was watching the faces,
\nglassy-eyed,
\ncomplacent, smiling,
\nwith lips drawn to cigarettes;
\nfaces for the first time grey in my mind
\nand the smoke has left them grey —
\nWhat childishness to see them any other way…
\nwhy should they be less grey than I?
\nAn inner voice cries:
\nGoodman Brown, go home.
\nGo home, young Goodman Brown.
\nPurify yourself
\nof your puritan mind.
\nThose grey faces
\ngrey mouths
\ndrawing on their cigarettes and smiling —
\nI know them as my own.
\nAnd I love them still
\nI love them sorely
\nand perhaps that is
\nthe only way to love them truly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this poem as part of my senior thesis in 1992, shortly after reading Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was an exploration of Puritanism as it manifests itself in modern life… which was on my brain because of a paper I had written for the course\u00a0American Literature to 1865. The instructor mentioned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,33,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-friendship","category-moral-life","category-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nyoung goodman brown – doxaweb<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/doxaweb.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/21\/young-goodman-brown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"young goodman brown – doxaweb\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I wrote this poem as part of my senior thesis in 1992, shortly after reading Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 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