Ode to My Socks Group

Question:

mark23
mark23
Student
College - Freshman

How can you connect the poem "Ode to My Socks" to larger cultural issues? What does the poem say about our culture?

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Posted by mark23 on Wednesday October 24, 2007 at 10:37 AM and tagged with cultural issues, culture, ode to my socks.

Answers:


  1. amy-lepore Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    An ode to such a commonplace thing may mean lethargy.  It is a humorous subject, so it could comment on the humor of the age. One could argue that since not all persons in the world currently have or have ever had socks, that it is not a universal theme.  I love Neruda, and I think much of that is do the beauty of the language he chooses regardless of the theme.

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    Posted by amy-lepore on Wednesday October 24, 2007 at 11:12 AM


  2. sagetrieb Teacher
    Doctorate

    Towards the end of the poem the speaker says 

    "...I resisted the sharp temptation
    to save them somewhere as schoolboys
    keep fireflies,
    as learned men collect
    sacred texts,
    I resisted the mad impulse to put them
    in a golden cage and each day give them
    birdseed and pieces of pink melon."

    He then concludes that: "“beauty is twice / beauty / and what is good is doubly / good / when it is a matter of two socks / made of wool / in winter.”  The poem argues against the aesthetic of "art for art's sake," that the greatest art has little function except to simply "be"--and many would argue that is the function of a poem, a painting, or even a piece of music. Beauty has a function, the poem suggests, and it is made more beautiful by its function.  It's no good putting something beautiful someplace safe so that it cannot be touched or lived; rather, we should intetrate beauty into our lives in such a way that we can appreciate the beauty in even the most everyday, mundane sort of objects or activities.

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    Posted by sagetrieb on Wednesday October 24, 2007 at 5:28 PM