Behind every mind

BEHIND EVERY MIND

(A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS : THINKING and AS A MAN THINKETH )

“It’s all in the state of the mind.”

-Walter.D.Wintle (late 19^th-early 20^th century)

"Mind is the Master power that molds and makes”

-James Allen (1864-1912)

In this comparative analysis, two poems will be analyzed. The first is ‘Thinking’ written by Walter.D.Wintle, follow by ‘As A Man Thinketh’ composed by James Allen. Little is known about Wintle the American poet except he lived around late 19^th century to early 20^th century. Nevertheless, he is renowned for his poem ‘Thinking’ which is also titled as ‘The Man Who Thinks He Can’. As for James Allen, he was an English author who wrote a number of books until his death in 1912. Although Allen died at a young age of 48, he had contributed literary works that transmitted across space and time that still influences our society today by his 19 inspirational works. The reason why ‘Thinking’ and ‘As A Man Thinketh’ are chosen here is because of the philosophical message that they hold. The deeper meaning behind every word that was written behold secrets that are told yet not reveal to those who has seen it for they were unaware of it. Thus, this analysis is here to not just enlighten readers but to be studied in a reflective manner. Furthermore, what one reads portrays what one is. The ‘food’ we feed our souls reflects through the ‘inputs’ we supply. Hence, our mind is a map of the journeys we travelled and the future trips we are to tour. For this reason, these poems were selected for its impactful meanings of human’s mind and how it affects our lives in all areas. As what Lao Tze declared ‘Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.’ Let this be the basis of why we should all the more investigate and scrutinize our own thinking through the messages hidden in the poems. The themes of both poems are essentially about the beliefs of our minds, and how it could bring forth encouraging and endangering thoughts.

Thinking

If you think you are beaten, you are If you think you dare not, you don't, If you like to win, but you think you can't It is almost certain you won't. If you think you'll lose, you're lost For out of the world we find, Success begins with a fellow's will It's all in the state of mind. If you think you are outclassed, you are You've got to think high to rise, You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man, But soon or late the man who wins Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

By Walter.D.Wintle

As a Man Thinketh

"Mind is the Master power that molds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking glass."

By James Allen

‘As a man think in his heart, so is he.’ Proverbs 27:3 is the substance of both poems. In ‘Thinking’, Wintle clearly stated that ‘It’s all in the state of the mind’. When he wrote the word ‘mind’, which part of ‘mind’ was he referring to? Was it a cognitive or psychological state of the mind? Was it a conscious or unconscious awareness? Or perhaps the soul of one which consist of both elements? If it is the ‘soul’, why would he not use ‘soul’ instead? The answer lies therein the versus of the poems. The word ‘you’ is repeated nineteen times, this proves that Wintle was in fact pointing at the reader’s essence – the heart and soul of the readers. From here, what controls humans heart and soul other than ones ‘mind’ itself? Therefore, the author used ‘mind’ to describe the state of our thinking and our thoughts. I would like to clarify that ‘mind’ is not to be separated with ‘soul’ here, but what the author was emphasizing in is the word ‘mind’ not soul for reasons as above. As for the second poem, Allen highlighted on the same essence as Wintle, which is ‘Mind’. ‘Man is Mind’ at the second sentence were in large capital, justified that he too, is emphasizing on humans mind. The images that both poets used were relatively directive descriptions, where readers are able to ‘view’ the illustrations in every verse easily in their mind. The expressive language in Allen’s poem made it more poetic compared to Wintle’s ‘Thinking’. In ‘As a Man Thinketh’ it contains a very classical taste of Shakespearean English, which made it alluring to an English major. Although the lines of the poem is simply short, in reality it bears much weightage than what it seems to be. Simple yet compact; easy yet difficult to digest; common sense yet significantly oblivious to the unsearching are the depiction of ‘As a Man Thinketh’.

Wintle used the word ‘you’ to relate readers to his poem, it draws readers to share his writing as if he was writing to them personally. ‘You've got to think high to rise, You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize’ are the few examples from the poem. ‘You’ is a strong word that makes a reading relevant to readers. Wintle’s intention to composed this poem may be his way to encourage or advice people around him, hence the persona of his work is considerably appropriate. In the poem, he included ‘we’ in ‘For out of the world we find’ as if Wintle was saying that we are in the same boat facing the same realities. On the other hand, Allen used ‘He’ which is repeated thrice, as a third person point of view. ‘He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass’ is found in his work. When Allen used ‘he’, Allen is referring to those who act similarly as the persona in his poem. Gender is not an issue here, whether the reader is a he or she, for ‘he’ is a general figure of speech for both genders in this poem. Somehow, Allen’s persona fits his poem, if he was to use ‘You’, it would be a very insulting poem. A revised verse such as ‘You think in secret, and it comes to pass.’ will not be a well-accepted poem. Hence, the suitability of using ‘He’ is a proper persona.

In ‘Thinking’, anaphora is used noticeably in the first three stanzas. ‘If you think’ is repeated in every stanza except the last one. The repetition yields attention to the message Wintle was conveying. It all began with ‘If you think’, and the rest of the following action depended on the starting point of ‘If you think’. In addition, ‘If you think’ familiarize readers of what to expect in the next verse. Wintle also implied the use of metonym speech in his poem. ‘Life's battles’ here is not literally interpreting life’s wars, where blood and fights are involved, but it is to describe the actual concept of life’s challenges and obstacles. Metonym is applied to substitute the non-literal sense of the actual word which brings more variation to the language use in the poem. Allen’s poem painted a personifying verse where substances such as ‘mind’, ‘thought’ and ‘environment’ are animated traits with feelings. Personification is practiced here to carry different types of flavor into the poem. "Mind is the Master power that molds and makes” does sound like ‘Mind’ is a person. The other evident figure of speech use by Allen is the hyperbole, where he exaggerated his statement of ‘a thousand joys, a thousand ills.’ Not only did it dramatized the poem, it managed to captured reader’s attention to what Allen was trying to represent. What ‘joys’ and ‘ills’ were he indicating at? That is left for readers to interpret. The usage of figures of speech in both poems were to attract readers, to bait readers to read and comprehend what the poets were trying to convey. They were to bring a mixture of notion to the poem, making it more engaging and fascinating to grasp.

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Truly, the raison d'être of poetry is to connect people with traits or objects that are seemingly familiar in their daily lives. Too many times, we missed the beauty of things around us, if not for poetry, these elements of beauty would have been bygones that are untrievable. Poetry allows one to admire, ponder, and wonder at its decoration of the words and the meanings behind it.