Research Paper on:
Comparison and Contrast of The City and Ithaca

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homosexual, it is also poetry that speaks of the human condition and the human need for exploration and investigation into the meaning of life. Two of his most famous poem,  "The City" and "Ithaca," are poems which help to illustrate these themes. In the following paper we examine the two poems separately and then provide a discussion wherein the poems  are compared and contrasted in regards to ideas and themes. The City While this particular poem could be analyzed in numerous different ways, this particular reader found the  poem to be an incredibly vivid poem about individual, or existential, failure. In its mostly simplistic form one can see it as a poem that seems to reflect the dreams  and ideals of one who wishes to leave a small town and experience life. But, the narrator clearly describes a condition wherein the individual did not escape. From this perspective  we can see how the individual may not have had enough creativity or intelligence to leave. But, it is also a poem from which we can see how a deeper  existential need to escape proved to be a failure because the individual lacked skills or direction. In short, the poem tells us of failure to transcend ones place and possess  a higher understanding of what life could be. In better understanding some of these obvious themes we analyze the poem through an examination of some of the lines. The  opening lines speak of a hope as well as despair, as we note in the following: "You said, I will go to another land, I will go to another sea./  Another city will be found, a better one than this./ Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate;/ and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried" (Cavafy