Poetry in Popular Culture

example 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QOeDa69AwE&feature=related

The Greek epic poem "The Odyssey" is parodied in the above Simpsons episode. It is the scene from the poem where Homer and his crew membors are on a boat and are nearing the three Sirens. In the clip, the Sirens are portrayed as three old women smoking cigarettes while in the play they are bird-like. The clip may act as a memory device to help one remember the actual scene portrayed in the poem so in that sense, it enhaces the text it appears in. This video is just one of the many examples in which "The Odyssey" is mentioned and it helps me see that poems do indeed have a place in popular culture.

example 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou-cIXdiX-Y&feature=related

This scene is from the movie Spiderman 2 where Peter Parker reads Mary Jane an excerpt from the poem "The Song of the Hiawatha" by the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Several lines of the poem parallel Peter's love for Mary Jane. In particular "Day by day he gazed upon her/Day by day he sighed with passion". Yes, this scene does help me appreciate poetry more and helps me see that even really old poems like this one can be used in popular movies today.