The Nerve | Themes

The Nerve Themes

Passion

When Maxwell urges his readers in his poem “The Nerve” to “cross a line” into the unknown, he might well be referring to coming alive with passion. Although there is also the sense of death in the poem, with such phrases as “a breeze of being gone,” there is a stronger pull that suggests one should use that realization of death to live life to its fullest, in other words, to live with passion. If people get caught in believing that they will live forever, they may find that they are not really living at all. Life can become very boring, the speaker suggests, if one does not seize every moment as if it were the last. Through the poem, readers are encouraged to push themselves to the edge. That is where passion is found. Excitement flows through one's veins when everything feels new. To find the passion in life,...
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