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Literature Book
Poetry Quiz
What is reading poetry like?
Reading fiction
Why is reading poetry like reading fiction?
We observe details of action and language
We make connections and inferences
We draw conclusions
The same intellectual and emotional dispositions
What is the difference in reading poetry and reading fiction?
We pay attention to the connotations of words
We pay attention to the qualities of sound and rhythm
We pay attention more to structure and punctuation
What are the three parts of reading a poem?
Experience - we pay attention to the subjective responses or personal reactions; our viewpoint and experiences
Interpretation - intellectual processes as we begin to understand the poem; we concern ourselves less with how it affects us than with what it means or suggests
Observing
Connecting
Inferencing
Concluding
Evaluation - judge its quality and poetic intentions, then how significant it is to us (subjective) and how it may affect others.
Context: the circumstances of a poemās composition, the poetās life, the attitudes and beliefs he or she may have expressed in letters or other comments, the audience and occasion for which a particular poem was written, its publication history and reception by readers past and present.
Evaluation = judgement
Based on our own combination of cultural, moral, and aesthetic values
True or false? To read poetry well we need to slow down enough to observe details of language, form, and sound. By doing so, we give ourselves a chance to form connections among the poemās details.
What does evaluation depend upon?
Our interpretation
What should we strive for when evaluating poems?
Judge the poem fairly, the poemās merits, and ultimately, a sense of literary tact.
Literary tact: the kind of informed and balanced judgement that comes with experience in reading and living, coupled with continued thoughtful reflection on both.
What are the two types of poetry?
Narrative: stress story and action/poetry that tells a story and has all the elements of a story
Epics: long narrative poems that record the adventures of a hero whose exploits are important to the history of a nation
Romance: adventure is a central feature; the plots tend to be complex but with surprising even magical actions are complex
Ballads: Most popular form of poetry, meant to be sung or recited, passed on orally
Lyric: stress emotion and song/subjective poems, often briefs, that expresses the feelings and thoughts of a single speaker, more of a poetic manner than a form, more variable less subject to strict conversation
Villanelle: heavy on repetition, five three-line tercets and a final four-line quatrain
Ex: Dylan Thomasās āDo Not Go Gentle into That Good Nightā
Sestina: six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three line conclusion
Conclusion = envoy
Ex: Elizabeth Bishopās āSestinaā
Sonnet: condenses into 14 lines an expression of emotion or an idea according to either Italian or English (Shakespeare)
Italian is composed of an eight-line octave (problem) and a six-line sestet (solution)
English is three four-line quatrains (subject and then expand) and a concluding two-line couplet (conclusion)
Aubade: a love lyric expressing complaint that dawn means the speaker must part from his lover
Ex: John Donneās āThe Sun Risingā
Ode: a long stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form
Ex: John Keatsās āOde to a Nightingaleā
Elegy: a lament to the dead
Ex: Seamus Heaneyās āMid-Term Breakā
Epigram: a brief witty poem that is often satirical
Ex: Alexander Popeās āOn the Collar of a Dogā
True or false? Lyric poetry is typically characterized by brevity, melody, and emotional intensity
True or false? Italian and Shakespearean sonnets can be combined
What are four line sections?
Quatrains
What is a pair of rhymed lines?
Couplets
Syntax: order of those words
Diction: selection of words
Imagery: details of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch
Figurative language: nonliteral ways of expressing one thing in terms of another, such as symbol and metaphor
Structure: formal pattern of organization
Tone: its implied attitude towards its subject
Dramatic Monologue: a poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener
Elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter
What are the ways a poem can be an image?
Visual
Aural
Tactile
Olfactory
Gustatory
Imagery: pattern of related details in a poem
Symbol: any object or action that represents something beyond itself
Allegory: a form of narrative in which people, places, and happenings have hidden or symbolic meaning
Syntax: the arrangement of words in a sentence, phrase, or clause
End rhyme: rhyming at the end
Internal rhyme: rhyming within lines
Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds
Caesuras: pauses in poetry //
Meter: measure or patterned count of a poetic line
Foot: uit of measure consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables
Trochee: reversing the order of accented and unaccented syllables
Anapest: two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one
Dactyl: reverse of anapest
Spondee: two accented syllables together
Metonymy: substituting an attribute of a thing for the thing itself
Synecdoche: substituting an attribute of a thing for the thing itself
Pyrrhic: two unaccented syllables together
Enjambed: run-on lines
Writing:
Reading the poem more attentively
Writing stimulates thinking = making poems more meaningful
Why write about poetry?
Find out what you think about a poem
Induce yourself to read a poem more carefully
What are the informal ways of writing about poetry?
Annotation and freewriting
What is the formal way of writing about poetry?
An analysis
Parody: a humorous, mocking imitation of another work
In Roman times and during the Renaissance, poems were characterized as speaking pictures and painting as ?
Silent poetry
Poetry Test
John Keats
Parents & Brother died of tuberculosis
Contracted tuberculosis himself
Most poetry came before his death
Like Sylvia Plath
āWhen I have fears that I may cease to beā
Fear of dying
Scared of not living a mark on the world
Scared of never feeling the love and fame he dreams of
āLa Belle Dane sans Merciā
Story of a knight meeting a beautiful elfin woman who abandons him
Like āwhen I have fearsā¦,ā shows his fear of not having love, not experiencing life to the fullest
āOde on a Grecian Urnā
Trying to understand an urn
Art captures perfection
Once again, not living life the fullest, specifically regarding love
What is an example of Italian sonnet by John Keats?
āOn First Looking into Champmanās Homerā
About Homerās great poems - The Illiad and the Odyssey, and how reading Champmanās translation is excitement
āOde to Nightingaleā
Broken into stanzas
Lyric
Nightingale = songbirds
Death, sorrow = darkness, the element of it being night time
Starts with the narrator being drowsy
Narrator wants to forget
Narrator wants to know why the nightingale is signing - why is it so happy during this darkness (night)?
Then the narrator is drunk because he wants to fade away and relieve his pain
People in the world are sad, in despair, dying, so what is the point in ever trying for love/joy?
Posey = poetry
Poetry is his escape
Hope is found through poetry
Nature is beautiful
Requiem = song for death
Nightingale is immortal; hope is eternal
With the night ending, the narrator has to face his issues
Lucille Clifton
African American & Female
From NY
Was Poet Laureate of Maryland
āHomage to my Hipsā
Self-love
Goes against the grain of beauty standards or ideals
Freedom
Feminine power of controlling oneself
Does not let someone else control her
āHere Restsā
About her (deceased) sister Josephine
Josephine was a sex worker
Josephine was desirable, educated, and cared for those in her life
The connotation of being a prostitute does not include those things
References Book of Job - someone who never lost faith in God
Do Not Judge
Bad things May happen to good people
āIn Praise of the Menustral Cycleā
Powerful
Power - capability of a women to have children
All animals have a cycle
Women have the power to create other human beings
āTuesday 9/11/01ā
America before believed to be invincible
We pretend God loves us more than is Israel, Ireland, and Palestine
America does have the ability to sing - freedom, liberties, BUT
no one is exempt from fear, life, and death
Lawrence Ferlenghetti
Wrote constantly risking absurdity
City of Lights - publishing company for the Beats poets
Imprisoned from publishing āHowlā
Died in 2021 at 101
Wrote lyric often
āPeople Getting Divorcedā
Extended metaphor of pairs of shoes being like a couple
Find a replacement of your sole/soul
Divorce occurs everywhere and to anyone
āRetired Ballerinas, Central Park Westā
Use of syntax, looks like the text is dancing
How time changes everything
Dreams can fade away, but you can still hold true to them all the while
Dylan Thomas
Died from alcohol poisonings
Inspired/wrote similarly to T.S. Elliot
Was on a āTour of Americaā at his death - in Chelsea Hotel
āDo Not Go Gentle into that Good Nightā
Perfect villonola
To his father
Father is dying
do NOT just accept death
Death is natural, but fight, do not just let it occur
Does not want his father to die
Selfish plea for his father to live, not go into the night
āFern Hillā
About his childhood
Thomas had a good childhood
Nostalgia
Moving on from childhood, to the adult world which is not the same
You must move on from the good times
John Milton
Known for his sonnets (Italian) - Paradise Lost
Educated
āWhen I consider how my light is spentā
Sonnet- iambic pentameter
Octave and Seset
Serving God
God does not need us, not our work at least, but just us
Do not judge others actions, for it is faith and love that bring God into your life
āAt A Vacation Exerciseā
More about God
Lots of Greek/Roman references
āHow Soon Hath Time, the subtle thief of youthā
23rd birthday
Time will move, feels he is nearing manhood
Recognizes death will come to with age
Hopes for heaven and to see God at the end
Life goes by quickly
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Influenced by John Keats
Lyric - flow, which made him popular
Poet Laureate
āUlyssesā
Odysseus = Ulysses (The Odyssey)
End of Odysseusā life
Should he be idle or adventure?
Live how you want to live life
āThe Eagle - A Fragmentā
Strength
We must face life head-on
There are limitations in life, but we should still try to soar
Seamus Heaney
Irish
Modern - died in 2013
Successor to William Bather Yeats
Political, religious, and civil issues
āThe Forgeā
Blacksmith does beautiful work
Respects Blacksmith, not everyone could do his job
Narrative
ā Mid-Term Breakā
4 year old brother died and hit by car
Knelling = funeral/death bells
Embarrassed by being comforted
Poppy - void of feeling/peace without violence
āDiggingā
Seamus is a Poet
Holds the power to kill with words
Respects his father and his grandfather
Could be bitter about his poor, uneducated family, but he is not, as his poet
William Blake
Radical
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experiences
1757-1827 and Issue with Religion
Wrote companion poem often
āThe Lambā
Rhymes i - as
Tender and Sweet
Religious - about Jesus
āThe Tygerā
Series of questions
Satan - did God make Satan?
Why did God make evil?
āThe Garden of Loveā
What is taught in church - what you shouldnāt do
Turning away from church
Everyone is dead in the garden
Love thy neighbor as thyself
Donāt do it - what the church says
Blake sees issue of religion judgement
āA Poison Treeā
Foe winning against you
Apple stolen from you
We want to see those who steal/cheat fail
About how we hate those who succeed by theft or deceit
āThe Sick Roseā
Roses associated with love and thorns (duality of good and bad)
Having an affair
Invisible warm = syphilis being spread due to prostitution
Women can carry syphilis without knowing, men cannot
Syphilis is deadly
Rita Dove
Youngest and 1st black woman to serve as a U.S. Poet Laureate
Collections: The Yellow on the Corner and Museum
Ohio
Criticized for not writing āblack poetryā
Book - Thomas and Bulia
About her grandparents
āCanaryā
In cages usually (people keep them as songbirds)
About Billie Holiday - famous singer
Faced adversity for being a black woman
Wants to do what she wants
Forever held back
If you canāt be free, be intangible
If you canāt be free, be a mystery
āMaple Valley Branch Library 1967ā
Education = Elephants
Education through reading
You can do anything, you can learn anything
Go and get it!
āFifth Grade Autobiographyā
Spending time with grandparents in Michigan
Memories, nostalgia
How simple life was then, but how we can still remember the pains then
Being jealous of her brother
Remembering her grandfather smelling of lemons, even though he is now dead.
Billy Collins
Lionized (NYC Public Library)
NYC
Modern, Contemporary
Alive
Common - like William Carlos Williams
āThe History Teacherā
History is to NOT repeat the past
Truth must be told
Without knowing and acknowledging the past, society will not advance
History and truth must be taught
Includes many allusions
āMy Numberā
Imagery about death
Death happens to everyone
When, where? - no one knows
Death is natural, but still try to fight it - even though it will happen
Humour is used with death
Simile about Death sprinkling seeds of cancer
āIntroduction to Poetryā
Seeing and interpreting a poem to its fullest
āTaking Off Emily Dickinsonās Clothesā
Exposing Emilyās emotions and sexuality to the world
W.H. Auden
Wyston Hugh Auden
Gay and was in a beard marriage
from England, emigrated to US
Fought for rights
NYC - Greenwich Village
Art Colony
Sympathized and tried to understand Christians
āThe Unknown Citizensā
All of us are a number
No one knows what anyone is going through
Pursuit of happiness is a guarantee, but not happiness itself
We should all pursue happiness
āFuneral Bluesā
Lost someone he loved - Chester
Wants to dismantle the Sun
Beauty is gone from the world
Death of his love = life is over
āMusee des Beaux Artsā
Do not Turn a blind eye to problems, but you cannot fix the world
Icarus Story
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Struggled with drugs and alcohol
Had 4 children
Struggled financially
Founder of Romanticism
āKubla Khanā
Fragment of dreams
Xanadu - Heaven
Locations are made up
Basically about sex
1st anti drug poem?
Honey dew and milk of Paradise
āWork Without Hopeā
Springtime
Does not work as hard as nature does
Samuel does not have hope, one cannot work with out hope
Likely connects to his drug usage/mental health issues
āThe Good, Great Manā
A good man may have wealth or merit
But, a great good man has LOVE, LIGHT, and CALM THOUGHTS
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Poetry Test 2
Gwendolyn Brooks
Black Woman
Feminist
Poet Laureate of North
Spent time in NYC and Chicago
Friends with MLK
Family oriented poetry
Deals with important subjects
Went to Wilson Junior college
Born in topeka kansas
Taught at university wisconsin madison and city university of new york
Published Maud Martha
A street in bronzeville
āThe motherā
Abortion
Clear and simple poem used to make a point
Sheās for the mother (not against abortion)
Focuses on the mother instead of child
Abortion isnāt an easy decision
Having an abortion does not make you a bad person
Only the mother can make the decision
baby=fancy parasite
āAbortions will not let you forgetā
āThe Bean Eatersā
When things get old they get yellow (old people)
Lots of stuff = memories
People, who are old, just sit around
āWe Real Coolā
Themes of youth, rebellion, and living recklessly
Young pool players who are more concerned about current experiences than future consequences
Counterculture of Youth
Ends with the line āJazz June. We Die soonā
āFirst fight. Then fiddle.ā
Struggle comes before art, politics before poem
Sonnet
Gracefully fight
About social injustice
āDeaf to music to beauty blindā
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Got in trouble with royalty due to his radical beliefs
Well known wife (teenage wife, famous for frankenstein, her mom wrote about womenās rights)
A bit out there, radical guy
Supported middle class
Born in 1792
Influenced by ideas of liberty and intellectual freedom
Wrote a pamphlet on Atheism
Traveled Ireland speaking about political injustice
Ode to the west wind
Verse drama- Prometheus Unbound
āOzymandiasā
Ozymandias is the Greek name for the Egyptian ruler Ramses the second who made himself a big statue of himself with other monuments
Found traveler in desert where they find a statues legs in sand
See a plaque, it says āmy name is ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works, ye mighty, and despairā
Stupid because ozymandias didnāt even sculpt it, credit to the sculptor
Importance of workers and the working class
āLoveās Philosophyā
Uses how nature always comes together (rivers flowing into the ocean, the mixing of the winds in the sky) as a way to say that physical intimacy between two people is natural
Why shouldnāt people mingle if nature does?
Mountains kiss, waves clasp, everything comes in pairs
Natural and divine
āWhat is all this sweet workāāthat is, the beautiful unity of the worldā"worth / If thou kiss not me?ā
āA Lamentā
Poem about grieving over past glory
A bit unclear what heās grieving
the poet asks when the glory of their prime will return
Canāt return to the past
The changing seasons move his heart with grief but not with delight as they used to do in the past. All joy seems to have departed from the world. Nor is there any hope that joy will return.
John Donne
Metaphysical poetry: a group of poems that share common characteristics: they are all highly intellectualized, use rather strange imagery, use frequent paradoxes and contain extremely complicated thought.
Poetry is not super straightforward
Cleric of church of England
Preacher at St. Pauls Cathedral in London
Wrote worldly love lyrics at the court of Queen Elizabeth I
Songs and Sonnets (His works collection)
Changed, he grew up
āThe Fleaā
Flea jumps from young women to man
Blood mixes, but woman does not lose virginity
About purity and sexuality
If blood is mixed then why not have sex?
She says no by killing the flea with her purple nail
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Farewell speech, telling someone not to be sad
Heās leaving but heās coming back eventually
If you pound gold thin, it's still gold
You should be sad when someone dies, but he's not dying
They are always connected, like twin compasses (mathematical ones used for drawing circles)
āSongā
About infidelity?
Women are unfaithful in society
Mention of a child with mandrake root (like a child born from infidelity is wrong?) mandrake is kind of dark and unnatural? Root is human shaped. In folklore they were believed to have magic powers. Hallucinogenic.
Falling star = crushed dreams, lost purity
Devil's foot = religious unease
Mermaid = attraction and danger of sex
āDeath, be not proudā
Death is natural; normal part of life
Instead it is just a way to transport souls to heaven
Pictures Death as a slave to humanity since he has no power over human souls
āBatter my heart, three-personed Godā
Three personed god is father, son, holy spirit
Talking to all of them (god)
Wants god to take him and make him new, test him so he can be better
We are all human and we sin
Asking god to make him better
Set to be married to the devil because we all sin
All humans are destined for hell
He wants to divorce satan
Tells god to batter him, beat him up, make him suffer to prove his worth
William Butler Yeats
Irish
Son of well known Irish painter
Studied paintingĀ
Poems about art, Irish nationalism, folklore, occult, Irish legend
Wrote The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose
Inspired Seamus Heaney
Loved some girl who really was not a fan of him
āThe Lake Isle of Innisfreeā
Desire to leave city and build a cabin on an Island (Innisfree in Ireland where yeats vacationed as kid)
Transcendentalism a bit
Desire for simplicityĀ
Peaceful nature
āThe Second Comingā
World is ending, spiraling and breaking
World is in chaos and violence, war
Prophecies The collective spirit of the world (Spiritus Mundi)
In the form of a lion with a man head (sphinx)
The figure moves towards Bethlehem, reference towards Christianity
Negative Nancy viewpoint of the world
The end of a war
āLeda and the Swanā
Leda is a mortal woman
The swan is Zeus in disguise as a swan
Ā Swan/Zeus rapes Leda
Idea of power dynamics between gods and humans
Can a mortal learn from physical closeness to a god?
āAnd agamemnon deadā Reference at the end towards the child conceived after the rape, Helen of troy who is so beautiful she causes a war between the greeks and the trojans
Swan described beautifully; honoring gods despite their actions
āSailing to Byzantiumā
Themes of aging, immortality, art, wisdom
Describes that the world is made for the young, not for the old
Speaker wishes to die and leave behind his old and dying body
Instead he asks to be turned into an eternal work of artĀ
Can overcome physical decay through art and knowledge
Immortality through art and learning
āWhen You are Oldā
Dramatic monologue
Speaker addresses a beloved woman, imagining her when she gets older
Asks her to take a book and read it, while remembering her when she was young and all her admirers
Says he loved her for her āpilgrim soulā and the sorrows of her changing face while others loved her for her beauty and charm
āAdamās Curseā
Conversation between speaker, a woman, and another person, they both talk about effort required to create beauty
Labor
Effort is required to sustain love
Beauty takes effort
āThe Wild Swans at Cooleā
Written after seeing lots of wild swans
Life is fragile
Speaker talks about time at park 19 years earlier
Poem possibly alludes to the speaker's lost love?
Moments are fleeting ect ect
āAn Irish Airman Foresees his deathā
Airman flying, says he knows one day he will die
World War I
Thinking about his death and life
Flight allows the airman to face his death on his own terms
Yeats tries to show how they struggled with their identity as Irishmen risking their lives for a country they did not feel was their own.
āA Dream of Deathā
Dreamed someone he loved died far away in a strange place
Mourning
The lady he loved was traveling to france at the time and he was worried she'd die because sheās predisposed to illness
Importance of home
Lonely death, nobody knew her there when she died
Her beauty fades as she remains dead
Gary Soto
Mexican American
Writes narratives
Writes about himself; autobiographical poems
Engineer
Went to UCI
Writes about discrimination against Mexican Americans
Still Alive
āMexicans Begin Jogging'ā
Border control comes in to factory
Gary doesnāt run because he is an American
They think heās lying
His boss puts money in his hand and tells him to run
So he does
Ran past crowds, like a parade
Change of seasons, people pale when autumn comes
Soft houses = not permanent, they are farmers so when autumn comes their job is done
Factory workers and farmers
Long live baseball, milkshakes, sociologists
White people automatically assume Mexicans are illegal, uneducated. Tell sociologists to keep thinking that because they are actually bettering their lives. Underestimate them and see what they can do.
āBehind Grandmaās Houseā
Problematic attention seeking child that craves attention from his grandma
Child lashing out so they could be noticed
Grandma comes to help him (apron flapping in the wind) but actually punches him in the face
Threw light bulbs, kicked trash cans, stole a dog (?), kicked fences, threw rocks at cats, shooed pigeons, spit on ants, had a comb and two coke bottles, a tube of Bryl-creem all for attention
āMaking Money: Drought Year in Minkler, Californiaā
Father and Son bet on what year the car is
The car is personified
Shows it's tough to be a laborer
Making money
Fixing up an old beat up Buick, someone says its a ā49, then says its a ā50 because it doesnāt have a running board
The guy that says that is his dad presumably, he gives his son a buck for fixing it
The dad hits his wife with a towel to get her out of his chair
He then bets on the fact that a plane will fall from the sky and explode.
William Wordsworth
Romantic poetry
Died in 1850s
Upbeat, Transcendentalism, connection with nature
Lyrical, sing songy poems (Lyrical Ballads)
Friends with Samuel Coleridge
Born in Lake district of northern England (what many of his poems are about)
His sister Dorothy inspired him, they were friends, maybe too close
āThe world is too much with usā
Ā Feels like he doesnāt have enough time to bask in nature
Wishes he was a Pagan so that he could have time toĀ
Explaining takes away the mystery and wonder of nature
Why do we have to know everything
āThe Solitary Reaperā
Solitary Reaper is a woman in a field reaping grain
Sheās got a grim reaper sickle
Sheās singing a sad song, it's sad because shes alone
He doesnt think its bad that shes out there, but he wants to know why
Stark and interesting image
āLines (Tintern Abbey)ā
Wordsworth had first visited the Wye Valley when he was 23 years old.
His return five years later occasioned this poem, which Wordsworth saw as articulating his beliefs about nature, creativity, and the human soul.Ā
āI wandered lonely as a cloudā
Walk in lake districtĀ
Sees a strip of daffodils
The daffodils leave a long lasting impression on wordsworth, he remembers them later on the couch
They make him feel at peace
Tranquility of nature and life
āIt is a beauteous eveningā
A beautiful evening, its quiet
Sonnet
Calls for the appreciation of nature
Walking with his daughter (dear child)
Coastal sunset
In Calais, France
His daughter doesnāt seem in awe of the sunset, but wordsworth says that is because children have god with them all the time
Niki Giovanni
Princess of black poetry
Deals with racial inequality and feminism
Received many honorary doctorates
Spoke up for womenās rights
Racism 101 - Famous work
āEgo Trippingā
Inflated ego
Sheās everything
The world without a woman is nothing
World is a woman
Noah, Hannibal, both had mothers
āI turn myself into myself and I was Jesusā - When praying you have to look inside for Jesus
Women and people are amazing!
āBLK History Monthā
Saying Black History Month is important
If its no longer around, who will tell black people that they are same as everybody else?
Metaphor, people and the message are the seed, black history month is the water, the wind, and the sun that helps it grow
āPoem for a Lady Whose Voice I Likeā
Some lame guy saying that a black lady wouldnāt have made it in her career if she wasnāt pretty
She says that God created black people too
He says again that others told him she isnāt that impressive, that other people can do better, he talks again, she says, āthat's goodā
The lady stays positive despite the mans negativity
Says shes only making it big because sheās sleeping with white people
She says that god made her again, She replies that God:
Took a big Black greasy rib from Adam and said we will call this woman and her name will be sapphire and she will divide into four parts that simone may sing a song:
Simone is likely the famous black african rights singer and civil activist, talking about four women (a song that talks about stereotypes against women)
The guy accuses her of being full of herself, but she says if someone wasnāt full of themselves they would be hungry (idea of ego tripping and people being amazing)
āNikki Rosaā
Memories of growing up in a Suburb in Cincinnati
Primarily black population
Happy with family
Strong sense of community
Refutes common stereotypes of black people living in hardship, instead focusing on love and connection between everyone
Rainer Maria Rilke
German poet born in Prague
Most significant figure in the twentieth century
Attended military school and trade school, dropped out and attended University of Prague
Divorced
Secretary to Auguste Rodin
Wanted to make poetry unique and different
Said if you were meant to do something you wake up thinking about it every day
If you wake up thinking about poetry every day youāre probably meant to be a poet; Have a passion in life!
āThe Cadet Picture of My Fatherā
Looking at a picture of his dad (his memory)
Hands fade first, he is forgetting what his dadās touch feels like?
Memory of his dad is fading
Memory fades
āSong of the Dwarfā
Speaker is getting old
Heās ready to die
As he's shriveling up he says look at my hands
Hands are so important to him because he is a writer, he is losing his talent
Is he talking about himself dying or is he losing his talent?
Dwarf represents his writing talent
āDay in Autumnā
People go inside with fall beginning
People follow nature
As nature changes, so do we
Theodore Roethke
Born in Saginaw Michigan
Father (a drunk) oversaw a substantial greenhouse
Knowledge of flowers and vegetation
Rough family life
Uncle died by suicide, father by cancer
āMy Papaās Waltzā
Being beaten by his dad who is drunk (whiskey on his breath)
Mom is upset (frowning)
Palm caked hard by dirt (his dad worked in the greenhouse)
He doesnāt hate his dad, from a childās perspective
Not necessarily a negative perspective
They both love eachother still
Clings to his father
āElegy for Janeā
Student named Jane dies
Her death creates loss, a void
Non Romantic love for herĀ
Feels like he doesnāt have a right to mourn her, heās not her father or partner.
Jane seemed like she was shy, felt emotions deeply
She had curly hair
He is unconsolable, the moss, and the rocks
Compared her to a skittery pigeon? And calls her a maimed darling and also a sparrow (death is flying)
Death affects everyone
Personification of the world makes it seem like nature lives for her
āRoot Cellarā
Cellar root growing in his cellar
Cellar is disgusting
Pungent and repulsive
Plants and soil that are there are strong and determined to live though
Boxes, manure, planks, and hardy plants
Maybe about how awful life is, life and nature still finds a way?
āThe Wakingā
Villanelle
the value of taking life slowly, trusting one's intuitions, and learning by doing
He wakes to sleep and takes his waking slow
Uncertainty of life's direction, life is mysterious
Everything in life is a lesson, you learn from your mistakes
Sharon Olds
Still alive
Pulitzer prize
Abused by her father
25 year marriage, she got cheated on, really affected her
Saw a change in her poetry
Private person
āI go back to May 1937ā
Parents graduating from Harvard
They are pure and innocent and do no wrong
She wants to tell them not to do it and be together because awful things are going to happen
She knows because she lived through it
Stops herself because if they didnāt she wouldnāt exist
Paper dolls (bangs them together at the hips like flint, like sheās making a fire, the fire is her)
Sheās going to tell us what happens so we donāt make the same mistakes as her parents
āSex Without Loveā
Bitter
Writing about her husband
How do you make love without being in love?
Maybe they are the pure ones
Maybe they know they are actually alone
Weāre all looking for our own best time because the world revolves around you
āSize and Sheer Willā
Growth and change
Boy named gabriel is impatient to grow up
Says that if he could age himself in a machine to 16 he would
Longs for life when he is older
Comparing him to grass I believe
āRite of Passageā
Poem about the roots of male violence
The poems speaker is a mother of a boy in first grade
While watching her son's birthday parties she observes the aggressive at competitive behavior between the boys
They try to one up each other with how old they are some are 6 and some are 7
Her son says, āWe could easily kill a two year oldā in an attempt to boast, the other boys agree
Initiation into the violent culture of men in contrast to his youth and innocence
Then they go play pretend war.
ā35/10ā
Ā Hair is turning gray
Her skin is beginning to wrinkle
Her daughter is young and becoming an adolescent
She wants to spend time with her, but sheās old and going to die while her kid lives on
Young replace the old; this is the normal part of life
Elizabeth Bishop
Dad died, mom went insane, so she lived with her grandparents in nova scotia very young
Lots of awards (National book award, Pulitzer prize)
Wrote armadillo in reaction to Robert lowell's skunk hour, which was about her
Lived in brazil for fifteen years
North and SouthĀ
Painter
āOne Artā
Talking about losing things
The more you lose things, the better you get at it
Lost someone
Trying to convince herself she's fine and its not a disaster
Admits it's a disaster
Repeated words and lines
Lyric poem but starts to feel like a villanelle
āSestinaā
Tears and loss have filled the little girl's life
The grandmother believes that the almanac predicted both her sorrow and weather
Explores family trauma, the gap between adult understanding and childhood innocence, and the persistence of grief.
Grandma and girl laughing and talking at the table while rain falls
Grandma suddenly starts crying and the girl draws a house with her father
As the girl continues to draw, her father will appear less and less
āThe Fishā
Extended metaphor about how people fight back in life, life always has its setbacks
Caught a fish
Fish didnāt fight it
Fish looks rough, has barnacles, blood and āsea liceā
Fish had already been caught at least 5 times prior (it has five hooks and line in its lip)
Compares them to medals with ribbons
Rainbow oil in the water it came from
Let the fish go
āFirst Death in Nova Scotiaā
Wake held for her cousin Arthur in the family parlor
Fascination and unease surrounding the reality of death
Realization of death as a child
Taxidermied bird (loon) is there and silent since Uncle Arthur killed it
Above were colored pictures of royalty
Dead bird in relation to arthurās death
Basically about how death is mystic to children, and natural
Anne Sexton
Taught creative writing
Committed suicide
Won the pulitzer prize for Live or die
Born and raised in Massachusetts
Worked in boston literary milieu
Mental illness and depression
Was taught by Robert Lowell
Grief
Confessional poetry
Suffocated herself in her garage at 49
āThe Starry Nightā
11 stars
The stars are moving and alive, sky is too
Like a serpent or a dragon gobbling up the stars
Thatās how she wants to die, falling as sleep as night devours her whole
āTwo Handsā
Wonders about the origin of humanity
Hands coming up from the sea, one is man the other is woman
Themes of creation by god
Even simple things are sacred, like drinking coffee and looking at bugs
Men and women are interconnected
Celebration of the human experienceĀ
Humanity brought through divine word
Applauding is no sin
Part of a larger plan
God created us all and everything we do is holy
āHer Kindā
Death and killing herself
Talks not just about herself but other women
Witch, homemaker, cart driver women
Witch- strong, powerful, single, independent women, must be a witch (salem witch trials). She burnt, Anne says āI have been her kindā
Homemaker- A married woman becomes a wife, a woman with a child becomes a mother. She loses herself
Driver- Sheās got a job, so sheās no good and selfish because she doesnāt take care of her family
Louise GluĢck
Died last year
Poet Laureate of the US from 2003 to 2004
National humanities medal
Born in NYC
Taught poetry
No degree
Focused on emotional intensity with mythological references
Professor of Practice in Poetry at Yale
Her dad invented the X-acto knife
Had anorexia
Divorced then remarriedĀ
Her House burned down
Sister died before she was born
October about 9/11 - Famous Work
Died from cancer
āMock Orangeā
Mock orange is a flower
Speaker is disillusioned with sex, romance, and male domination
Confessional
Personal hurt, sexual experiences, and gender roles
Light from the yard doesnāt come from the moon but a mock orange
She hates the flowers
I think she might be referring to men as the flowers, she calls men an odor āHow can I be content when there is still that odor in the worldā
Feminist ideas, but focuses on the idea that men are the root of womenās problems
āThe School Childrenā
Children going to school
School is framed pretty harshly here
Distance between children and mothers while they are at school.
Maybe a bit of rivalry between teachers and mothers?? They both need the kids time
Mothers sad/anxious sort of while their kids are at school
Apple imagery
āThe Untrustworthy Speakerā
Narrator talking to someone says:
She puts on a facade
She seems smart and passionate but sheās actually a liar and a cheat
Has a way with words
Everything is subjective to her
About the nature of storytelling, can you really trust anyone
Mentions her dead sister, purity of her sister vs her own failures
Self critical and honest poem
Says you have to block out āthe older daughterā which Iām assuming means you have to block out innocence in order to see the truth
Drama
Drama, unlike other literary genres, is a staged art
Plays - written to be performed by actors before an audience
Drama has affinities with ________ and ______
fiction, poetry
What is the narrative dimension?
A play often narrates a story in the form of a plot
Relies on dialogue and description
Plays may be written in verse
Poems contain dramatic elements
What are the three main reasons for drama?
Inform
Entertain
Religious Reasons
Miracle/Morality Plays - Lives of the Saints
Passion Plays - Life and Death of Christ
True or false? Drama is the second oldest form of literature
What are the three main types of drama?
Comedy: something with a happy ending
Comedy is the most difficult type
Deal with the common people of society
Tragedy: ends with death of hero
Focuses on important people in society
Satire/Tragicomedy: serious, dramatic play with happy ending
Action Movies
Deus ex Machina = God in the Machine
External force saves the hero and the day
Funny actons do occur: role of buffon (provides comical relief)
Drama is a mimetic art, as it imitates or represents human life and experience
Drama is an active art, as actors are agents
Drama is an intermediate art, representing action that is occurring in the playās present
Drama would not be the same without an audience
Drama is a composite art, uses different forms of art
Interpretation of drama directs us to more objective considerations than the subjective experience in which we satisfy our personal needs as readers
To understand a play we must:
Observe its details
Makes connections among the details we observe
Make a provisional conclusion about the playās meeting based on our observations, connections, and inferences
Evaluation: essentially a judgement, an opinion about a text formulated as a conclusion
Our cultural values derive from our lives as members of families and societies
Our moral values reflect our ethical norms
Out aesthetic values concern what we see as beautiful
Tragic heroes: grand and noble characters
Romantic comedy: portrays characters gently or generously
Satire: exposes human folly and criticizes human conduct
Elements of a drama: plot, character, dialogue, staging, and theme
Plot: unified structure of a plays incidents
Exposition: presents background necessary for the development of the plot
Rising action: includes the separate incidents that complicate the plot towards the climax
Climax: point of intensity in the playās action builds
Resolution/Denouement: end of plot
What is a main element in the plot?
Surprise
Soliloquy: a speech given by a character as if alone, on a stage
Dramaturge: a literary editor in theatre
Asides: comments made directly to the audience in the presence of other characters, without the other characters hearing
Irony:
Simple verbal irony is simply saying opposite of what is meant
Irony of Circumstance is situational irony, a discrepancy between what characters think is the case and actual case
Dramatic Irony: a discrepancy between what characters know, and what the audience knows
Oedipus Rex
Written by Sophocles, who wrote during Golden Age of Rome
Considered a great like:
Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles wrote Tragedies, which is why he won the contest for the god Dionysus
Oedipus Rex is a trilogy tragedy
Oedipus Rex
Oedipus at Colonus
Antigone
Plot of Oedipus Rex:
Chorus narrates beginning
Oedipus is King of Thebes
Oedipus becomes King of Thebes because of his past
Oedipus Rex starts in middle - medius rex
Townspeople are bringing in branches of wool, this symbolizes mourning b/c of the plague in Thebes
Oedipus has a major flaw: hubris (also bad temper)
Oedipus does not believe his parents to be his true parents
Right now, he is only the prince of Corinth
So, Oedipus travels to Delphi to hear from the oracles about his real parents
Orcales can see visions because they stand next to acidic rivers?
Oedipus then goes to Thebes to escape prophecy of killing his father
At Thebes, he saves the kingdom from a Sphynx
Riddle he solves:
"What goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?" Answer: man
Oedipus then is made king and marries Iocaste
Then, as issues continue in Thebes, Oedipus sends Iocasteā s brother - Creon to discuss with seers/oracles
Orcales say the murder of Leios - previous Thebes King - must be punished
Teiresias (blind seer from Odysseus) confirms punishment of murder of Leios must occur
After hearing this, Thebes accuses Creon of killing Leios
Then, it is found out Oedipusās āfatherā has died
Oedipus is happy to have beat the prophecy
However, it is then revealed by a shepherd that Oedipus was the son of Leios and Iocaste
Oedipus actually killed members of a caravan for almost hitting him on the road? (something like that)
Oedipus thus killed his real fathers
Oedipus had been sent to Corinth by the shepard, as the prophecy was told to Leios his son would murder him, so he was meant to have his ankles pierced and left in woods
So, Oedipus was taken to Corinth, but fulfilled the prophecy of murdering his father
Oedipus then is blinded to be punished for his actions
