ENG212 - Part 1: Poetry Flashcards

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1
Q
Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!
The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf;
The bullock is prancing,
The billy-goat farting 
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Never stop now.

Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;
Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!

What effect is created by the repetition of “sing cuckoo”?
What is the effect of the frequent use of exclamation marks?What is the dominant mood?

A

“Sumer is icumen in (The Cuckoo Song)”
Song - nd Anonymous

Theme - positive - spring awakening, joy
- me - Command; urgency; anticipation

Points - first song
- exclamation marks - Anticipation, almost desperation of the narrator
- implied sexuality associated with new things in spring
- Rustic realism - animals lowing and farting!
-The refrain makes use of onomatopoeia to echo the joy of the bird’s song, as it calls for a mate.
Throughout the poem, the melodious u sound predominates, both internally (in assonance and internal rhyme) and in the end rhymes (eight of the twelve stanza lines and both the refrain lines terminate in u).
The diction (the poet’s choice of words) and imagery (pictures in the imagination), drawn from farm and wood, are also fitting to the theme (the main idea about the subject of the poem) and mood (the overall atmosphere in the poem) of revitalization.

The onomatopoeic imitation of the bird’s song establishes a lilting rhythm that makes the voice

The punctuation—the dashes and exclamation marks—underlines the mood of exuberant joy and tells the person who reads or sings the song to put life into vocal interpretation.

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2
Q
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, ‘tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMN.

A

Ezra Pound, “Ancient Music,”
Song - 1917

Theme - Hating winter

Points - Parody of Sumer is icumen in (The Cuckoo Song)
- “Godd**n!”

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3
Q

parody

A

“a humorous imitation that mocks a given literary work by exaggerating or distorting some of its salient features”

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4
Q
Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ! If my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!
-------------
What is the effect of the repetition of the word rain?
Western Wind

Western Wind
What are the prevailing sounds in this poem?

A

Anonymous, “Western Wind,”

Song - nd

Theme - narrator longing to return home from a wet windy place

Points - 4-line poem

  • rain image - treating it both as a noun and verb
  • some alliteration - w sounds emphasizing wind sounds and longing/loneliness

The repetition of the w sounds (alliteration) in line 1 creates a feeling of sad yearning, which is reinforced by the repetition of rain in the second line, which rhymes with again in the fourth line. Images of discomfort and solitude in the first two lines are contrasted with images of warmth and love in the last two to suggest what has been lost.

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5
Q

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night forever
And you know that she’s half-crazy but that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her
Then he gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind
And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them
But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind
And you think you maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with her mind
Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river
She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they wil lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds her mirror
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind
——————
How do you describe the mood in “Suzanne Takes You Down”? How do the sounds help create it? What devices are used to produce sound effects?
What is the nature of the variations in the refrain?
What does the imagery in the poem suggest?
What is the relationship between the first and second verses, between the image of Suzanne and the image of Christ?

A

Leonard Cohen, “Suzanne Takes You Down” Song - 1966

Theme - attanining enlightenment/actualization through sexual teacher

Points - juxtaposes, & equates sexual and religious experiences

  • SG - mood of peace and harmony
  • 3rd line of each refrain is a comment on fSong - 1966

The mood of “Suzanne Takes You Down” is one of peace and harmony, evoked through the lulling, repetitive sounds of the words and the long sentences that run through the ends of the lines (enjambment: literally, “a striding over”).

Canadian poet Leonard Cohen has written a wide variety of songs and poems, and his works such as “Sisters of Mercy” and “That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” were very popular during the 1960s. Some of Cohen’s early poems are angry protests against the persecution of the Jews, as in “Flowers for Hitler,” and in many of his works there are allusions to Judeo-Christian symbols and icons. In his love songs (“Suzanne Takes You Down” being a good example), as in his novel Beautiful Losers (1966), he celebrates physical love as a spiritual experience, often juxtaposing sexual and religious experiences. Lovers and saints may both achieve a state of ecstasy, a form of salvation from isolation and fear, through a total surrender of the self and absolute trust in something or someone else.

The mood of “Suzanne Takes You Down” is one of peace and harmony, evoked through the lulling, repetitive sounds of the words and the long sentences that run through the ends of the lines (enjambment: literally, “a striding over”). The simplicity of the diction and the imagery of the first verse evoke a feeling of calm. Cohen paints a kind of word picture of the sights and sounds of the river and then the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus “walked upon the water” (20). The imagery, a realization of ideas, thoughts, and feelings through concrete objects that appeal to the senses of sight (visual), hearing (auditory), smell (olfactory), touch (tactile), and/or taste (gustatory), is both mundane and exotic in the sense that the colour and smell of the “tea and oranges” (7) suggest the aromatic richness of Suzanne’s spiritual and physical gifts. Even the material poverty of her “rags and feathers” (38) is transposed into a wealth of possibilities, and she enables others “to see” in a new way—“where to look / among the garbage and the flowers” (42–43).

The connection between the first and second stanzas is made through the image of water, with religious connotations, as a cleansing and healing element. Because each verse begins with the name of either Suzanne or Jesus, the implication is that they have important correspondences. Both offer a form of salvation with one difference: Jesus saw that from his “lonely wooden tower” (22)—that is, the cross—only those who were close to drowning would call on his help, whereas Suzanne’s more “earthly” love appeals to all men. The variation in the refrain suggests a correspondence between physical and spiritual love, and between mind and body. The short final line of each stanza, consisting of three simple monosyllabic words, has the effect of a peaceful resolution—a coming to rest after a long journey.

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6
Q

allusive

A

indirectly refers to other situations, places, persons, or ideas

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7
Q

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
--------------------
What is the main argument in ?

What are the implications of the central image?

How does this lyric convey the speed at which time passes?

A

Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time,”

Lyric - 1684

Theme - Sieze the day, carpe diem

Points - central image - virginity implying youth and inexperience, and reticence

  • 2nd line - time is still a flying - overt
  • Lots of monosyllabic words - easy to read quickly
  • Unstressed syllable at the end of each verse conveys the effect of falling off or deterioration - dying, setting, former, tarry
  • Placement of the word “times” - stressed at beginning of line 12 and repeated (unstressed) at end of line 13

“To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time” is probably the best known expression of the carpe diem theme, which literally means seize the day

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8
Q

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.
Seven years tho’ wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say, “Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.”
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
—————
Is there a shift in tone in Jonson’s poem?
What is the effect of the concluding couplet in “On My First Son”?

A

Ben Jonson, “On My First Son,”

Lyric - 1616

Theme - “farewell” lament for a lost son

Points - SG compares it to “My Dear and Loving Husband”
- monosyllabic words - this conveys a sense of sincerity
- Subdued mood conveyed through lots of open vowel sounds and soft consonants
Also iambic pentameter in both poems
- concluding couplet in “On My First Son”?
Takes it back to the personal after waxing
2nd last line - Three stressed syllables for WHOSE SAKE HENCEforth is a change in pattern from iambic (even if whose is not stressed) - reminds us that this is about a father’s grief not about the son

biblical allusion suggests that the speaker’s grief in the poem is that of all fathers who have lost sons.

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9
Q

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

A

Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband,”

Lyric - 1678
iambic pentameter

Theme - statement of love for her husband

Points - SG compares it to “On My First Son” - Ben Jonson
- monosyllabic words - this conveys a sense of sincerity
- Subdued mood conveyed through lots of open vowel sounds and soft consonants
Also iambic pentameter in both poems
- SG talks about bradstreet being exaggerated in her protestations of love and says their is little development of an idea or theme through the poem since the end of each line is closed.

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10
Q
1) 
Little Lamb who made thee
  Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
  Little Lamb who made thee
  Dost thou know who made thee
  Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
  Little Lamb I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
  Little Lamb God bless thee.
  Little Lamb God bless thee.
2) 
Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire!
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger, Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

What are the symbolic qualities of each creature in these poems? What values or forces do they embody?
What is the effect of the questions in each poem?
What is the effect of the repetition in each poem?

A

William Blake, “The Lamb” and “The Tyger,”

Lyrics - 1789 & 1794

Theme - innocence and experience

Points - Lamb - light, innocent, lovable, not knowing his origin, “delight” tender voice, made by Jesus, meek, equated to a child
SG - purity too; me - so important back then
Notes that the lamb is a sacrificial animal - slain so the sins of the world can be taken away
- Tiger - dark despite “fire” in the eyes, brain forged in fire - more like hellfire, twisted heart (evil), questions whether the god who made the lamb could also make the tyger - implies it could have been the devil, opposite of innocent, terrible, frightening,
- Tyger - Repeated questioning “what” implies what could possibly create a tyger, how could god have done this? SG confirms this
SG - Blake is questioning the existence of suffering

Lamb - Do you know questions reinforce unknowing innocence

Moreover, both animals may be perceived as ambiguous symbols: the lamb is both a redemptive and a sacrificial animal, slain so that the sins of the world may be taken away; the tiger, burning in the forests of the night, is witness to the extraordinary power of creation and perhaps indirectly to the creative power of the poetic imagination.

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11
Q

1) O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
--------------
What is suggested by the symbol of the rose in “The Sick Rose”?
What might the “worm” represent?
A

William Blake, “The Sick Rose”
Lyrics - 1794

Theme - negativity of experience

Points - bleak

  • rose - A deflowered virgin and how this loss of innocence is the destruction of her pure, perfect life
  • worm - how innocence is corrupted

In this poem, the rose, which is conventionally associated with youth, beauty, and love (as in “Gather ye rose-buds”), becomes a symbol of disease and corruption,

the worm. The significant adjective “invisible” suggests that the source of corruption may not be immediately apparent: ideas, dogmatism, and ignorance can corrupt.

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12
Q

2) I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
————-
What are the images of corruption in “London”?
What is the effect of the repetition?

A

William Blake, “London”
Lyrics - 1794
- London - lots of images of corruption, blackened churches, harlot’s cries, mind forged manacles (unjust laws)
- repeated words stress unavoidable reality

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13
Q

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
———
What does the persona of Aunt Jennifer suggest about women’s roles in society?
What is the effect of the rhyme scheme in Rich’s poem?

A

Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,”
Lyric - 1951

Theme - imprisoning treatment of Aunt Jennifer by her husband - expressed in her sewing

Points - Men may hunt the tigers but tigers are not afraid - tigers represent liberated women who may well be killed by hunters but not broken
- Rhyming couplets - masculine single rhymes (only last syllable rhymes at end of lines)
Powerful, closed, - expresses both the power of the patriarchy and the resolution of the idealized tigers

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14
Q

ballad

conventions of the ballad stanza?

A

narrative or story and a song
It often begins with a story right in the middle of the main episode, with no introductory explanation or exposition (in medias res), and moves quickly to a climax in the final stanza

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15
Q

IT 1 was in and about the Martinmas time,
When the green leaves were a falling,
That Sir John Graeme, in the West Country,
Fell in love with Barbara Allan.

He sent his man down through the town, 5
To the place where she was dwelling;
‘O haste and come to my master dear,
Gin ye be Barbara Allan.’

O hooly, hooly rose she up,
To the place where he was lying, 10
And when she drew the curtain by,
‘Young man, I think you’re dying.’

‘O it’s I am sick, and very, very sick,
And ’tis a’ for Barbara Allan.’
‘O the better for me ye’s never be, 15
Tho’ your heart’s blood were a spilling.’

‘O dinna ye mind, young man,’ said she,
‘When ye was in the tavern a drinking,
That ye made the healths gae round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allan?’ 20

He turn’d his face unto the wall,
And death was with him dealing;
‘Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
And be kind to Barbara Allan.’

And slowly, slowly raise she up, 25
And slowly, slowly left him,
And sighing, said, she coud not stay,
Since death of life had reft him.

She had not gane a mile but twa,
When she heard the dead-bell ringing, 30
And every jow that the dead-bell geid,
It cry’d, ‘Woe to Barbara Allan!’

‘O mother, mother, make my bed,
O make it saft and narrow!
Since my love died for me to-day, 35
I’ll die for him to-morrow.’

What is the ballad about?
What is the relationship between Sir John Graeme and Barbara Allan?
Is Barbara Allan cruel?
What are the conventions of the ballad stanza?

A

Ballad - nd

Theme - courtly love tragedy - Girl feels guilty when suitor dies “for her”

Points - What is the relationship between Sir John Graeme and Barbara Allan?
St Martin is patron saint of beggars - called to her around this festival time
He basically begged and guilt-tripped her into feeling for him

Is Barbara Allan cruel?
What are the conventions of the ballad stanza?
Most of the rhymes in “Bonny Barbara Allan” are near rhymes (incomplete or half rhymes), and each quatrain (a stanza of four lines) follows an abcb rhyming pattern. This pattern is characteristic of the ballad stanza.

“Bonny Barbara Allan” exists in over two hundred variations and is the most well-known ballad among the poems of this genre (kind, form, or type) in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited by Francis J. Child and first published in 1884.

“Bonny Barbara Allan” tells a story of unrequited love. Sir John Graeme is lovesick for Barbara Allan, but when she is called to his death bed, she rejects him and only says: “Young man, I think you’re dying” (12). It becomes clear from the dialogue that follows that Sir John Graeme had previously “slighted” Barbara Allan, which explains Barbara Allan’s insensitive treatment of Sir John, as he lies dying on the bed. She repents her rejection of Sir John almost immediately; he dies before she had “gane a mile but twa” (29), and the ballad ends with the knowledge that she, too, will die of sorrow. Love and death are often closely associated in the traditional ballad. In this poem, the cries of the death-bell, “Woe to Barbara Allan” (32), suggest her imminent death. Other versions of this ballad follow the relationship beyond the characters’ deaths and reinforce the connection between love and death. The relationship between Sir John and Barbara Allan is revealed in their dialogue and their actions, from which the listener or reader is able to draw conclusions about the characters’ personalities and motivations.

Most of the rhymes in “Bonny Barbara Allan” are near rhymes (incomplete or half rhymes), and each quatrain (a stanza of four lines) follows an abcb rhyming pattern. This pattern is characteristic of the ballad stanza. The metre of “Bonny Barbara Allan” is also typical of medieval ballads, which alternate four stresses in the first and third lines of each stanza and three stresses in the second and fourth lines of each stanza, as seen in the following quatrain:

Quatrain; rythym pattern with alternate stresses.
Also, the ballad often relies on repetition (sometimes with variation) and refrains, as does this ballad, which repeats “Barbara Allan” at the end of more than half of the stanzas.

As you shall see, John Keats’s nineteenth-century lyrical ballad “La Belle Dame sans Merci” is derived from the medieval ballad tradition.

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16
Q

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
——
What are the characteristics of this nineteenth-century ballad?
How does the poem convey the sense of the inevitability of the knight’s death?
What is the effect of the last short line in each stanza?
What is the significance of the images of nature?
Who is “La Belle Dame sans Merci”?

A

John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,”

Ballad - 1820

Theme - She represents death and sings death’s seductive song which has also snared kings and princes

Patriarchal view of the cold seductress - also a tragedy for the hero

Points - SG - Associations with lilies and faded roses
nineteenth-century ballad:
12 Quatrains - 4-line stanzas
Rhyme Scheme - abcb
Metre
Mostly iambic
Some variations where accents are together on adjacent syllables - sometimes two (spondee), occasionally 3 (
Feet per line
All but one quatrains - 4-4-4-3, except quatrain where title is repeated on 3rd line - 4-4-5-3
So iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter
SG - Question and answer format & incremental repetition builds up to final revelation
*courtly love, which entail a complex code of behaviour for lovers.
*femme fatale

What are the characteristics of this nineteenth-century ballad?
the protagonist is a knight, who is about to die as a result of an unrequited or treacherous love; the quatrains are structured as question and answer; and the incremental repetition gradually builds up to the final revelation
—-
How does the poem convey the sense of the inevitability of the knight’s death?
the knight pines away for the love of a lady, but his physical decline is portrayed through images of lilies and roses, which are usually associated with the beloved in the courtly love tradition. These images are also aspects of a natural world that is in a state of decline
—-
What is the effect of the last short line in each stanza?
Heavy price Canadian soldiers paid in the Italian campaign in the Second World War.
—-
What is the significance of the images of nature?

Who is “La Belle Dame sans Merci”?
for Fanny, the fever of death hanging over him

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17
Q

Courtly Love

A

complex code of behaviour for lovers. In this tradition, the beloved was typically worshipped from afar and perceived as almost unattainable in her purity of soul and body.

  • Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne Takes You Down.”
  • John Keats, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,”
  • Shakespeare, Keats, and Tennyson, modified the courtly love tradition to suit their own purposes.
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18
Q
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
       To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
       The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
       Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
       The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
       Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
       The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
       Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy
       Lady of Shalott."
Part II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
       To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
       The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
       Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
       Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
       Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
       The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
       And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said
       The Lady of Shalott.
Part III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
       Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
       Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
       As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
       Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
       As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
       Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
       As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
       Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
       She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
       The Lady of Shalott.
Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
       Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
       The Lady of Shalott.
And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance—
With a glassy countenance
       Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
       The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro' the noises of the night
       She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
       The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
       Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
       The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
       Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
       The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
       All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
       The Lady of Shalott."

What is the effect of the repeated rhymes in each stanza?—of the repeated references to “Camelot” and “The Lady of Shalott”?
What images is the lady associated with?
What aspects of the courtly love tradition are evident in this poem?
In what respects is Lancelot’s “blessing” ironic?

A

Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott,
Ballad - 1842

Theme - Noble death, but for what? The idea of camelot???

Points - Makes much of Tennyson’s theme of the tension between the need for artistic separation and the need for social interaction
Irony is that the attraction to a man is what kills her as an artist and indeed physically
Beauty is ideallized
One of many poets to associate death of idealism with experience - Me - easy to relate to Blake’s songs of innocence and experience
SG - lily connotes courtly love, fragility, virginal beauty, and death
Camelot - mythical, idealized state/place
Lady of Shalott - puts her into the idealized state
courtly love - She is alone and unatainable
Clad in pure white at the end
irony in Lancelots attraction to her at the end
—–
What is the effect of the repeated rhymes in each stanza?—of the repeated references to “Camelot” and “The Lady of Shalott”?
Each stanza has nine lines that are written with a rhyme scheme of a-a-a-a-b-c-c-c-b. In many of the stanzas, the last line reads, ‘The Lady of Shalott.’ Tennyson repeats her name over and over to emphasize both her person and tragic circumstances.
—-
What images is the lady associated with?
lily (the traditional flower of courtly love)
Part III delineates the object of her desire, Sir Lancelot, through a series of strong masculine images—hunting, war, the sun, and fire.
She was warm, now she is frozen. All of these are powerful images of loss and change. Eventually she becomes a sort of statue, a pale shape in a coffin-like boat.

What aspects of the courtly love tradition are evident in this poem?

In what respects is Lancelot’s “blessing” ironic?
‘She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.’

disguised version of the curse drawn into operation at the end of the third part of the poem

The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
she is susceptible to the “curse” of love and the vicissitudes of earthly passion.

Popularity of “The Lady of Shalott”: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a great British poet, wrote ‘The Lady of Shalott’, a ballad known for its themes of melancholy and death. It was first published in 1833. The poem unfolds the story of a lady who is mysteriously imprisoned in a tall building of Camelot. It then illustrates how magic plays a significant role in one’s life.
“The Lady of Shalott” As a Representative of Death: The poem narrates the tragic story of a lady who is imprisoned on an island. No one can see her except the farmers who listen to her song while working in their fields. Everything around her is gloomy and colorless. She is not allowed to look outside through the window. Rather, she sees the outside world through a mirror. To her, the reality is confined to the images she perceives through that mirror. The poem also provides a detailed description of the place around her and the movement of the people in Camelot. One day, she sees a knight coming from the fields of Barley. He grabs her attention, and she sees the Camelot through the window. As a punishment, she writes her name on the boat, signs her last song, and dies.
Major Themes in “The Lady of Shalott”: Isolation, detachment, and the supernatural elements are the major themes of this poem. The text revolves around the mystery of the Lady of Shalott, who is trapped. She accepts it as her fate and is emotionally and physically detached from the real world. She sees the world only through the mirror. Ironically, she dies when she gets out of that building and when the mirror breaks.

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19
Q

Pre-Raphaelites,

A

idealized the beauty of medieval maidens, particularly those drawn from the Arthurian stories.

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20
Q

sonnet

A

a fixed form of fourteen lines
typically it takes two forms: Italian or English (Shakespearean). The Italian sonnet comprises an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines), and there is usually a thematic shift between the two parts.

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21
Q

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Scan the first quatrain of Sonnet , noting the effects of any irregular feet (trochees, spondees). Remember that the basic metre is iambic pentameter.
How does Shakespeare use the octave-sestet division in Sonnet ? How does he use the couplet (part of the sestet)?
Analyze the use of repetition, alliteration, and caesura in the last line of Sonnet
What season does the poet portray?

A

Sonnet 18.
Theme - beauty will fade, but live on in the lines of this sonnet

Points - He uses the octave to imply that beauty fades with time, then says that the addressee is an exception in the sestet

  • Repetition - so long as…, so long lives
  • Ceasura - pause in middle of line - So LONG LIVES THIS | and THIS gives LIFE to THEE
  • Alliteration - long, lives & life tie directly back to lines 2 lines back, emphasizing the connection
  • fall imagery - late in life

noting the effects of any irregular feet (trochees, spondees). Remember that the basic metre is iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare also uses metre to effect: the second and fourth lines reinforce the reversal of conventional comparison through the use of irregular feet; line 2 begins with a trochee, for example, and the double stress of “black wires” and the monosyllabic words reinforce, bluntly, the negativity of the first reference to wires:

How does Shakespeare use the octave-sestet division in Sonnet ? How does he use the couplet (part of the sestet)?
Analyze the use of repetition, alliteration, and caesura in the last line of Sonnet
What season does the poet portray?
Summer

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22
Q

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
——
What season does the poet portray In what ways does he develop the imagery of the seasons?

A

Sonnet 73
Sonnet - 1609

Theme - love me while I’m here because I’m getting old

Points - effect of the repeated words “in me” in Sonnet 73?
They are in the first line of each quatrain - so they serve as a jumping off point for the ideas (old preacher trick - e.g., I have a dream)
- fall imagery - late in life
- SG also talks about last line To LOVE that WELL which THOU must LEAVE ere LONG - says that monosyllabic, regular iamb , and alliteration also conveys conviction and finality
—-
What season does the poet portray In what ways does he develop the imagery of the seasons?
Autumn

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23
Q

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
—-
What is the tone
How is it achieved?
What is the nature of the poet’s love in Sonnet?

A

Sonnet 116

Theme - the nature of true love

Points - Tone is of truth & certainty - speaks in absolutes
Me - is he actually in love or observing love in general??? I thought the latter.
True love - conveyed by contrast with seeming love or weaknesses of what is mistaken as love
—-
What is the tone
How is it achieved?
What is the nature of the poet’s love in Sonnet?
is firm, but caring. It is conveyed as guidance in the arrangement of words that produces a voice in the readers head.

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24
Q

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

What is the effect of the monosyllables and irregular metre in line 12
Assess the impact of the closing couplet

A

Sonnet 130

Theme - Wife is not courtly ideal but he still loves her

Points -
SG agrees but suddenly removes shakespeare as the one speaking and refers to the speaker as a narrator - unlike those earlier poems that are assumed to be shakespeare talking directly to his young patron

Line 12 - My MISTRESS, when SHE walks, TREADS on the GROUND

In this reading SHE is stressed, bringing the whole focus on the poem back onto her - this is who we are talking about

What is the effect of the monosyllables and irregular metre in line 12
Assess the impact of the closing couplet
SG says monosyllables in earlier lines reinforce the negativity of the images - again convey certainty (later on spoken of as male)
Me - could be extended to this line too although the comparison is not as harsh, so I’d say it reinforces the reality

Final couplet - SG - he is stating he is in love with a real woman, not a courtly love ideal

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25
Q

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

What is the effect of personifying “Death”

A

John Donne, “Holy Sonnet X,”

Sonnet - 1633

Theme - death not all powerful, people go to afterlife

Points - death is personified and described as NOT all powerful

  • SG - talks of Donne’s use of conceits - startling and novel comparisons
    Me, e.g., slave metaphor for death

Holy Sonnet X - octave is in italian form, sestet is NOT - sestet continues quatrain rhyme scheme and finishes with a heroic couplet

SG - closer to italian form than shakespearean
One argument developed a theme in each of 3 quatrains, 1st - that death is not all powerful, 2nd - that death has positive aspects, 3rd - that factors NOT under death’s control cause people to die

SG stresses profound paradox in final couplet - “death, thou shalt die.” speaks to docrine of resurrection

What is the effect of personifying “Death”

Donne asserts the doctrine of resurrection: Christ has overcome death and has promised eternal life to all believers.

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26
Q

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

What is the effect of personifying “Patience”

A

John Milton, “When I consider how my light is spent,”

Sonnet - 1673

Theme - coming to terms with blindness

Points - Miltonic Sonnet - intro reading refers to this form having no pause after the octave, which is the case here with enjambment

Patience is personified - patience speaks truth that restless men also serve patient ones and that god does not need the restlessness (reference to Blessed shall be the meek???)

many references to the parable of the talents - unfortunately used to denigrate the poor

points out that Milton uses line breaks and caesura often. SG question - what is the effect of the break in line 11 - Like others I think it is to emphasize the line.

last line is paradoxical (like Donne’s) and that it is emphasized by regular iambic pentameter, alliteration and monosyllables

What is the effect of personifying “Patience”

personification to underscore the universal significance of his particular dilemma, the only remedy for which is “patience”: an acceptance of God’s will.

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27
Q

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,–the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

How does Hopkins use the octave-sestet division?
What is the rhyme scheme? What is the effect of the repeated end-rhymes?
In what respects is the hawk an image of Christ?
Compare the image of the plowed field with that in Lampman’s sonnet “Winter Evening.”

A

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord,”

Sonnet - 1918

Theme - Christ’s perfection and determination.

He called this rhythmic pattern the *sprung rhythm.

The hawk is a *metonym of knighthood with all the values of courage, strength, and faithfulness that this concept ideally suggests.

using the unusual *simile of an arc cut by a skate on ice to evoke the flight of the bird

Points - hawk an image of Christ
• The sonnet is addressed to Christ
O my chevalier. Knight, noble champion is compared to Christ the saviour
• Rebuffed the big wind - referring to power of Christ to overcome adversity
• Fire that breaks from thee…a billion times told lovlier , more dangerous - speaking of Christ’s power, perhaps a reference to holy spririt
SG - sees in the strength and beauty of a hawk the beauty of Christ’s grandeur
—–
How does use the octave-sestet division?
What is the rhyme scheme? What is the effect of the repeated end-rhymes?
In what respects is the hawk an image of Christ?
Compare the image of the plowed field with that in Lampman’s sonnet “Winter Evening.”

Uses Octet-Sestet to first talk of the hawk, then address it directly

Every line in octave has the same end-rhyme
Effect is of consistency, steadiness

Ending image - Determination alone ploughs the field - gold blood represents an internal treasure forced out by the hawk/christ

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28
Q

The air smells of rhubarb, occasional
Roses, or first birth of blossoms, a fresh,
Undulant hurt, so body snaps and curls
Like flower. I step through snow as thin as script,
Watch white stars spin dizzy as drunks, and yearn 5
To sleep beneath a patchwork quilt of rum.
I want the slow, sure collapse of language
Washed out by alcohol. Lovely Shelley,
I have no use for measured, cadenced verse
If you won’t read. Icarus-like, I’ll fall 10
Against this page of snow, tumble blackly
Across vision to drown in the white sea
That closes every poem – the white reverse
That cancels the blackness of each image.

Is this an Italian or English sonnet?
How does Clarke subvert the sonnet form in “Blank Sonnet”?
What is the significance of the title, “Blank Sonnet”?
What poetic devices does Clarke use in this sonnet?
Explain the reference to Icarus.

A

“Blank Sonnet, George Elliott Clarke

Sonnet - 1990

Theme - His Black experience - tenuous and drowning in whiteness

Points - unrhymed iambic pent which is also referred to as blank verse; Does not follow rhyme scheme

Blank - a reference to whiteness and white cultural hegemony; also a reference to blindness of dominant culture to the black experience

Lots of spondees to stress certain phrases like “WHITE STARS SPIN DIZzy”

Is this an Italian or English sonnet?
written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, also known as blank verse.
How does Clarke subvert the sonnet form in “Blank Sonnet”?
abandons the traditional rhyme schemes peculiar to sonnet as a form
What is the significance of the title, “Blank Sonnet”?
the content and the form of the poem in emphasizing both “the linguistic and cultural barrenness of the Canadian ‘landscape’”
What poetic devices does Clarke use in this sonnet?
imagery, metaphor, simile, alliteration, and allusion.
Explain the reference to Icarus.
allusion to Icarus. In classical mythology, Icarus’s father, Daedalus, builds wings of wax so the two can escape imprisonment.

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29
Q

metonym

A

Blank Sonnet
George Elliott Clarke
The hawk is a *metonym of knighthood with all the values of courage, strength, and faithfulness that this concept ideally suggests.

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30
Q

Pastoral Lyric

A
he idealization of the country, which finds its conventional form in the pastoral lyric, was pervasive in sixteenth-century English poetry, particularly in the works of Edmund Spenser (1552–1599).
The term pastoral has taken on more philosophical overtones to suggest a simple, uncomplicated way of life and thought: the life of a child or countryman may be used to criticize, indirectly, a social class structure, urban decadence, or even shortcomings in human nature, such as seen in the works of William Wordsworth or Robert Frost.
31
Q

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

seduction poem?

A

Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,”

Pastoral Lyric - 1599

  • Iambic tetrameter
  • Aabb quatrains
  • SG - both use traditional, ideallized country images (MAKE IT PASTORAL)

Theme - seduction/courtship poem - hyperbole - touting all the positives of pastoral life - beds of roses, cap of flowers, wool gown and gold-buckled slippers

Points - SG compares this to a song of innocence and follows it with “The Nymph’s Reply, Sir Walter Ralegh

Among the questions that might be considered when reading these two poems is whether Marlowe’s poem, clearly the work of a young man, is simply an idealization of lovers’ bliss, while Ralegh’s pragmatic reply, in the voice of the young woman who is being courted, satirizes the notion of romantic love. The apparently disarming invitation by the shepherd could be construed as an elaborate seduction poem, the consequences of which are all too clear to the object of his desire in Ralegh’s lyric. These two poems could also be compared to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

32
Q

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
----
Satire?
A

Sir Walter Ralegh, “The Nymph’s Reply,”

Pastoral Lyric - 1600

  • Iambic tetrameter
  • Aabb quatrains
  • SG - both use traditional, ideallized country images

Theme - A realist, skeptical refusal to the speaker in “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” Christopher Marlowe

Points - SG compares this to a song of experience
By pointing out at the good times are transient, that summer leads to winter

SG - says raleigh is more realistic in outlook
Notes that raleigh/nymph desires eternal youth and love
Points to speciousness of shepherd’s argument - folly ripe and reason rotten

irony/ cutting sarcasm in labelling the woman an nymph
Reference to a “honey tongue”
If there was “truth in every shepherd’s tongue” - meaning some of them lie!

Among the questions that might be considered when reading these two poems is whether Marlowe’s poem, clearly the work of a young man, is simply an idealization of lovers’ bliss, while Ralegh’s pragmatic reply, in the voice of the young woman who is being courted, satirizes the notion of romantic love. The apparently disarming invitation by the shepherd could be construed as an elaborate seduction poem, the consequences of which are all too clear to the object of his desire in Ralegh’s lyric. These two poems could also be compared to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

33
Q

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

                                          These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

                                                    If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
     How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

                                        Nor perchance, If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay: For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain-winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance— If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence—wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! --- What is the relationship between “man” and nature? What changes of direction in thought are indicated by the divisions in the poem? Who is the poem addressed to? What is her role and significance? What characteristics of the “pastoral lyric” do you find in this poem?
A

William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,”

Pastoral Lyric - 1798
SG - written in blank verse - unrhymed iambic pentameter -**epistle(a poem or other literary work in the form of a letter)
Says this is the most flexible of forms and well-suited to philosophical topics
Lots of cesurae and emjambments - for puncuation and thought development
Few end-stopped lines emphasize the overflow of author’s feelings
Fewer end-stopped lines. When they do happen, suggest resolution, conclusions or insights
E.g., 28 - Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart
SG - other word use notes - rolling and murmur are **onomatopoeia - words that suggest sound of the water. Same for recurring m’s and s’s
Lofty has a religious ring to it

Points - SG - other word use notes - rolling and murmur are In the fourth section (58–111), Wordsworth returns to the present, coloured by the past and by an anticipation of future memories generated by the present scene. - words that suggest sound of the water. Same for recurring m’s and s’s
Lofty has a religious ring to it

What is the relationship between “man” and nature, according to Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey”?
nature is not only the source of all that is truly valuable in life, but is also, in part, a creation dependent on the senses that experience it.

What changes of direction in thought are indicated by the divisions in the poem?
The poem begins in the present scene, as the poet rediscovers the setting which he had first encountered five years before. In the second verse paragraph, Wordsworth returns to the past (22–49) to reflect on what the recollection of this scene has meant to him, in both small and deeply significant ways
In the fourth section (58–111), Wordsworth returns to the present, coloured by the past and by an anticipation of future memories generated by the present scene.
—-
Who is the poem addressed to? What is her role and significance?
It is a personal letter by Wordsworth to his sister, Dorothy, who is addressed directly in the last section of the poem. He attempts to explain to her what the scene that he contemplates means to him in the past, present, and future and hopes that it will acquire the same strengthening and sustaining significance for her as she grows older.

What characteristics of the “pastoral lyric” do you find in this poem?
idealization of the country
Lots of feelings of calm and repose, in perfect harmony
Green associated with life and growth

on the banks of the River Wye

Theme - interconnectedness with nature and all living things -

34
Q

epistle

A

epistle(a poem or other literary work in the form of a letter)

35
Q

cesurae

A

A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics.

36
Q

emjambments

A

the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.

37
Q

onomatopoeia

A

the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle ).

38
Q

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.
---
effect of the snow?
suggestions of death?
A

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Theme - peaceful respite in a remote forest as it is snowing at night
recurring iambic feet and rhyming couplets, combined with soft sibilants creating a calming, almost sedative effect

effect of the snow?
4 - When the narrator says he is going to stop and watch the snow fall - people dont do that when it is windy?
11 - the only other sound’s the sweep
suggestions of death?

8 - Darkest evening of the year
Why is narrator away from civilization?
13 - wods are lovely, dark and deep
14 - 16 - would stay in a dark place except for promises to keep and miles to go before he sleeps (can’t stop and die just yet!)

39
Q

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth–
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth–
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?–
If design govern in a thing so small.

appropriate is the sonnet form?
suggestions of death?

A

Robert Frost“Design,”

Pastoral Lyric in Sonnet form - 1936

The Italian form of the sonnet is used almost ironically in this “anti-pastoral” poem, since its symmetry suggests that a “design” is possible. The scene is presented in the octave, and the questions are raised in the sestet. This structure reverses the traditional way of working through a philosophical or religious issue, as seen in sonnets by Milton, Shakespeare, and Donne.

No closure or answering of questions
Says this is an ironic anti-pastoral poem because it questions the workings of nature not praising them

Theme - musing on death in the natural world and wondering if killing, even for food, isn’t the work of darkness, not god

Points - Spider killing a moth
4 - assorted characters of death and blight
8 - dead wings carried like a paper kite
13 - design of darkness
SG says darkness reference is more of not knowing rather than of dark forces

Theme is unusual for a sonnet but that should not stop a poet from using a new form
SG - says life and death are conflated in this poem, both presented as beautiful
White images could be of death, blankness or purity - it is not clear
Spider presented as fat and white, then as a snow-drop spider (latter more positive)

40
Q

ode

A

it was usually celebratory and rhetorical in style with a complex, formal structure, and commemorating an individual or an occasion.

41
Q

strophe

A

the first section of an ancient Greek choral ode or of one division of it.

SAE

42
Q

antistrophe

A

the second section of an ancient Greek choral ode or of one division of it.

SAE

43
Q

Epode

A

the third section of an ancient Greek choral ode, or of one division of such an ode.

SAE

44
Q

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
—-
What is the effect of the direct apostrophe to the urn?
What scenes are depicted on the urn? What is the poet’s response to these scenes?
Why is the urn a “Cold Pastoral”?
In what ways is this ode a pastoral lyric?

A

John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,”

Ode - 1820
In what ways is this ode a pastoral lyric?
Iambic pentameter

34 - Cow presented with silken flanks

Theme - how life is transient but the urn persists, frozen in time

What is the effect of the direct apostrophe to the urn?
Apostrophe - a direct address to a thing, place, concept, dead or absent person
Usually dramatic and emotional
Rhetorical figure
Evokes sympathy for the addressor/narrator
—-
What scenes are depicted on the urn? What is the poet’s response to these scenes?
SG - the contrasting elements of depicted action contrast with the fact that the scenes are frozen produces dynamic tension that is characteristic, keats implies, of art, in general.
—-
Why is the urn a “Cold Pastoral”?
Because it shows an unattainable, frozen ideal, at least for the addressee
distain for what happens around it - personification
47 - thou shalt remain in midst of other woe
—-
In what ways is this ode a pastoral lyric?
Ideallized portrayal of nature (forest) - associated with young lovers

45
Q

ode to frank silvera

yu might think that moving
silently thru th tenement
yr holsters bright nd lively
in th yellow colord air

yu might think that yr horse
kickin without sound at th moon
where sum say th faild souls
those who cant find bodies hang
out

yu might say movin soft on top
of eggshells tord yr path, karma
is will plus fate, th old time
blend

yu might hope there is sum one
to love yu at th end of th road
yu might see nothin can grow in
th dust of yr anxieties

yu might say that fate is whats left
aftr yu do nothing. yu can go on
alone with all th mysteries of being.

yu walk out of th town at sun rise
before there is sound th fields
maybe yu get rheumatism from too
much mornin dew maybe yr hungr gets
too deep to drink maybe yr holsters
get parchd maybe theres only silence

yu might say there is always
more love of dark and golden being

yu might say yul fly
more like th crow

yu cud say yu dont have to kill
yrself that’l be taken care of

yu cud say th mountain and love is
hard and eternal, never yields to
nothing. sumtime yu are th wind
racing green ovr th hairy fields

sumtimes yu are th blind eye
of th sun turning in yr belly

yu dream

yu move further out a town

What do you conclude about the character based on the similar pattern of the introductory lines: “yu might think,” “yu might say,” “yu might hope”?
What is the effect of the phonetic spelling, the ellipsis, and the use of lower case letters?
Is the ending positive or negative?

A

bill bissett, “ode to frank silvera,”
Ode - 1971, 88 or 92
SG - bill bissett is also a visual artist and that author does **concrete poetry: the way a poem looks suggests what it means
Although it begins in what appears to be quatrains, the stanzas assume different lengths to achieve particular effects.
Says this is a parody of an ode

Theme - SG says this is about an urban cowboy on a journey that is more of an evasion or escape than a quest

Points -
At least Frank can still dreamEach stanza expains more of frank s’s failings - collage of disparate photos - maybe poem can be seen as a montage or dreamscape of modern life

What do you conclude about the character based on the similar pattern of the introductory lines: “yu might think,” “yu might say,” “yu might hope”?
Each stanza expains more of frank s’s failings - collage of disparate photos - maybe poem can be seen as a montage or dreamscape of modern life
—-
What is the effect of the phonetic spelling, the ellipsis, and the use of lower case letters?
Ellepsis - elimination of superfluous words in writing
SG says this is a deliberate device to appeal to those who can read better phonetically and a slight to people who he sees as more high brow
—-
Is the ending positive or negative?
Negative - yu is the blind eye of the sun turning in his belly
It is like he or she is moving out of town, away from the action (or knowledge/enlightenment)

46
Q

Ellepsis

A

Ellepsis - elimination of superfluous words in writing

47
Q

concrete poetry

A

concrete poetry: the way a poem looks suggests what it means

48
Q
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’

He holds him with his skinny hand,
‘There was a ship,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

‘The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon—’
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.

It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.’

‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

PART II
The Sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
‘Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

And some in dreams assurèd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

PART III
There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,

When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in.
As they were drinking all.

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
‘The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out;
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!

PART IV
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.’—
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay dead like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmèd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

PART V
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge,
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The Moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.

'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now ‘twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel’s song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.’

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, ‘The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.’

PART VI

First Voice
'But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?'
Second Voice
Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast—

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.’

First Voice
‘But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?’

Second Voice
‘The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner’s trance is abated.’

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
‘Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapt: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen—

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the Moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot’s cheer;
My head was turned perforce away
And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third—I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood.
PART VII
This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
‘Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?’

'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said—
'And they answered not our cheer!
The planks looked warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were
Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

‘Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply)
I am a-feared’—’Push on, push on!’
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.'

And now, all in my own countree,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

‘O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!’
The Hermit crossed his brow.
‘Say quick,’ quoth he, ‘I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?’

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely ‘twas, that God himself
Scarce seemèd there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
‘Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—

To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom’s door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

What are the ballad characteristics ?
In what ways doesvary the quatrain for specific effects?
What is the narrative function of the wedding?
What is the significance of the characters in this narrative: the ancient mariner, the wedding guest, the crew, the Pilot and the Hermit?
What does the Albatross symbolize?
What other symbols drawn from nature use?
mood of horror?

A

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,”

Narrative - 1798

Theme - SG - the origins of guilt, the senseless violence people encounter, the possibility of redemption and the necessity of penance
Also that spiritual order informs the physical order in life
Spiritual order dramatizes the rebirth of a new soul
Shows misery and pain of human isolation with the possibility of divine love

What are the ballad characteristics of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”?
- often Ballad form, Sometimes 5, 6, 8 or 9 lines - # of lines expanded often at points of crisis or intensity (per SG)

In what ways does Coleridge vary the quatrain for specific effects?

What is the narrative function of the wedding, which frames the story of the ancient mariner?
- Wedding frame is a beginning - just like the ship’s departure was a new beginning
Parallels between happily-starting voyage and possibility of bad choices in an initially happy marriage having lasting consequences

What is the significance of the characters in this narrative: the ancient mariner, the wedding guest, the crew, the Pilot and the Hermit?
Mariner symbolizes a wandering, guilt-ridden man seeking freedom from self and past

What does the Albatross symbolize?
Albatross associated with possibility of redemption

What other symbols drawn from nature does Coleridge use?
Symbols of light associated with hope - moon, stars, southern lights
Sun a negative symbol - of gods eye and retribution; also of indifference of natural world to man’s suffering
Obscure - Power of imagination, potential for creativity and death in life

How does Coleridge achieve a mood of horror?
lots of horror images, story events
Strong fatalistic element

49
Q

Epic

A

An epic poem is a long, narrative poem that is usually about heroic deeds and events that are significant to the culture of the poet. Many ancient writers used epic poetry to tell tales of intense adventures and heroic feats.

50
Q

Romance

A

a romance is a narrative poem that tells a story of chivalry

51
Q

Fable

A

Fable variety of narrative, poetry (sometimes prose), and this will be educative.

52
Q

Fabliau

A

The fabliau is defined as a short narrative in (usually octosyllabic) verse, between 300 and 400 lines long, its content often comic or satiric.

53
Q

Fabliau

A

The fabliau is defined as a short narrative in (usually octosyllabic) verse, between 300 and 400 lines long, its content often comic or satiric.

54
Q

ballad stanza,

A

a quatrain of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter lines

55
Q

personification

A

the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

56
Q

poet Duncan Campbell Scott#331 on top 500 poetsDuncan Campbell ScottPoemsCommentsStatsE-BooksBiographyShare on FacebookShare on Twitter
Poems by Duncan Campbell Scott : 53 / 74« prev. poemnext poem »
The Forsaken
Poem by Duncan Campbell Scott

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I
Once in the winter
Out on a lake
In the heart of the north-land,
Far from the Fort
And far from the hunters,
A Chippewa woman
With her sick baby,
Crouched in the last hours
Of a great storm.
Frozen and hungry,
She fished through the ice
With a line of the twisted
Bark of the cedar,
And a rabbit-bone hook
Polished and barbed;
Fished with the bare hook
All through the wild day,
Fished and caught nothing;
While the young chieftain
Tugged at her breasts,
Or slept in the lacings
Of the warm tikanagan.
All the lake-surface
Streamed with the hissing
Of millions of iceflakes
Hurled by the wind;
Behind her the round
Of a lonely island
Roared like a fire
With the voice of the storm
In the deeps of the cedars.
Valiant, unshaken,
She took of her own flesh,
Baited the fish-hook,
Drew in a gray-trout,
Drew in his fellows,
Heaped them beside her,
Dead in the snow.
Valiant, unshaken,
She faced the long distance,
Wolf-haunted and lonely,
Sure of her goal
And the life of her dear one:
Tramped for two days,
On the third in the morning,
Saw the strong bulk
Of the Fort by the river,
Saw the wood-smoke
Hand soft in the spruces,
Heard the keen yelp
Of the ravenous huskies
Fighting for whitefish:
Then she had rest.

II

Years and years after,
When she was old and withered,
When her son was an old man
And his children filled with vigour,
They came in their northern tour on the verge of winter,
To an island in a lonely lake.
There one night they camped, and on the morrow
Gathered their kettles and birch-bark
Their rabbit-skin robes and their mink-traps,
Launched their canoes and slunk away through the islands,
Left her alone forever,
Without a word of farewell,
Because she was old and useless,
Like a paddle broken and warped,
Or a pole that was splintered.
Then, without a sigh,
Valiant, unshaken,
She smoothed her dark locks under her kerchief,
Composed her shawl in state,
Then folded her hands ridged with sinews and corded with veins,
Folded them across her breasts spent with the nourishment of children,
Gazed at the sky past the tops of the cedars,
Saw two spangled nights arise out of the twilight,
Saw two days go by filled with the tranquil sunshine,
Saw, without pain, or dread, or even a moment of longing:
Then on the third great night there came thronging and thronging
Millions of snowflakes out of a windless cloud;
They covered her close with a beautiful crystal shroud,
Covered her deep and silent.
But in the frost of the dawn,
Up from the life below,
Rose a column of breath
Through a tiny cleft in the snow,
Fragile, delicately drawn,
Wavering with its own weakness,
In the wilderness a sign of the spirit,
Persisting still in the sight of the sun
Till day was done.
Then all light was gathered up by the hand of God and hid in His breast,
Then there was born a silence deeper than silence,
Then she had rest.
—-
establish the setting in the first stanza?
evoke the violence of the weather in the first stanza?
How does he evoke a feeling of calm acceptance in the second stanza?
Is the snow storm portrayed in the same way in each stanza?
What effect do repeated lines have? What effect do short lines have?
Do you find the reference to Christian values inappropriate in this poem?
Is there an implied criticism of the Indian way of life in the abandonment of the old woman, a criticism which is out of keeping with her own acceptance of age and death?

A

Duncan Campbell Scott, “The Forsaken,”
2 stanza form - tight and short lines, then loser and longer and a return to tight at the end as she is dying

establish the setting in the first stanza?
Opposites - alone and facing difficult environment but resolute, knowing and unfearing
SG - repetition of the word “far” evokes distance and isolation

evoke the violence of the weather in the first stanza?

How does he evoke a feeling of calm acceptance in the second stanza?
Calm snowfall with no wind
Few hard t and c sounds - more l, f, s’s and w’s

Is the snow storm portrayed in the same way in each stanza?
harsh storm in 1st stanza, more gentle in 2nd

What effect do repeated lines have? What effect do short lines have?
ALL add emphasis
last line in both stanzas - Then she had rest (repeated and short)

Do you find the reference to Christian values inappropriate in this poem?

Is there an implied criticism of the Indian way of life in the abandonment of the old woman, a criticism which is out of keeping with her own acceptance of age and death?

57
Q

A detailed analysis of a passage of poetry should include the following:(10)

A

identification—title of poem, author’s name, genre (type of poem; e.g., sonnet, narrative poem, free verse)
context—the particular situation or occasion suggested by the excerpt and its relationship to the rest of the poem.
theme—the main idea in the excerpt and the poem
mood—the atmosphere that pervades the passage, which evokes a specific emotional response
metre (or rhythmic patterns, in case of free verse)—comment on the effect of the metre or rhythm
rhyme scheme (if applicable)—the effect of the rhyme
line length—such as end-stopped lines, enjambment, and caesura
sound devices—such as alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia, consonance, and repetition
imagery—pictures in the imagination (visual, olfactory, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic)
figurative devices—such as metaphors, similes, and personification

58
Q

persona

A

a role or character adopted by an author or an actor.

59
Q

persona

A

a role or character adopted by an author or an actor.

60
Q

Dramatic Monologue

A

a poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular situation or series of events.

Three things characterize the dramatic monologue, according to M.H. Abrams. First, they are the utterances of a specific individual (not the poet) at a specific moment in time. Secondly, the monologue is specifically directed at a listener or listeners whose presence is not directly referenced but is merely suggested in the speaker’s words. Third, the primary focus is the development and revelation of the speaker’s character.

61
Q

Soliloqy

A

an act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play.

62
Q

Dramatic Monologue vs Soliloqy

A

The soliloquist’s subject is himself, while the speaker of the dramatic monologue directs his attention outward” (Langbaum 146). The soliloquy, as you will discover in your reading of Othello, is an internal debate, a process of self-analysis.
“The soliloquist is concerned with truth, [sic] he is trying to find the right point of view; [sic] while the speaker of the dramatic monologue starts with an established point of view, [sic] and is not concerned with its truth but with trying to impress it on the outside world” (Langbaum 146). The speaker attempts to justify a way of seeing and living. In a dramatic monologue there is a discrepancy between what the speaker reveals and his or her understanding of the circumstances.
The character in a dramatic monologue often combines apparently contradictory impulses. For example, in the Duke of Ferrara, we simultaneously find a love of beauty and insensitivity to human life; in Prufrock, we see a desire for love and beauty combined with self-abasement.

63
Q

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

To whom is the Duke speaking? What is the occasion for the visit of the listener?
In what ways does the Duke display his pride in his position and in his family? In what ways does he display his cruelty?
With what images is the Duchess associated?
What attitude or frame of mind is suggested by the Duke’s final remark on the bronze statue?
What are the implications of My and Last in the title?
achieve a conversational style using a fixed metre and rhyme scheme?

A

Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess,”
Dramatic monologue
written as 28 couplets
Theme - the arrogance of a duke who killed his previous wife for not being subservient to him - by extension, the arrogance of the aristocracy
central irony of poem is that even though her portrait is vibrant with life, the duke is as cold and unfeeling as a dead man
The lines do not employ end-stops; rather, they use **enjambment—gthat is, sentences and other grammatical units do not necessarily conclude at the end of lines.
——
To whom is the Duke speaking? What is the occasion for the visit of the listener?
emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage

In what ways does the Duke display his pride in his position and in his family?
his attitude and collection of paintings

In what ways does he display his cruelty?
Duke in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behavior escalated, “[he] gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.”

With what images is the Duchess associated?
Duchess was spontaneous and fun-loving - associated with natural beauties of nature, aspects of life that have no importance to the duke, who considers that because of his power, position and importance only he should make her happy.

What attitude or frame of mind is suggested by the Duke’s final remark on the bronze statue?
More arrogance/pride in asking an artist to cast in bronze how a god tames a rare sea horse
Parallels with what he tried to do with the duchess but failed

What are the implications of My and Last in the title?
My - Ownership
Last - Previous duchess - Maybe the final duchess foreshadowing that no-one else will marry him

achieve a conversational style using a fixed metre and rhyme scheme?
browning manipulates iambic pentameter lines to convey the Duke’s verbal manouverings

64
Q

allusion

A

literary, biblical, philosophical, or historical references, direct or oblique, to other works

65
Q

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
—–
Is Prufrock’s self-awareness more developed than that of the Duke in “My Last Duchess”?
In what respect is this dramatic monologue a love song?
What is the effect of the radically dissimilar images?
What are the implications of the refrain below?
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. (13–14 and 35–36)

What is the effect of the puns (play on words)?
Analyze occasional use of rhyme.
What is the “overwhelming question” that Prufrock dares not ask, let alone try to answer?

A

T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,”
Dramatic monologue

Theme - musing on meaning of life and his place in it - - to be or not to be - prufrock desires women but won’t do the work he needs to get them

narrative mode of *stream-of-consciousness

lots of *allusions to Dante’s inferno - comparison to Montefeltro who only consents to tell his story to Dante because he thinks Dante won’t return to the land of the living and repeat it
Allusions to
Prufrock is a fearful and paranoid antihero who knows that he will never play such heroic parts as even the prevaricating Hamlet. He is more like Polonius: a fumbling, interfering fool who talks in platitudes.
—–
Is Prufrock’s self-awareness more developed than that of the Duke in “My Last Duchess”?
It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted.
—-
In what respect is this dramatic monologue a love song?
the poem’s speaker, seems to be addressing a potential lover, with whom he would like to “force the moment to its crisis” by somehow consummating their relationship.
—-
What is the effect of the radically dissimilar images?
Notice how the poem commences in an elevated poetic style with a lyrical image of the sky and then immediately descends to the level of the mundane, with the image of a victimized patient (a fitting comment on Prufrock himself). This technique of **bathos, the juxtaposition of the grandiose and the trivial, is one of the **mock-heroic devices Eliot uses in the monologue to draw attention to the decayed condition of the present.
—-
What are the implications of the refrain below?
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. (13–14 and 35–36)
—-
What is the effect of the puns (play on words)?
—-
Analyze occasional use of rhyme.
End Rhymes
The rhyme may also have a comic effect in deflating any tendency toward pretention.

What is the “overwhelming question” that Prufrock dares not ask, let alone try to answer?

To be or not to be? Me - How to improve his situation or even whether it can be improved? How to get the girl?

66
Q

free verse

A

poetry that is free of regular rhythm, rhyme pattern, and verse form

67
Q

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

     the

              goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Is there a pattern of organization?
Why run the children’s names together, e.g., bettyandisbel?
What is the effect of “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful”?
Who is the balloonman?
What does the balloonman represent?

A

E. E. Cummings, “In Just- spring,”
free verse poem, it does contain an internal structure. There is a visible stanzaic pattern, a four-line stanza followed by a single line, which repeats three times in the poem, and the “hop-scotch and jump-rope” that the girls are playing are visually echoed in the final nine lines of the poem.

Theme - children in the here and now of fun youth and being called to adulthood

Is there a pattern of organization?
characterized by a rhythmic asymmetry that consists of a pattern of momentum and bounce alternated with a greatly slowed-down tempo and stasis.

Why run the children’s names together, e.g., bettyandisbel?
mimics the excitement and the physical breathlessness of children, as they run and dance

What is the effect of “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful”?
impart a visceral and playful childhood response to spring
-
Who is the balloonman?
What does the balloonman represent?

Cummings employs the unusual mid-word capitalization balloonMan, presumably to emphasize adulthood.

The “goat-footed” man with his “whistles / far and wee” is also an **allusion, in this case to the mythical Greek god Pan, who is half-man, half-goat. Pan is the Arcadian god of shepherds and their flocks; Arcadia is a pastoral, mountainous land that is sometimes depicted as a land of perpetual spring. Pan is also known for his amorous, sometimes debaucherous, pursuit of nymphs, most notably his pursuit of a nymph named Syrinx. To escape Pan, Syrinx was transformed by the water nymphs into marsh reeds, and Pan then used those reeds to create a new musical instrument, the pan pipe or syrinx. The children are drawn to the balloonman’s whistle, suggesting that they will, in time, be drawn into the world of adulthood that he represents.

68
Q

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

------
mean by being “Nobody”?—or “Somebody”?
What is the effect of capitalizing these epithets?
How effective is the simile in line 6
use rhyme in these poems?
A

Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”

Free Verse - 1891
Short hymn form - 4 lines alternating 4, 3, 4 beats
dense 8-line poem

Theme - narrator feeling insignificant and looking for the reader to share that insignificance - rationalizations on why insignificance is good

Points - lots of irony here - by proclaiming she is a nobody, the narrator becomes a somebody
confidential tone between narrator and reader

mean by being “Nobody”?—or “Somebody”?
In publicly proclaiming her status, the poet does become “Somebody,” that is, a public figure. She, in fact, does “tell,” does “advertise,” yet her confidential tone suggests that her condition is a secret between the reader and herself. The pauses before and after “Nobody” effect a kind of anticlimax since they are anticipatory of something more than “Nobody.” But the alternative “Somebody” is presented as a worse condition, referring to those people who, like frogs, make a lot of noise for a brief time and are heard by those who are even duller and more inconsequential than they are.

What is the effect of capitalizing these epithets?
Nobody (note capital) is an epithet - An adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as characteristic of the person or thing mentioned

How effective is the simile in line 6 of “I’m Nobody! Who are You?”

Rhyme
Use of rhyme - 1 & 3 - you? and too? - openness, questioning, innocent
6 & 8 - Frog & Bog - negative associations shared
Internal rhymes - 2 - you…too
Internal rhymes have significance - you-too

69
Q

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -

use rhyme in these poems?

What is the significance of the image of the fly ?


What is the significance of the “Window”?

What is the effect of the repetition of see in the final line?

A

Emily Dickinson, “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—,”
4 - 4-line stanzas - lots of enjambment

Theme - SG - says fly, representing doubt and human limitation, gets in the way of a clear vision of heaven and narrator is left in the darkness of doubt and ignorance
Fly prevents seeing

use rhyme in these poems?

“I heard a Fly buzz” employs all of Dickinson’s formal patterns: trimeter and tetrameter iambic lines (four stresses in the first and third lines of each stanza, three in the second and fourth, a pattern Dickinson follows at her most formal); rhythmic insertion of the long dash to interrupt the meter; and an ABCB rhyme scheme. Interestingly, all the rhymes before the final stanza are half-rhymes (Room/Storm, firm/Room, be/Fly), while only the rhyme in the final stanza is a full rhyme (me/see). Dickinson uses this technique to build tension; a sense of true completion comes only with the speaker’s death.


What is the significance of the image of the fly in “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—”?
her own limitations, both physical and spiritual

What is the significance of the “Window”?
the “Windows” (15) or the eyes of the soul, which should allow for a clear vision of Heaven, fail, and the poet is left in the darkness of doubt and ignorance.

What is the effect of the repetition of see in the final line?
Like sea to to sea - an image of wide expanse - can no longer see this
Could also be metaphor for failure of cognition and related comprehension - i.e., can no longer perceive to understand the outside world - so this is what death is

70
Q
These women crying in my head
Walk alone, uncomforted:
The Emilys, these three
Cry to be set free-
And others whom I will not name
Each different, each the same.
Yet they had liberty!
Their kingdom was the sky:
They batted clouds with easy hand,
Found a mountain for their stand;
From wandering lonely they could catch
The inner magic of a heath-
A lake their palette, any tree
Their brush could be.
And still they cry to me
As in reproach-
I, born to hear their inner storm
Of separate man in woman's form,
I yet possess another kingdom, barred
To them, these three, this Emily.
I move as mother in a frame,
My arteries
Flow the immemorial way
Towards the child, the man;
And only for brief span
Am I an Emily on mountain snows
And one of these.
And so the whole that I possess
Is still much less-
They move triumphant through my head:
I am the one
Uncomforted.

Why do the three Emilys cry in the poet’s head?
What kind of freedom have they achieved, which the poet has not?
Is the mood one of self-pity?
How effective is the use of rhyme?

A

Dorothy Livesay, “The Three Emilys,”

Free Verse - 1972

Theme - perceived sadness that women were childless & frustration that the only way for these women to make their mark was to be childless

Why do the three Emilys cry in the poet’s head?

Livesay alludes to Wordsworth - wandering lonely (11) refers to his “Wandering lonely as a cloud” and may be an assertion that poetry is a man’s game

Author unfairly compares herself to 3 accomplished women
women are still oppressed by a society that only gives them autonomy if they have given up marriage and children

What kind of freedom have they achieved, which the poet has not?
It is interesting to note that each of these women escaped marriage and motherhood, allowing them to pursue their artistic careers with greater ease.

Is the mood one of self-pity?
yes

How effective is the use of rhyme?
which begins with a regular rhyme scheme of three rhyming couplets (aabbcc). Then, as the speakers thoughts become more complex the rhyme scheme falls away

use of enjambent and caesure to maintain pace

71
Q

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

A

Margaret Atwood, “you fit into me”

  • 17 syllables, one striking image

Theme - domination of woman by man

Points - title alludes to sexual act and seems positive

  • disrupted by startling image - like a hook into an eye (violent, fishing image)
  • also like a latch hook - so this is a pun/ironic - double entendre too, although not sexually riské (alt-0233 for é)
  • open eye - innocence, vulnerability

“You fit into me” is a kind of ironic *haiku (a haiku is a Japanese poem in which one striking image is presented without comment in exactly seventeen syllables). Atwood’s poem posits a *simile, which is then deconstructed, that is, looked at critically for other possible meanings. The assumed image of the eye of the needle in the first two lines is established as a human eye in the second. The *pun is used to ironic effect

72
Q
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.
Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.
A

Margaret Atwood,“Variations on the Word Love,”

Free Verse - 1981
2 stanzas - general then specific to her and her partner

Theme - What love isn’t (commercialized version) and is (wonder-inspiring and risky)

Points - What does love finally come to mean for the speaker in the poem?
But in last few lines she talks about the wonder but notes that it comes with pain, fear and challenge so you have to choose to stick with it…
33-37 - …a mouth that says O again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger-grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go.
SG - presumes that atwood is addressing a lover that is reluctant to use the word love
Also notes that in a universe in which there appear to be no values and no meaning, love will have to do

73
Q

Bush land scrub land –

          Cashel Township and Wollaston

Elzevir McClure and Dungannon

green lands of Weslemkoon Lake

where a man might have some

          opinion of what beauty

is and none deny him

                                for miles –

Yet this is the country of defeat

where Sisyphus rolls a big stone

year after year up the ancient hills

picknicking glaciers have left strewn

with centuries’ rubble

                                backbreaking days

                                in the sun and rain

when realization seeps slow in the mind

without grandeur or self-deception in

                                noble struggle

of being a fool –

A country of quiescence and still distance

a lean land

          not like the fat south

with inches of black soil on

          earth’s round belly –

And where the farms are

          it’s as if a man stuck

both thumbs in the stony earth and pulled

                                it apart

                                to make room

enough between the trees

for a wife

          and maybe some cows and

          room for some

of the more easily kept illusions –

And where the farms have gone back

to forest

          are only soft outlines

          shadowy differences –

Old fences drift vaguely among the trees

          a pile of moss-covered stones

gathered for some ghost purpose

has lost meaning under the meaningless sky

          – they are like cities under water

and the undulating green waves of time

          are laid on them –

This is the country of our defeat

          and yet

during the fall plowing a man

might stop and stand in a brown valley of the furrows

          and shade his eyes to watch for the same

          red patch mixed with gold

          that appears on the same

          spot in the hills

          year after year

          and grow old

plowing and plowing a ten-acre field until

the convolutions run parallel with his own brain –

And this is a country where the young

                                leave quickly

unwilling to know what their fathers knew

or think the words their mothers do not say –

Herschel Monteagle and Faraday

lakeland rockland and hill country

a little adjacent to where the world is

a little north of where the cities are and

sometime

we may go back there

                                to the country of our defeat

Wollaston Elzevir and Dungannon

and Weslemkoon lake land

where the high townships of Cashel

                                McClure and Marmora once were –

But it’s been a long time since

and we must enquire the way

          of strangers –

What is the main characteristic of the land described?
Compare approach to landscape?
What saves the poem from complete negativism?
Does the typography of the poem, that is, the way it is arranged on the page, contribute to its meaning?
line length?

A

Al Purdy, “The
Country North of Belleville,”
Free Verse
Theme - reflections on a failed farm - feelings of defeat mixed with admiration of the beauty of the land

What is the main characteristic of the land described?
rocky soil

Compare approach to landscape?
Purdy is not about being one with the land at all
He appreciates some of its beauty but sees it mostly as a place of defeat

What saves the poem from complete negativism?
This use of anticlimax and humorous images, as in the description of how a man “stuck / both thumbs in the stony earth and pulled / it apart” (26–28)

Does the typography of the poem, that is, the way it is arranged on the page, contribute to its meaning?
The series of short lines gradually diminish to suggest the winding down of time, but then the poem opens up again in two long lines (56–57) to suggest the close association of man and country, but also the obsessiveness of the man as well as the repetitive drudgery of the work.