You will need to keep a dialectical journal for the book, so mark it up and make notes.
We will talk more about it on Monday.
Beloved exploresthe physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation wrought by slavery. How do people and a nation heal from its past, and how do we remember or re-remember it?
NOTE the DEDICATION - "Sixty Million and more". The book is dedicated to those unnamed Africans who died during the "Middle Passage" or during the Atlantic Slave trade.
Also note the epigraph from Romans.
Read it and reflect - here are some interpretations:
Forms:
Structure, line breaks, how the poem looks, rhyme and rhythm and how it is
created
Sestina, Villanelle, Pantoum, Sonnet (English, Italian, Spenserian, and
hybrid), quatrain, tercets, couplets, litany.
Poems:
Various sonnets, various sestinas and villanelles, “The
Flea” “My Last Duchess” “The Waste Land” “To His Coy Mistress”, “The Waste
Lands” “Nani” “The Colonel” “One Art” “Fern Hill” “The Waking” “My Mistress’
Eyes” “The Second Coming”
Refers to a Hindu text: The Upanishad.
Other
allusions in this section: Bible - New Testament (Matthew, Mark, John).
Holy Grail Legend, Shakespeare and the Roman General Coriolanus.
Return to the Desert. The Falling of Cities. The Drying up of Rivers. The lack of rebirth?
This is a HARD Section and yet it ends the poem. What is going on here. What are the connections to the other sections?
Forms:
Structure, line breaks, how the poem looks, rhyme and rhythm and how it is
created
Sestina, Villanelle, Pantoum, Sonnet (English, Italian, Spenserian, and
hybrid), quatrain, tercets, couplets, litany.
Poems:
Various sonnets, various sestinas and villanelles, “The
Flea” “My Last Duchess” “The Waste Land” “To His Coy Mistress”, “The Waste
Lands” “Nani” “The Colonel” “One Art” “Fern Hill” “The Waking” “My Mistress’
Eyes” “The Second Coming”
Forms:
Structure, line breaks, how the poem looks, rhyme and rhythm and how it is
created
Sestina, Villanelle, Pantoum, Sonnet (English, Italian, Spenserian, and
hybrid), haiku, quatrain, tercets, couplets, litany.
Poems:
Various sonnets, various sestinas and villanelles, “The
Flea” “My Last Duchess” “The Waste Land” “To His Coy Mistress”, “The Waste
Lands” “Nani” “The Colonel” “One Art” “Fern Hill” “The Waking” “My Mistress’
Eyes” “The Second Coming”
"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water" Loran Eisely (1907-1977)
The fourth section of Eliot's poem "The Waste Land", although the
shortest, could possibly be the most important part, because it contains
the turn. The major theme of this section is the importance of water.
The poem shifts from a lack of water to "Death by Water", which is
ironic because water is the root of life.
"Death By Water" is set up into three tercets with a total of nine
lines. The number three in this structure is very significant. In
Christianity the number three represents Trinity (creator, redeemer,
sustainer), which reinforces the idea of resurrection. In the Hindu
religion the number three symbolizes; creation, destruction and
preservation, or; unfolding, maintaining, and concluding, this
reconnects to the major theme of life and death. The form of the poem
also represents a wave which goes back to the theme of water, "Phlebas"
is drowning, and as it is happening "He passed the stages of his age and
youth", but it is uncertain whether or not he is dead. How can a person
surrounded by so much life be dead? Above ground if you are dead, you
are actually dead because the land is dead.
The underwater "living dead" represents hope in "The Waste Land". Water
is the key to recreating, and rejuvenating the land, and the people on
it. As mentioned in earlier sections, Spring is the time of year when
the rain begins to fall and things are able to grow. The spring, and the
growing of nature, also symbolizes the youth, and the blossoming, and
prime of a younger persons life. As your dying, those are the days that
you remember. Without this hope, or youth, several people become lost,
as you age your worth just becomes less and less. This whole concept
goes right back to Sybil, eternal life without eternal youth, is almost,
if not worse than death.
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss."
Madame and Sosostris, in section one, pulled a card that showed "the
drowned Phoenician Sailor". The sailor is a motif for greed, and for the
theme of water itself. As he ages, his significance begins to lessen,
which means his time has come. But is he really dead?
The simple hope in this poem is life, water is the root of life, which
makes water the key to reestablishing life on land. The irony lies
within the fact that the smallest section of the poem, is the turning
point, the part the allows the readers to completely understand what
this poem is truly about.
The final section of the Waste Land
is about hope and resurrection. In the first paragraph there is an
allusion to a Garden – Gethsemane – the garden that Jesus was in when
the Roman soldiers took him away to be crucified. This refers from the time before he was crucified to after it.
The next few paragraph backs up idea of wasteland and the title
of the entire poem. “Here is no water but only rock, rock and no water
and the sandy road…” there’s no water which means there’s no life. Where
the ‘sweat is dry’ you won’t
find water. The mountains are dead because nothing can grow, nothing can
blossom or sustain without water. “If there were water and no rock if
there were rock and also water and water a spring a pool among the
rock…” The idea if there was
water there would be hope. Wanting to only wanting to hear the sound of
water, they didn’t want to hear the ‘cicada’ or grasshopper or the ‘dry
grass singing’. But if there were water, there would actually be
grasshoppers to chirp and the grass would no longer be dry. However,
“there is no water.” “Who is the third who walks
always beside you?....gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not
know whether a mon or a woman…” this is an allusion to the bible, 2413
after crucification, burial, and resurrection. People are walking and
when Jesus approaches he makes it so the people don’t recognize him. The
people invite him into town, Emmaus, and sit down and eat and split
bread. When the people finally realize that Jesus was present he
disappears. Jerusalem, Athens,
Alexandria, Vienna, London(/Unreal) are major cities in Europe that are
morally sacked culture capitals. (SITE – see comment) “The list plots
out the course of Western civilization, from its origins in classical
and biblical cultures to its modern European efflorescence. As with so
much of the poem, Eliot is being cryptic, particularly in his choice of
the two modern cities. One can understand London: the cradle of
democracy and the rule of law. But Vienna? Is there a hint in that
choice of a civilization gone to seed, a place of elegance and opulence,
yes, but a falling off from the human search for the order of the soul
and the order of the common wealth? And does London, by its place on the
sequence, also exist the downward slope of cultural history?” “The woman drew her long black
hair out tight” - this woman refers to Cleopatra. Cleopatra relates to
the failed relationships in section 2 which correlates with the
countries relationships. After WWI a lot of valuable relationships and
allies had been ruined, and Germany, the country that ended up basically
fucked, was given the Treaty of Versailles. They had to accept the
blame for all the loss and damage of the war. “In this decayed hole among
the mountains,” the grassy mountains obviously means had life, which
means it had water! The grass sings because it’s revitalized and alive.
The chapel is an allusion to King Arthur. One of king Arthurs knights
went to find the Holy Grail in a chapel. The rooster cry is an allusion
to the bible – it’s an allusion to Peter’s denial of Jesus – Jesus says
that Peter will deny Jesus three times before the rooster cries. When
Peter is asked if he knows of Jesus he says no three times, denying God.
He later figures out what he did and is very remorseful. “Bringing
rain” means BRINGING HOPE. Ganga refers to the Granges river in South India, and rivers mean water, and water means LIFE! Datta means GIVE, Dayadhyam means SYMPATHIZE, and Damyata
means CONTROL. The three D words refer to the creator of god in the
Hindu religion, and they all make a sound that is similar to that which a
thunder would make (thunder sometimes brings rain.) The creator of God
says three things that instruct the lesser gods to (1) give things
despite their nature cheapness, and (2) control their rowdy behaviors.
The third is that he tells the demons to sympathize. “I have heard the key turn in
the door once and turn only once,” refers to Dante’s inferno, which
Count Ugolino starves to death after being locked in a tower for
treason. “Broken Coriolanus” is a Roman character in a Shakespeare play
who turned his back on his country. Both Count Ugolino and Coriolanus
are examples of outcasts. The final stanza of the poem
has Italian which alludes to Dante’s inferno. The Fisher King sat upon
the shore and fished. We learn that he has the Holy Grail all along, but
because he’s wounded, he can’t use the powers of it to revitalize the
land. The purpose of the grail is to keep the land alive.The
allusion to the song London Bridge is all about WW1 where London was
left in chaos and in a waste land. Shantih is an onomatopoeia that’s
supposed to sound like rain. It’s supposed to bring hope. The poem ends
in an uplifting way that is different than much of the poem. It ends
with giving us hope that everything will work out.
Today we are going to revisit sonnets and read some sonnets in class and then discuss PART III of "The Waste Land". Your homework is to take one of the sonnets we read in class, mark it up, and be able to present - in vast detail, as in a lecture - to class tomorrow (also, I realize that this makes you nervous, but no "I don't get this" - it's a cop out, discuss the poem).
Tomorrow, we will also continue with the discuss of part 3 of "The Waste Land".
The title is suppose to be a reference to Buddha.
There are a lot of links in this section to previous sections. See if you can find them.
Allusions:
To His Coy Mistress (we read yesterday - find)
TIRESIAS - appears in both Oedipus Rex and The Odyssey. He can see the future. Relate him to the fortune teller in section 1.
Tempest - remember there is a ship wreck in the Tempest.
St. Augustine.
WWI
There
are also songs in this section and the nightingale chirps with the
reinforcement of rape (which is one way of looking at the relationship
seen by Tiresias)
NOTES:
Mrs. Porter ran a brothel in
Cairo and was well known to Aussie troops (important because Gallipoli
was where Eliot lost a good friend).
Smyrna = Izmir (an ancient town in Turkey)
Elizabeth
I and Earl of Leicester were thought to have an affair (even through
Elizabeth had to deny it because she was suppose to be a virgin and
reserve herself for royalty of other nations)
The City (LONDON) in this section is a dump - made so in part by a coal plant.
The Fire Sermon (Aditta-pariyaya-sutta)
Thus
I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Gaya, at
Gayasisa, together with a thousand bhikkhus. There he addressed the
bhikkhus.
"Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?
"The
eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning,
eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or
neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its
indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning
with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of
delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows,
with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.
"The ear is burning, sounds are burning...
"The nose is burning, odors are burning...
"The tongue is burning, flavors are burning...
"The body is burning, tangibles are burning...
"The
mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning,
mind-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or
neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its
indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning
with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of
delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows,
with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.
"Bhikkhus,
when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, he finds
estrangement in the eye, finds estrangement in forms, finds estrangement
in eye-consciousness, finds estrangement in eye-contact, and whatever
is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful- nor-pleasant that
arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, in that too he
finds estrangement.
"He finds estrangement in the ear... in sounds...
"He finds estrangement in the nose... in odors...
"He finds estrangement in the tongue... in flavors...
"He finds estrangement in the body... in tangibles...
"He
finds estrangement in the mind, finds estrangement in ideas, finds
estrangement in mind-consciousness, finds estrangement in mind-contact,
and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or
neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its
indispensable condition, in that too he finds estrangement.
"When
he finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion,
he is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that he is
liberated. He understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been
lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'"
That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were glad, and they approved his words.
Now during his utterance, the hearts of those thousand bhikkhus were liberated from taints through clinging no more.
THE WASTE LAND: The concept of physical sterility carrying over into
other spheres of life was an appealing objective correlative for poets
in the wake of the first World War (used most effectively by T.S. Eliot
to symbolize social and moral decay). But the intimate relationship
existing between a monarch and his provinces probably relates back to a
pagan strand from much earlier times. The waste land ultimately springs
from an old Celtic belief in which the fertility of the land depended on
the potency and virility of the king; the king was in essence espoused
to his lands. In his comprehensive study, The Golden Bough, J. G. Fraser
identifies a similar ritual in various cultures the world round. "The
king's life or spirit is so sympathetically bound up with the prosperity
of the whole country," he writes, "that if he fell ill or grew senile
the cattle would sicken or cease to multiply, the crops would rot in the
fields, and men would perish of widespread disease." Such is the case
in the Grail legends as well. The woes of the land are the direct result
of the sickness or the maiming of the Fisher King. When his power
wanes, the country is laid waste and the soil is rendered sterile: the
trees are without fruit, the crops fail to grow, even the women are
unable to bear children. To suggest that the waste land functions at the
very heart of the problem seems a gross understatement indeed. Once
again, Weston takes the matter one step further: "In the Grail King we
have a romantic literary version of that strange mysterious figure whose
presence hovers in the shadowy background of the history of our Aryan
race; the figure of a divine or semidivine ruler, at once god and king,
upon whose life, and unimpaired vitality, the existence of his land and
people directly depends."
In the case of the waste land the
solution assumes the form of the questing Grail Knight. He is the one
who must ask the loaded question that restores fertility to king and
land alike. However, as Cavendish notes, the healing of the Fisher King
and his lands is never satisfactorily resolved in the medieval romances
that have been handed down:
The tradition of the king as the mate
of his land lies behind the Waste Land theme in the Grail legends, but
the theme in incoherent and amorphous. The pattern ought to be this: a
king is crippled or ill; as a result his land is barren; the hero heal s
the king and fertility is restored to the land; probably, the hero's
feat shows that he is the rightful heir. There is no Grail story in
which this simple and satisfactory pattern appears (nor has any Celtic
story survived which contains it). In the First Continuation there is a
waste land which is restored, but no crippled or ill king and
consequently no healing. In Parzival there is a crippled king who is
healed by the hero, but there is no waste land. In Perlesvaus there is
an ill king and a waste land, but no healing.
Initially a prayer or supplication used
in formal and religious processions, the litany has been more recently
adopted as a poetic form that catalogues a series. This form typically
includes repetitious phrases or movements, sometimes mimicking
call-and-response. These examples byLuis Chaves,Richard Siken, andCory Wadeare poems explicitly noted as litanies, while others such as Ginsberg’s“Kaddish”sustain the form’s elements throughout.
The hybrid sonnet form will cause you the most trouble.
SONNETS: Are almost always written in iambic pentameter (if you don’t
know what this is please check your notes). The sonnet is usually used
for the serious treatment of love, but has also been used to address
questions of death, God (or religion), political situation and other
related subjects. A sonnet almost always contains a turn, also known as
a volta.
Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet – rhyme scheme:
ABBAABBACDCDCD or ABBAABBACDECDE. It is usually divided into eight
lines called an octave and six lines called a sestet. Usually between
the octave and the sestet there is a division of thought: the turn
coming in line nine. The octave presents a situation and the sestet a
comment, or the octave presents an idea and the sestet an example, or
the octave presents a question and the sestet an answer. Thus form
reinforces idea.
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
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."
John Milton
English or Shakespearian Sonnet – rhyme scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG
The
English sonnet is composed of three quatrains and a couplet. There is
often a correspondence between the units marked by the rhyme and the
development of thought. The three quatrains may present three examples
of an idea and the couplet a conclusion, or the quatrains may present
three metaphorical statements of one idea and the couplet an application
of the idea. Thus, again, form reinforces idea. The turn usually
comes in line 13 or during the final couplet.
Sonnet #130
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.
Spenserian Sonnet – rhyme scheme: ABABBCBCCDCDEE
Like
the Shakespearian sonnet you have 3 quatrains that seem to overlap with
the rhyme, yet it develops up three distinct yet closely related ideas.
The turn appears in the couplet. The couplet is used as commentary to
the three quatrains or a conclusion to an argument formulated in the
three quatrains.
The Spenserian Sonnet is based on a fusion of
elements of both the Petrarchan sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet. It
is similar to the Shakespearan sonnet in the sense that its set up is
based more on the 3 quatrains and a couplet,a system set up by
Shakespeare; however it is more like the Petrarchan tradition in the
fact that the conclusion follows from the argument or issue set up in
the earlier quatrains.
Spenser usually used a parody of the
blazon. A blazon was the idealization or praise of a mistress (usually
by singling out different parts of the woman’s body and finding
appropriate corresponding metaphors, or by using Metonymy, a part of the
woman, or her body to stand for the whole – SEE “My Mistress Eyes are
Nothing Like the Sun”).
"Sonnet LIV" Of this World's theatre in which we stay, My love like the Spectator idly sits, Beholding me, that all the pageants play, Disguising diversely my troubled wits. Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits, And mask in mirth like to a Comedy; Soon after when my joy to sorrow flits, I wail and make my woes a Tragedy. Yet she, beholding me with constant eye, Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart; But when I laugh, she mocks: and when I cry She laughs and hardens evermore her heart. What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan, She is no woman, but a senseless stone. Hybrid or Modern Sonnet:
A
hybrid or modern sonnet can take on any variety of sonnet forms
(combing them or ignoring them altogether as in half English/half Italian). Some modern sonnets have
rhyme scheme (though not all use true rhyme) and others do not. Usually
the all have a turn, though the turn can come anywhere from line 9 to
line 13. Just note that if the poem has fourteen lines it is probably
some form of sonnet. Look for the turn.
There is also nonce sonnets - poems of variable meter and rhyme scheme.
The key to Eliot is usually through
his allusions. In this section there are allusions to Shakespeare:
Anthony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, and Hamlet. The Aeneid - story of Dido, Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, and Ovid. Most of these allusions are connected to women. Example:
Cleopatra - a suicide over love. Dido - a suicide over love. Paradise
Lost - a seduction by the Devil (or snake). Dante - lustful lovers in
Hell. Ovid - a rape of a woman by her brother in-law. Hamlet - Ophelia -
a suicide over love.
This section can be read as a contrast of
sex and love from the viewpoint of upper and lower classes. The 1st
woman, the upper class, has been compared to a female Prufrock.
The title of this section comes from an obscure play that uses chess as a metaphor for stages in seduction.
How does the title fit into the overarching theme of the section? What
do you make of WWI and trenches? WWI appears twice in (section 2 and
3). There is an allusion to Carthage in part 1. What about all the
wars seen/alluded to in this section: WWI, Punic Wars, Roman Civil War -
The Battle of Actium, Troy, Norway-Denmark, Revenge in the Tempest.
JUG - JUG TWIT TWIT
Allusions - Dante's Inferno, Philomela (Metamorphoses by Ovid), Tempest
(sea storm), Aeneas (Dido), Hamlet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Carthage,
Troy.
Venus/Aphrodite.
Who is in Circle Two of Hell (the Lustful) in the Inferno:
Dido, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris, Tristan, Lancelot, Guinevere
Remember - Ophelia drowns herself. Anthony loses a sea battle. Tempest
has a storm that sinks a ship. Water is a traditional symbol of love.
The title of this part of the poem is from Middleton’s The Game of Chess and the main plot for this part of poem is taken from “Women Beware Women” of the same writer. Its main plot is about the seduction of a young wife by a gallant whose mother in law is enjoying the game of chess. To explain the chair she sat in, Eliot uses the reference from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and elaborates its grandeur marvelously. He also uses the reference of Queen Dido of Carthage’s ceiling at this point to explain the setting that is taken from Virgil’s Aeneid.
Afterwards Eliot refers to Milton’s Paradise Lost book IV and explains the entry of gallant in the setting as Milton explains the entry of Satan in the garden of Eden in “Sylvan Scene”. In the very next verse he symbolizes the expected tragedy of the wife with the tragedy of Philomela seduced by her brother in law King Trent in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. At the end of this part he refers to Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet where dying Ophelia bids farewell by saying “good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night”. He again uses Shakespeare’s line of The Tempest “those are pearls that were his eyes” for the seduced wife.
The phrases used by Eliot in this part to explain the crime and spiritually hollow attitude of modern man include English and French terms. He writes French phrase “Jug Jug” to represent the sexual intercourse. The word rat symbolizes the modern man who has entered in the vegetation to spoil it, the one eyed commerce man for the man selling the abortion pills, and dead bones for the man who is spiritually dead.
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Definition of LITANY
1 a prayer consisting of a series of invocations and supplications by the leader with alternate responses by the congregation
2 a : a resonant or repetitive chant
b : a usually lengthy recitation or enumeration: example litany of formal complaints
NOTE:
The litany has been used by poets for Political Poems, Poems of
Complaints, Poems of Empowerment. Remember the handout: "Song No. 2" -
"i say. all you sisters waiting to live" (you can listen to this poem on
NPR - here)
Blank Verse:
Broadly defined, any unrhymed verse but usually referring to unrhymed
iambic pentameter (NOTE: HAMLET is blank verse). Most critics agree
that blank verse, as it is commonly defined, first appeared in English
when the Earl of Surrey used it in his translation of books 2 and 4 of
Virgil's THE AENEID. It appeared for the first time in Thomas Sackville
and Thomas Northon's GORBODUC. Over the centuries, blank verse has
become the most common English verse form, especially for extended
poems, as it is considered the closest form to natural patterns of
English speech. Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and
especially John Milton (particularly in his epic PARADISE LOST) are
generally credited with establishing blank verse as the preferred
English verse form.
An example from Robert Frost's "Birches"
When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter dark trees I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do....
Free Verse :
Poetry that lacks a regular meter, does not rhyme, and uses irregular
(and sometimes very short) line lengths. Writers of free verse
disregard traditional poetic conventions of rhyme and meter, relying
instead on parallelism, repetition, and the ordinary cadences and
stresses of everyday discourse. In English the form was made important
by Walt Whitman.
Example:
poetry readings
by Charles Bukowski
poetry readings have to be some of the saddest
damned things ever,
the gathering of the clansmen and clanladies,
week after week, month after month, year
after year,
getting old together,
reading on to tiny gatherings,
still hoping their genius will be
discovered,
making tapes together, discs together,
sweating for applause
they read basically to and for
each other,
they can't find a New York publisher
or one
within miles,
but they read on and on
in the poetry holes of America,
never daunted,
never considering the possibility that
their talent might be
thin, almost invisible,
they read on and on
before their mothers, their sisters, their husbands,
their wives, their friends, the other poets
and the handful of idiots who have wandered
in
from nowhere.
I am ashamed for them,
I am ashamed that they have to bolster each other,
I am ashamed for their lisping egos,
their lack of guts.
if these are our creators,
please, please give me something else:
a drunken plumber at a bowling alley,
a prelim boy in a four rounder,
a jock guiding his horse through along the
rail,
a bartender on last call,
a waitress pouring me a coffee,
a drunk sleeping in a deserted doorway,
a dog munching a dry bone,
an elephant's fart in a circus tent,
a 6 p.m. freeway crush,
the mailman telling a dirty joke
A thesis statement IS a statement that provides direction
for the analysis of a theme or idea presented by a particular text. Therefore,
in order to construct an effective thesis statement, you must first determine
what a text is suggesting about an abstract concept (like greed, for example).
Your thesis statement will address an abstract concept PLUS
the evaluation of that concept through a particular text.
"COMPLEX" - address more than one side of the issue or the contrasting views of the issue. A complex attitude could include a desire for something and yet a fear of it.
HOMEWORK: REWRITE YOUR THESIS STATEMENT FOR THE AP POETRY ESSAY PROMPT
Today we are going to discuss the AP Poetry Essay Rubric and look at the 1st section of "The Waste Land".
HW: AP Poetry Question (take home)
Part I: The Burial of the Dead
You should think about
breaking this section up into four speakers. Eliot was working with
dramatic monologues. You should also think about his allusions in this
section:
1) The title to THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (as for burial services) 2) Allusions to Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, Isiah 3) Allusions to WWI 4) Allusions to Dante's Inferno 5) Allusions to Tristan and Isolte 6) Walt Whitman 7) Chaucer 8) Drowning 9) Greek Mythology 10) Tarot Cards - and fate 11) Other religions
go here or here Also think about winter, spring and seasons.
Part I: The Burial of the Dead
Note here is a summary from SHMOOP:
The Burial of the Dead
It's
not the cheeriest of starts, and it gets even drearier from there. The
poem's speaker talks about how spring is an awful time of year, stirring
up memories of bygone days and unfulfilled desires. Then the poem
shifts into specific childhood memories of a woman named Marie. This is
followed by a description of tangled, dead trees and land that isn't
great for growing stuff. Suddenly, you're in a room with a "clairvoyant"
or spiritual medium named Madame Sosostris, who reads you your fortune.
And if that weren't enough, you then watch a crowd of people "flow[ing]
over London Bridge" like zombies (62). Moving right along…
For a humorous introduction go here One of the most complex forms. Here is an overview of the form from poets.org
The
sestina is a complex form that achieves its often spectacular effects
through intricate repetition. The thirty-nine-line form is attributed to
Arnaut Daniel, the Provencal troubadour of the twelfth century. The
name "troubadour" likely comes from trobar, which means "to invent or
compose verse." The troubadours sang their verses accompanied by music
and were quite competitive, each trying to top the next in wit, as well
as complexity and difficulty of style.
Courtly love often was the
theme of the troubadours, and this emphasis continued as the sestina
migrated to Italy, where Dante and Petrarch practiced the form with
great reverence for Daniel, who, as Petrarch said, was "the first among
all others, great master of love."
The sestina follows a strict
pattern of the repetition of the initial six end-words of the first
stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, culminating in a
three-line envoi. The lines may be of any length, though in its initial
incarnation, the sestina followed a syllabic restriction. The form is as
follows, where each numeral indicates the stanza position and the
letters represent end-words:
The
envoi, sometimes known as the tornada, must also include the remaining
three end-words, BDF, in the course of the three lines so that all six
recurring words appear in the final three lines. In place of a rhyme
scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition to effect a sort of
rhyme.
Forms:
Structure, line breaks, how the poem looks, rhyme and rhythm and how it is
created
Blues, Sestina, Villanelle, Pantoum, Sonnet (English, Italian, Spenserian, and
hybrid), haiku, quatrain, tercets, couplets, litany, ballad.
Poems:
“Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” “Home Burial” “Heights of Machu Picchu” “The
Flea” “My Last Duchess” “The Wastelands” “To His Coy Mistress”, “The Waste
Lands” “Nani” “The Colonel” “One Art” “Fern Hill” “The Waking” “My Mistress’
Eyes” “The Second Coming”
Today we are going to look at the prose poems you read last night, and then we are going to discuss "The Second Coming".
HW: Write a explication of either "Fern Hill" or "The Second Coming"
Look at The Second Coming on page 1109. What is this poem about?
The key to this poem is in the symbols (and there are many many many).
The
falcon and the falconer are symbols, as is the widening and widening
gyre. The blood-dimmed tide is a symbol. The lion man is a symbol.
The desert birds circling is a symbol. The Spiritus Mundi is a symbol.
Note:
You need to know some allusions here: The Book of Revelations (you
might read this quickly to get the depth of what Yeats is referring to;
an explanation/interpretation of Revelations can be found here and the book itself can be found here);
the lion-man is an allusion to the sphinx (not the sphinx in the desert
but the mythological being that the sphinx in the desert is based on -
you might note that the word Sphinx comes from a Greek word meaning
strangle and and that the Greek Sphinx was a demon while the Egyptian
Sphinx was a representation of the Sun God. Ah, is Yeats choosing an
image that represents two things?) It might also be helpful to know a
little about World War I and its aftermath. Also Bethlehem.
Note:
Yeats believed that history ran through cycles (circular cycles - think
of spinning wider and wider) and these cycles (happening every 2000
years or so) moved from ORDER to CHAOS and then CHAOS to ORDER.
Spiritus
Mundi is just an idea that we all have a supernatural connection to one
another and to the past (the collective unconscious). The idea that
each of us and all our thoughts, emotions, and things that happen to all
of humanity is stored somewhere and we can, during moments of heighten
sensitivity, tap into it.
The poem is written in Blank Verse. Why? What does it reinforce?
The Suborbitals have a song that uses one of Yeats' lines - you can find the recording here. Listen to it and let me know your thoughts.
Today we will discuss what pantoum or villanelle you wrote about.
We will also look at "Fern Hill" and "The Second Coming"
HOMEWORK: Read chapter 16. Also re-read "The Second Coming" and try and figure out what it is about.
"Fern Hill"
THEME(S): Childhood, Loss of Innocence.
Things to look for: repetition of words (you should circle all the words that repeat).
Stanza
and line structures. There is a parallel structure set up stanza by
stanza: example line one in stanza one parallels line one of every
following stanza; Line two in stanza one parallels line two in every
following stanza; line three parallels line three in every following
stanza and so on. This parallelism reflects not just line length but
also the ordering and repetition of words and grammar [think syntax] as
well as the thoughts, ideas contained within each line. You might think
about how this parallelism reinforces theme? Also think about what the
long lines do (example: the stretch of time and energy, versus the
short lines which could reinforce youth or something young and small).
Personification - TIME is personified in this poem. Why? What are some of the things time does?
Allusions:
Adam and Eve - the fall of grace, Paradise, Eden (there are apples
around though not directly mentioned in the poem). Fern Hill is an
actual place. This could be important. Is Fern Hill the name of a
farm? Does it symbolize anything beyond this place?
Alliteration,
Assonance, Internal Rhyme, Slant Rhymes: There are a lot of sounds
going on in this poem. What do this sounds do? What ideas do they
reinforce? You can connect these internal sounds to the sounds of the
things on the farm and the sounds of youth. Also, Dylan Thomas believed
poetry should be heard. This poem is meant to be read aloud.
Colors: What colors show up? Symbolically what do these colors represent?
Animals - what animals appear? Do they represent anything?
Punctuation
- you can tell the turn of the poem by playing attention to the
punctuation (and the tone shift) of each stanza. The turn comes at the
end of stanza five (if you didn't catch it).
Tone: What is the
tone of the poem. Note there is a tone shift in stanza four (on the
line "So it must have been after the birth of the simple light") and at
the end of the poem (end of stanza 5 and stanza 6).
It's argued
that this poem is influenced by a Welsh form called the cynghanedd.
Dylan Thomas should also remind you of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
PARALLELISM
(a definition): a rhetorical figure used in written and oral
compositions since ancient times to accentate or emphasize ideas or
images by using grammatically similar constructions. Words, phrases,
clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and even larger structural units may be
consciously organized into parallel constructions, thereby creating a
sense of balance that can be meaningful and revealing. Authors or
speakers implicitly invite their readers or audiences to compare and
contrast the parallel elements.
An example from Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES
"It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were
all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."
An brief interpretation of "Fern HIll" from bachelorandmaster.com follows:
Fern Hill is an autobiographical poem in which Dylan Thomas uses the
memories of childhood days in order to explore the theme of journey from
innocence to experience. The theme is based on William Blake’s division
the world of experience and it is reinforced through the use of
Wordsworthian double consciousness. The poem can be divided into two
parts: at the first three stanza re related to the poets experience as a
child when he uses to spend his summer holidays at his uncle’s farm
(Fern Hill, it is in Wan sea in Wales) but the last three stanzas are
about an awakening in the child which signifies the loss of the world of
innocence. At the center of this loss of the innocence are the myths of
fall of the first human beings (Adam and Eve).
The world of
innocence (child) as described in the first three stanzas is like the
Garden of Eden. This is a world in which the child is in complete union
with the nature. This world of fantasy offers the child an Edenic bliss.
The way Thomas describes this world; it appears to be timeless world
without sense of loss and decay.
In the third stanza the poet
slowly moves towards the transition between the world of innocence and
the world of experience. In the forth stanza the speaker’s sleeping is a
symbolic sleeping which ends a flashing into the dark. This flashing is
a kind of awakening as hinted by the first line of the fourth stanza.
In this awakening the child (speaker) initiates into the world of
maturity. “Sleeping” in the poem is symbolic that refers to the loss of
innocence that equates the Adam and Eve who had slept after fall form
the Grace of God. This initiation of the world of maturity entails the
loss of Edenic bliss, innocence, grace and freedom. Moreover poet loses
creative imagination and fantasies in which a union with nature was
possible.
In the last stanza the poet once again contemplates
on the memoirs of his childhood but this time the awareness, becomes
dominant. In the last line the poet refers to his chained situation in
the world of experience. Now he is in chain, green color is withered
now. So, this poem is the journey from childhood to manhood when
the manhood comes, the man suffers form an agony. Now I am not what I
was in the past. The use of verb “song” hints that the losses can be
captured through art in the last line stanza.
This performance by actor Richard Burton should help you pick out the tone changes - and make the poem come alive for you.
"The Second Coming"
The key to this poem is in the symbols (and there are many many many).
The
falcon and the falconer are symbols, as is the widening and widening
gyre. The blood-dimmed tide is a symbol. The lion man is a symbol.
The desert birds circling is a symbol. The Spiritus Mundi is a symbol.
Note:
You need to know some allusions here: The Book of Revelations (you
might read this quickly to get the depth of what Yeats is referring to;
an explanation/interpretation of Revelations can be found here and the book itself can be found here);
the lion-man is an allusion to the sphinx (not the sphinx in the desert
but the mythological being that the sphinx in the desert is based on -
you might note that the word Sphinx comes from a Greek word meaning
strangle and and that the Greek Sphinx was a demon while the Egyptian
Sphinx was a representation of the Sun God. Ah, is Yeats choosing an
image that represents two things?) It might also be helpful to know a
little about World War I and its aftermath. Also Bethlehem.
Note:
Yeats believed that history ran through cycles (circular cycles - think
of spinning wider and wider) and these cycles (happening every 2000
years or so) moved from ORDER to CHAOS and then CHAOS to ORDER.
Spiritus
Mundi is just an idea that we all have a supernatural connection to one
another and to the past (the collective unconscious). The idea that
each of us and all our thoughts, emotions, and things that happen to all
of humanity is stored somewhere and we can, during moments of heighten
sensitivity, tap into it.
The poem is written in Blank Verse. Why? What does it reinforce?
The Suborbitals have a song that uses one of Yeats' lines - you can find the recording here. Listen to it and let me know your thoughts.
DefinitionofBlank Verse.Blank verseis aliterarydevice defined as un-rhyming versewritten in iambic pentameter. Inpoetryand
prose, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line
(pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones,
five of which are stressed but do not rhyme. (from literarydevices.net)
