Exercises & Assignment -- Week 5

Exercise 1: Analysis

Do an analysis of William Wordsworth's "I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud".

Assignment: Analysis

Do an analysis of any of the following Lucy-poems:

"She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways", "The Years She Grew"; "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal".

Part of your analysis should also include scansion.

Definition: Synecdoche, Literal and Figurative Language

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a figure of speech where a part stands for a whole, or the whole stands for a part; e. g. In the following line from a poem by Wordsworth "And then my heart with pleasure fills," heart stands for the whole person, i.e. the speaker is filled with joy, not only his heart.

Literal Language and Figurative Language

Literal language is the plain meaning of words; there isn't a deeper meaning to it. Compare with denotative.

Figurative language is language with a deeper, and often aesthetic, meaning. Compare with connotative. The use of figurative language is called figures of speech. Some examples of figures of speech you have learned already are personification, synecdoche and simile.

A Reading of William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" aka "Daffodils", and a short insert from a BBC-documentary.

Biographical Sketch: William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Image Source

William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the north of England’s Lake District, and was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge. A walking tour of Europe in his early twenties brought him into contact with the first throes of the French Revolution, whose ideals he supported until the onset of the Terror. Upon his return to England, he settled with his sister, Dorothy, in the Lake District, where, apart from some few brief travels, he remained for the rest of his life. In 1795 he met the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he published Lyrical Ballads (1798), one of the most important works in the history of English literature, both for its innovative poetry and for Wordsworth’s preface to its second edition (1800). In his later years Wordsworth grew increasingly conservative, and many former devotees accused him of apostasy, but his poetry remained both popular and influential – so influential and so formative of modern ideas about poetry that the scope of his achievement is easily overlooked. In his preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth attacks the poetic diction and elaborate figures of speech characteristic of eighteenth-century poetry, asserting that he had “taken as much pains to avoid it as others take to produce it,” and advocating the “language really used by men.” He rejected the notion of a poetic hierarchy ranking epic and tragedy over the subjective mode of lyric; declared “incidents and situations from common life” as fit subjects for art; and substituted sincerity for studied artifice. The accessibility of Wordsworth’s poetry and his “democratizing” theory should not divert attention from his painstaking and complex technique. Many of his poems are written in strict and elaborate forms, or blank verse; their effect might be one of spontaneity, but it results from careful construction. Wordsworth ascribed to art the duty of cultivating emotional and moral response in an increasingly desensitized age, one more interested in titillation than meditation.

From: The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 4th Edition.

Biographical Sketch: William Blake (1757-1827)

William Blake was born in London. He attended art schools, including the Royal Academy school, and at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to an engraver. In 1800 he secured a patron at Gelpham, but found the arrangement stultifying. Determined to follow his “Divine Visions,” he returned to London. He published numerous collections of poetry illustrated with his own fantastic etchings until the 1820s, when he devoted himself exclusively to pictorial art. His early work reveals his dissatisfaction with the prevailing literary styles of his day; he took as his models the Elizabethan and early seventeenth-century poets, the Ossianic poems, and the work of Collins, Chatterton, and other eighteenth-century poets working outside the prevailing contemporary literary conventions. He discarded the heroic couplet for lines ending in near and partial rhyme, and employed novel rhythms and bold figures of speech that conveyed a multiplicity of meanings. Between 1795 and 1820, Blake developed a complex mythology to explain human history and suffering and came to see himself as a visionary, prophet figure, or Bard. His writings in this vein center around the biblical stories of the Fall, the Redemption, and the reestablishment of Eden, but Blake gave these materials his own spin. In his mythos, the Fall is seen as a psychic disintegration that results from the “original sin” of Selfhood, and the Redemption and return to Eden as a reinstitution of psychic wholeness, a “Resurrection of Unity.” His schema centers around a “Universal Man” who incorporates God rather than around a transcendent Being distinct from humanity.

From: The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.

Two Readings of William Blake's "The Lamb" and a musical interpretation of "The Lamb" and "The Tyger"

Exercises -- Week 4

Exercise 1: Paraphrase

Paraphrase William Blake's "A Poison Tree".

Exercise 2: Symbolism

• Identify the symbolism in William Blake's "A Poison Tree".
  
• Is it an example of metaphor or simile?
  
• Interpret the symbolism.

Exercise 3: Comparison & Discussion

Compare William Blake's "The Lamb" with "The Tyger" and discuss in groups.

• Make a list of the differences between the poems and discuss them.
  
• Is the rhythm in these poems the same or different? What does this indicate?
• Find the intertextual reference in "The Tyger" to "The Lamb". What is the implication of this reference? How would you answer the speaker's question?

A Reading of William Blake's "A Poison Tree" with a musical tribute, an interpretative video, and a discussion on symbolism

Some Paraphrases

Below are some of the paraphrases you came up with in class.

A Paraphrase of William Blake’s “Song”

The speaker is wandering outside in nature and is enjoying the fruits of summer, until s/he sees the “prince of love” in the sunshine. The Prince of Love takes the speaker to his garden and shows the speaker beautiful flowers and other pleasures. The speaker is caught in nets of silk and in a golden cage. His voice is “fir’d” by Phoebus. The Prince of Love likes to sit and listen to the speaker singing, play with him, and mocks his loss of freedom.

A Paraphrase of William Blake’s “London”

The speaker is wandering through the “chartered” streets of London, near the Thames River; and he sees people with weak and sad faces. He hears adults and children crying and in these voices he notices fear and “mind-forg’ed manacles”. The cries of the chimney-sweepers make the churches black, and the sigh of an unlucky soldier is like blood running down the walls of the Palace. The thing he hears most clearly at midnight is the cursing of a prostitute at a new-born baby and this curse/cursing brings sickness and death to a/the marriage.

A Paraphrase of William Blake’s “The Sick Rose”

The speaker tells a "Rose" that it is sick, and that an invisible worm, which flies in the night, during a loud storm, has found out the Rose’s bed of “crimson joy”. The worm’s “dark secret love” destroys the Rose’s life.

A Paraphrase of William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The speaker tells a “Tyger” that it is burning bright in the night, in a forest. The speaker asks what “immortal hand or eye” could outline its symmetrical body. He continues to ask where the fire in the tiger’s eyes come from, and who could get that fire. He also asks what strength and skill is necessary to make the sinews of the tiger’s heart. When the tiger’s heart started to beat, whose hands and feet could stay there? Furthermore, he asks with which hammer and chain, and in which furnace the tiger’s brain was forged and who could have done it. [Incomplete . . .]

Paraphrasing a Poem

• Read the poem closely – more than once.
• Go through it line by line. Don’t skip lines or sentences or any key details. In your own words, what does each line say?
• Write your paraphrase as ordinary prose. Don’t worry about line and stanza breaks.
• Describe the literal meaning of the poem. Don’t worry about any deeper meanings.
• After you have described what literally happens in the poem, go over you paraphrase and see if you have captured the overall significance of the poem along with the details.

Kennedy, X. J. and Gioia, D. 2007. An Introduction to Poetry. 12th Edition. Pearson-Longman.

A Reading of William Blake's "Song: How sweet I roam'd from field to field"

A Reading of William Blake's "The Tyger", a short lecture by John Stacy and put to music

A Reading of William Blake's "The Sick Rose", and as performed by The Protagonist

Exercises & Assignments -- Week 3

Exercise 1: Meter

Determine the meter in William Blake's "The Tyger" and "London".

Exercise 2: Scansion and Meaningful Variation

What is the significance of the change from an iambic to a trochaic rhythm in line 4 of "London"?

Exercise 3: Scansion

Perform scansion on the poem "Song" by William Blake.

Exercise 4: Combine Imagery, Symbolism, Apostrophe, Personification and Rhythm

Do a short analysis of "Song" and "A Poison Tree" by William Blake.

Exercise 5: Writing a Paraphrase

Paraphrase the poems "London" and "Song" by William Blake.

Assignment: Interpretation

Interpret the poem "Song" by William Blake.

A Reading of William Blake's "London", and as performed by Paul Howard and Jo Clack

Rhythm, Meter and Scansion

Rhythm

Poetry often have a clearly identifiable rhythm. This rhythm is caused by some syllables that have a "heavy stress" and other syllables that have a "light stress". Heavy stressed and light stressed syllables are also known as simply "stressed" or "unstressed" syllables.

Meter

"If a poem's rhythm is structured into a recurrence of regular -- that is, approximately equal -- units, we call it meter (from the Greek word for measure)." Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition. p. 1404.

Metrical Feet

The lines in poetry are grouped into "metrical feet". Each foot usually consists of two or three syllables. A poem's line's can be described according to how many metrical feet it has. For instance, a line with four feet is called a tetrameter.

1 = monometer
2 = dimeter
3 = trimemeter
4 = tetrameter
5 = pentameter
6 = hexameter
7 = heptameter
8 = octameter

Two-Syllable Feet

• Iamb (adv. iambic)

An iamb has contains a light stress followed by a heavy stress. The iamb is the most common foot in English poetry because it is closest to natural speech.

Because the stress is at the end of the foot, iambic rhythm is considered "rising". [Rising meter]

• Trochee (adv. trochaic)
  

The trochee consists of a heavy accent (stressed syllable) followed by an unstressed syllable. Most English words are trochaic. Two-syllable words that start with a prefix (e.g. because, sublime) are usually NOT trochaic.

Since the final syllable in trochee is unstressed, it is considered "falling". [Falling Meter]

• Spondee (adv. spondaic)

A spondee has two stressed syllables per foot.

• Pyrrhic (adv. pyrrhic)

A pyrrhic has two unstressed syllables per foot.

Three-Syllable Feet

• Anapest (adv. anapestic)

The anapest has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. It causes rising meter.

• Dactyl (adv. dactylic)

The dactyl has one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. It causes falling meter.

Scansion

Scansion is the act of scanning or determining the meter in a poem by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables using the accent and breve symbols, indicating metrical feet and marking caesurae (pauses).

For more on scansion, including definitions, follow the following link.

Exercises & Assignments -- Week 2

Exercise 1: Imagery, Symbolism, Simile, Metaphor, Apostrophe and Personification

William Blake's "To the Evening Star"

Mark all the examples of imagery (and their types), symbolism, simile, metaphor, apostrophe and personification.

Exercise 2: Imagery (and apostrophe and personification)

William Blake's "The Tyger"; "London"; "Song"; "The Lamb"; "A Poison Tree"

Identify and discuss the imagery in these poems. Also identify examples of apostrophe and personification.

Exercise 3: Denotations & Connotations

William Blake's "The Tyger"; "London"; "Song"; "The Lamb"; "A Poison Tree"

What is "said" (denotations) and what is "suggested" (connotations)?

Assignment: Symbolism

William Blake's "The Sick Rose"

Discuss the symbolism in this poem.

• Is the poem about England that is corrupted by politicians (the "worm")?
• Is the poem about a prostitute that is infected with a sexual transmitted disease?
• Is the poem about a virgin, that lost her virginity, maybe through rape?
• Do you have another interpretation?

Motivate your answer.

Definition: Imagery, Symbolism (including Simile and Metaphor), Apostrophe, Personification

Imagery

Imagery refers to anything in the poem that you can imagine. The most common form of imagery in poetry is (1) Visual Imagery. Images related to sound is called (2) Auditory Imagery; those related to touch is called (3) Tactile Imagery; referring to smells, (4) Olfactory Imagery; and imagery to do with taste is (5) Gustatory Imagery. Imagery concerning movement, i.e. (6) Kinesthetic Imagery, is sometimes also identified.

When you notice imagery, ask yourself: What is the purpose of the imagery? Is it merely to describe something, or does it reveal a mood or attitude? Do the imagery act symbolically?

Symbolism

A symbol is something that stands for, or represents, something else. For example, the flag below stands for, or symbolizes, the Republic of Korea.

Often, symbolism is "undefined". In other words, the symbol could refer to more than one thing.

There are two other ways in which something can stand for something else. They are called simile and metaphor.

If I say the sun is like an orange, then an orange becomes a symbol for the sun. They are similar in color and in form (spherical). When I use terms such as "like", "as", "than", "resembles", we call it simile.

"The sun is like an orange", is an example of a simile. When I omit such words of reference, and merely say X = Y, it is a metaphor. For example, "The sun is an orange" is a metaphor.

Simile and metaphor are usually considered "defined". We are certain what it represents.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe is a way of speaking to someone or something which one do not ordinarily speak to. For example, if I speak to my chair, or speak to Elvis Presley, it is called apostrophe.

Personification

When a thing, animal or something abstract (e.g. Truth), is made human, it is called personification. In "To the Evening Star", William Blake refers to "every flower that shuts its sweet eyes". Flowers do not have eyes -- this is an example of personification.

Definition: Romantacism

You should be able to describe the "Romantic Era", and give a definition of "Romanticism".

To understand the English poetry of the 19th Century, you need to understand the Romantic Era. Specifically, you need to understand how the Romantic Era protested against its predecessor, Neo-Classicism.

Look at the YouTube-video below. Take special note of the list of differences between Classicism and Romanticism.

Types of Poetry: Three Forms

There are three types or forms of poetry; i.e. Lyrical Poetry, Epic Poetry and Dramatic Poetry.

Lyrical Poetry

"Lyric", derives from the word "lyre" which is a type of stringed instrument. It therefore refers to music. Lyrical Poetry used to be sung. They tend to be relatively short and often convey the feelings and thoughts of a single speaker.

William Wordsworth's poem, "Daffodils", is an example of a Lyrical Poem. In the YouTube-video below, a rapper performs an adapted version of Wordsworth's "Daffodils".



Epic / Narrative Poetry

An epic is a type of story. Epic Poetry, also known as Narrative Poetry, are basically "storrytelling poems". They tend to be long, often several hundred lines and are often divided into several sections.

Lord Alfred Tynnyson's "The Lady of Shallot" is an example of an Narrative Poem. In the YouTube-video below, Loreena McKennit performs this poem in a Celtic style.



Dramatic Poetry

Dramatic Poetry is poetry that includes drama, i.e. it is theatrical. This means that it can be performed like a play. Sometimes there are many "characters" that are in dialogue. If only one "character" is speaking, it is called a monologue.

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" is an example of Dramatic Poetry. In the YouTube-video, Vincent Price recites "The Raven". Note the dramatized style.

Definition: Poetry

For the exam you need to be able to give a good definition of "poetry" / "poem".

You can build your definition off of the one below from TheFreeDictionary.Com:

Poem: A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.

Introduction

In this blog I will list some (not all) notes from our class on 19th Century Romantic Poetry, such as main points and definitions.

The poets we will discuss are: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Our source book is The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition. Also make sure that you have a good dictionary that shows the etymology of the words (the origin of the words). You will also need a notepad for making notes in class.