A Reading of Lord Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib", as well as a Rap-interpretation.

Exercises -- Week 9: Lord Byron

Exercise 1:

Discuss the irony in Lord Byron's "Stanzas: When a Man Hath No Freedom to Fight for at Home".

Exercise 2:

It what ways reflects "Stanzas: When a Man Hath No Freedom to Fight for At Home" Lord Byron's own life? Would you consider this poem biographical? Motivate your answer.

Exercise 3:

Perform scansion on Lord Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib". What do you think is the purpose of the meter used in this poem?

Exercise 4:

Read 2 Kings, chapters 18 and 19, from the Bible (English / Korean). Why do you think Lord Byron based a poem ("The Destruction of Sennacherib") on this passage from the Bible?.

Assignment:

In groups of 3-6 members, do an analysis of "The Destruction of Sennacherib". What do you think was Lord Byron's purpose with this poem? Submit your group's assignment.

Extra Credit Assignment:

For extra credit, write an analytical paragraph for Lord Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving". This is NOT a group work assignment.

Biographical Sketch: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

George Gordon Byron was born near Aberdeen, Scotland, to dissolute aristocratic parents who had fallen on hard times. Their difficulties were alleviated when Byron inherited his title at age of then. Upon graduation from Trinity College, Cambridge, he embarked on a two-year tour of Portugal, Spain, Malta, Greece, and Asia-Minor, during which he gathered much of the material for his most important poems. He became a celebrity overnight in 1812 with the publication of his first collection of poems, but notoriety supplanted fame when Byron’s affair with his half-sister, whom he had met as an adult, became public knowledge. His marriage collapsed and he was forced to leave England in 1816. He followed the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to Geneva and Italy, then went on to Greece where he organized a contingent of soldiers to fight for independence from the Turks. After he fell sick in the woods during a training exercise and died, he was mourned as a national hero throughout Greece. His work was widely known in Europe and was immensely influential on the major European writers of his day. Perhaps his most significant contribution to literature was the development of the Byronic hero, a doomed but impassioned wandered, often driven by guilt and alienated from his society, but superior to it. Byron’s work was deeply rooted in the literary tradition; he turned to the past for models, drawing heavily on the Cavalier tradition of paying elaborate compliments to ladies, the satiric tradition of launching witty criticism of modern civilizations, and the narrative tradition. In Don Juan, his masterpiece, he uses the narrator to attack such institutions as the government, the church, and marriage; criticize such vices as hypocrisy, greed, and lust; and subtly extol such virtues as courage, loyalty, and candor. Although many critics considered the poem a wanton celebration of the misadventures of profligate, Byron himself called it “the most moral or poems.” His formal achievement was great. He worked with apparent facility in established meters, such as blank verse, terza-rima, and ottava-rima, and elaborate forms such as the ode and the Spenserian stanza. From The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.

Exercises -- Week 9

Regarding Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner":

Exercise 1:

Summarize each part and identify the main themes in each part.

Exercise 2:

What Christian and/or Biblical references are present in this poem. Look, for instance, for symbols referring to baptism, crucifixion, and original sin.

Exercise 3:

How does "nature" change after the Ancient Mariner kills the albatross? Look at symbolism, metaphor, and rhyme scheme to support your answer.

Exercise 4:

What types of imagery are present in this poem? Which senses do you think is emphasized in this poem? Why?

Exercise 5:

Find examples of "imprisonment" in the poem. Discuss how these instances contribute to greater themes of imprisonment, like imprisonment to fate or sin.

A Reading of part of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", plus an Interpretation performed by Iron Maiden

Exercises -- Week 7

Exercise 1:

Read Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and locate examples where the major themes in this poem are clear.

Themes in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The following are some of the major themes in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

• The Natural World (The Physical) vs. The Spiritual World (Metaphysical)
• Nature vs. Man / Artifact
  
• Liminality (Liminal Space)
• Religion
• Imprisonment
• Retribution
• Narration (Storytelling)
  

Biographical Sketch: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St. Mary, a rural village in Devon, and raised in London. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, but fell into a dissolute lifestyle. He fled to London and served in the Light Dragoons until his brothers secured his release some months later. In 1795 he met Wordsworth, with whom he published Lyrical Ballads (1798), one of the most revolutionary collections of poetry in the history of English literature. From the age of thirty, Coleridge largely gave up poetry for philosophy and criticism. He is credited with introducing the works of the philosophers Immanuel Kant, Friedrich von Schlegel, and Friedrich von Schelling to England. At the height of his powers, he became addicted to opium, which had been prescribed to relieve agonizing physical pains that Wordsworth said were so unbearable they drove Coleridge to “throw himself down and writhe like a worm upon the ground.” He spent his last years in the care of a clergyman, writing and attempting to be reconciled with estranged family and friends. In an age dominated by skepticism and empiricism, Coleridge held fast to his belief in the powers of the imagination, which he believed capable of leading humanity to Truth – not through appeals to reason, but to the senses. Like Wordsworth, he strove to express “natural thoughts with natural diction” and to use simple syntax. His accessible style reached its culmination in his meditative, blank-verse “Conversational poems,” which influenced writers as diverse as Matthews Arnold, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Frost. Coleridge worked in both established forms, such as the ode, and fluid forms of his own making. He eschewed the use of conventional “mechanic” or “pre-ordained” forms that did not arise “out of the properties of the material” but were imposed from without, as when “to a mass of wet clay we give whatever shape we wish to retain when hardened,” for “organic” form, which arises “out of the properties of the material” and “shapes as it develops itself from within.” If Wordsworth determined the content of a century or more English poetry, Coleridge determined its shape. His theories on “organic form” provided a basis for the development of a freer poetic, and may have been the progenitor of many twentieth-century experiments in free verse.

From The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.

Exercises & Assignment -- Week 6

Exercise 1: Paraphrase

Write a paraphrase for William Wordsworth's poems "She Was a Phantom of Delight" and "My Heart Leaps Up" (aka "The Rainbow Poem").

Exercise 2: Analytical Paragraph

Write an analytical paragraph about the themes in Wordsworth's "My Heart Leaps Up".

Assignment: Comparison

Compare William Blake's poem "London" and William Wordsworth's poem "London, 1802".

A Reading of William Wordsworth's "She Was a Phantom of Delight" and "My Heart Leaps Up"

A Reading of William Wordsworth's "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" and a Musical Interpretation of "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" by Draconian