Exercises -- Week 11b

Exercise 1:

Read the poem "To Autumn" by John Keats and mark all the examples of alliteration and assonance.

Exercise 2:

Analyze the poem "On the Sea" by John Keats.

Exercise 3:

Compare and contrast William Blake's "To the Evening Star" and John Keats's "Bright Star".

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".

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 . . .]

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

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

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

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.