Poetry%203:%20%20Society%20

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Poetry 3 Society Mortality

• Metaphor, Imagery Symbolism
• Rhyme Rhythm
• Analysis Comparison

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Outline

• Review, General Questions Discussion Question
• Blake, William The Sick Rose (p. 818)
• Hughes, Langston Harlem (p. 1019)Dickinson,
  Emily Because I could not stop for Death--- (p.
  807)
• Thomas, Dylan Do Not Go Gentle into That
  Goodnight (p. 878) 
• Auden Stop all the clocks, cut off the
  telephone (p. 775)
• About Poetry 4

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So far so good?

• Poetry I Identity and Daily Life
• Q I How is identity constructed, and daily
  (family) life presented?

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Poetry I Identity, Lyric ToneQ.1-2 With what
tone, sound and images?
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Poetry II Nature and LoveQ 2 How is
nature/love presented, and for what purposes?
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Poetry II Diction Figurative Language Q 2-2.
With what poetic language?
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You Be the Critics

• 1) G3 Hughes, Langston Harlem 2) G5/G7
  Dickinson, Emily Because I could not stop for
  Death---
• 3) G4/G2 Thomas, Dylan Do Not Go Gentle into
  That Goodnight  
• 4) G9 Auden Stop all the clocks, cut off the
  telephone
• 5) G 8/G10 How is death viewed differently by
  Dickinson and Thomas? And why?
• 6) G 6/G12 Unit 1 Question
• 7) G 1/G11 Unit 2 Question

• To Analyze and Compare

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Poetry and its Contexts

• Human (Universal) Context with themes of life
  and death, love and family relations
• Social and Historic Contexts
• Artistic Contexts --

Next time
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General Questions

• Society How does poetry offer its social
  criticism?
• How do you divide life into different stages?
  Are we always losing or gaining?
• Death What do you think/feel about death? What
  do you think you will feel when you die? Why do
  poets write about death?

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The Sick Rose
Image source
Its symbolic meanings? Conveyed through line
and sound arrangement?
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The Sick Rose symbolic meanings

• 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.

Rose as a symbol not of love, but of violated
beauty Worm in the howling storm from Nature,
or a sinister lover? Bed of crimson joy
welcoming? Love destructive
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The Sick Rose sound sense
Iambic (?/) -- suggest Trochaic (/ ?) --
double Dactylic (/ ??) -- credible Anapaestic
(??/) at recess spondee, spondaic

• 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.

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.
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Harlem
Image and info. source
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Langston Hughes Harlem

• What words and images promote the theme
  frustration with self-fulfillment in this poem?
• How do the sound patterns and format contribute
  to the dream state of this poem?
• American Dream This poem is about the speaker's
  individual dream and about the American dream.
  What is the American Dream? What is the dream
  that is deferred? (note Harlem)
• Why do you think the poem consists mostly of
  questions? What is the effect of the many
  questions?

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"Harlem" 1951

• What happens to a dream deferred?
• Does it dry up
• like a raisin in the sun?
• Or fester like a sore
• And then run?
• Does it stink like rotten meat?
• Or crust and sugar over
• like a syrupy sweet?
• Maybe it just sags
• like a heavy load.
• Or does it explode?

(video clip a lecture)
Image source
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Harlem Renaissance

• During the 1920s-1930s, the flourishing of
  African-American literature, art, music, dance,
  and social commentary. Langston Hughes was part
  of this movement. (video clip)
• http//www.nku.edu/diesmanj/harlem_intro.html
• http//www.fatherryan.org/harlemrenaissance/

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"Harlem" 1951

• American Dream Afro-Americans did not go to the
  U.S. with an American dream, as did some other
  immigrants. However, especially since Harlem
  Renaissance, they do have their dreams for
  equality (educational, economic and social
  equality) if not of success. The dream, however,
  has been deferred, at the time when Hughes wrote
  the poem, and probably even till now.
• (For your reference) Moments of hope
  Emancipation and Reconstruction, the Great
  Migration, integration and voter registration (?
  ghettos and New Orleans), Black Studies (?
  reduced) and Equal Opportunity (Affirmative
  Action? backlash).
• Rhetoric questions call for a yes response
• development of the similes
• 1) inedible food (grape meat) vs. the
  apparently edible (work) vs. physical wound
  mental/physical burden.
• 2) the round from food, to candy, balloon, to
  bomb.

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Emily Dickinson
Because I Could not Stop for Death
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Because I could not stop for Death
Personified as a gentleman

• Because I could not stop for Death--
• He kindly stopped for me--
• The carriage held but just ourselves--
• And Immortality.
• We slowly drove--he knew no haste,
• And I had put away
• My labor, and my leisure too,
• For His Civility
• We passed the school, where children strove  
• At Recess--in the Ring--
• We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
• We passed the Setting Sun--
•  

• Symbolic of
• Learning
• Harvesting
• 3. aging

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Because I could not stop for Death
personified

• Or rather--he passed Us--
• The Dews grew quivering and chill--
• For only Gossamer my Gown--
• My Tippet--only Tulle (??)--
•  
• We paused before a House that seemed
• A Swelling of the Ground--
• The Roof was scarcely visible
• The Cornice(??)--in the Ground--
•  
• Since then-- 'tis Centuries--and yet each
• Feels shorter than the day
• I first surmised the Horses' Heads
• Were toward Eternity--

Extended metaphor
Extended metaphor life after death as a journey
gossamer very light, thin cloth ?tulle a
thin, fine netting used for veils, scarfs,??
tippet covering for the shoulders ??
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Discussion Questions

• 1. Death How is the personified Death
  characterized? Why is he associated with
  gentle and Civility? Is this the way we
  envision death?
• 2. I How does the speaker look at this trip to
  death? Is she willing to go on this trip? Is
  she ready? What does she look at? Are these
  elements you find easy to say good-bye to?
• 3. The Objects in Life What tone does the
  speaker use to describe this journey? Is there
  any change in her tone? Is the poem read very
  slowly or swiftly? Softly or with force and
  energy? Is there irony in the contrast between
  her passivity and inactivity in the coach and the
  energetic activities of human lives and nature?
• 4. Destination A House? Meaning? Eternity?

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Scanning Because I could not stop for Death

• Because I could not stop for Death--
• He kindly stopped for me--
• The carriage held but just ourselves--
• And Immortality.
• We slowly drove--he knew no haste,
• And I had put away
• My labor, and my leisure too,
• For His Civility
• We passed the school, where children strove  
• At Recess--in the Ring--
• We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
• We passed the Setting Sun--
•  

Tetrameter Trimeter The others pentameter,
bimeter
Iambic (?/) -- suggest Trochaic (/ ?) --
double Dactylic (/ ??) -- credible Anapaestic
(??/) at recess
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Because I could not stop for Death

• Or rather--he passed Us--
• The Dews grew quivering and chill--
• For only Gossamer my Gown--
• My Tippet--only Tulle (??)--
•  
• We paused before a House that seemed
• A Swelling of the Ground--
• The Roof was scarcely visible--
• The Cornice--in the Ground--
•  
• Since then-- 'tis Centuries--and yet each
• Feels shorter than the day
• I first surmised the Horses' Heads
• Were toward Eternity--

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More Questions for you

• Where do you find the rhythm irregular? Why so?
• There are two switches in the speakers ideas
• 1) from passing different objects in life to
  being passed over by the Sun,
• 2) from her use of the past tense, to the present
  tense (Since then 'tis centuries, and yet
  each/Feels shorter than the day). What do these
  two switches suggest about the journey to/of
  death?
• There are different versions to this poem. In
  another version, all the dashes (--) are replaced
  by either comma or period. Which version do you
  prefer? What could the dashes mean?

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Because I could not stop for Death

• Reluctance about death Death (or what comes
  after death) is hard to know.
• Main Ideas
• The speaker is missing the life she has to leave
  behind
• The world after death is cold, lonely and
  boring.
• She realizes what eternity is only centuries
  later, but this eternity (the life behind time)
  seems quite bland and uneventful.
• Sound and Sense
• The regularity of the poem suggests her apparent
  readiness to go with death, while the pauses
  reflect her uncertainty and hesitation about the
  ideas she is to present.

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Do not go gentle into that good night

• Dylan Thomas

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Do not go gentle into that good night

• Do not go gentle into that good night,
• Old age should burn and rave at close of day
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
• Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
• Because their words had forked no lightning they
• Do not go gentle into that good night.
• Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
• Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
  bay,
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

sleep/restful death metaphor
Accepting death
Creates no impact
regret
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Do not go gentle into that good night (2)
Rush thru life wildly

• Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
• And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
• Do not go gentle into that good night.
• Grave men, near death, who see with blinding
  sight
• Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
• And you, my father, there on the sad height,
• Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I
  pray.
• Do not go gentle into that good night.
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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Do not go gentle into that good nightQuestions

• Speaker, Tone and Main Idea -- Who is the
  speaker speaking to? What is his main message?
  How would you describe his tone? -- How does the
  speaker try to explain that there is a need to
  "burn and rave" at old age? What does he say that
  wise men, good men, wild men and grave men do?
• 2. Language and Metaphor -- If we further
  examine the examples the speaker give, we will
  find that the four kinds of men stay active and
  passionate at their old age for different
  reasons what are they?
• 3. Pattern and Overall Meaning
• -- How is the speakers idea developed?
  What is view of life presented?
• -- Do you find the poem passionate or hiding
  a great sense of futility?

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Response Patterns

wise men know dark is right Because their words had forked no lightning
good men crying how bright /Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay
wild men learn too late, they grieved itthe sun on its way caught and sang the sun in flight
grave men see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay
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Wise Men, Good Men, Wild Man and Grave Man

• Stanzas 2 and 3 deal with men who have failed to
  achieve the ends they "have aimed at.
• -- "Because their words had forked no lightning"
  (5)
• -- because their "frail deeds" never "danced"
  (8).
• Stanzas 4 and 5 deal with men who have achieved
  their aims, but either regret their success or is
  losing it.
• -- "Wild men," in their hedonist actions, regret
  "they grieved it on its way" (10-11).
• --"Grave men," who may have spent their lives in
  the gloomy contemplation of life's sorrows, see
  the possibility of gaiety (blaze like meteors
  and be gay) with blinding sight (about to lose
  it).

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Father and Son use of oxymoron

• And you, my father, there on the sad height,
• Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I
  pray.
• Do not go gentle into that good night. ? power
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ?
  futility

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Dylan Thomas

• Born in Wales. Wrote several poems on his
  birthdays which are to do with death. E.g. THE
  FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE
  FLOWER
• Thomas under strong influence of his father.
• "the only person I can't show the little enclosed
  poem to is, of course, my father, who doesn't
  know he's dying" (Letters 359)

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Dylan Thomass Father

• David John, known as D. J. According to
  biographer Paul Ferris, D.J. was
• "an unhappy man... a man with regrets" (27) born
  with brains and literary talent, his ambition was
  to be a man of letters, but he was never able to
  advance beyond being "a sardonic provincial
  schoolmaster" in South Wales, feared for his
  sharp tongue (26-33).
• After his first serious illness, though--cancer
  in 1933--"A mellowing is said to have been
  noticeable soon after his sarcasm was not so
  sharp he was a changed man" (104). As he grew
  more chronically ill in the 40's, mostly from
  heart disease and with one of the complications
  being trouble with his sight, the mellowing
  intensified As Ferris puts it, "It must have
  been D. J.'s backbone of angry dignity that his
  son grieved to see breaking long after, when he
  wrote 'Do not go gentle into that good night'"
  (27), and the poem is "an exhortation to his
  father, a plea for him to die with anger, not
  humility" (259).
• (MARC D. CYR, DYLAN THOMAS'S "DO NOT GO GENTLE
  INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT" THROUGH "LAPIS LAZULI" TO
  KING LEAR )

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Literary Techniques (4) Poetic FormVillanelle
A chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes
and consisting typically of five tercets and a
quatrain in which the first and third lines of
the opening tercet recur alternately at the end
of the other tercets and together as the last two
lines of the quatrain. line 1 6, 12, 18 line
3 line 9, 15, 19. ??????????(??????(tercet)???
???(quatrain)????????????????????????????????????
???????)? two rhyming sounds aba aba aba aba
aba abaa.

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Literary Techniques (4) Poetic FormVillanelle
The beauty of villanelle ". . . the form of
villanelle has remarkable unity of structure. 
The echoing and reechoing of the refrains give
the villanelle a plaintive, delicate beauty that
some poets find irresistible." Difficulties of
villanelle "Since it has only two rhymed
endings, the poem can easily become monotonous. 
The risks of monotony is increased by the
incessant appearance of the refrains that
constitute eight of the poems' nineteen lines --
nearly half of the poem.  This skilled author of
the villanelle, thus, is careful to achieve the
maximum tonal range and to fit the refrains lines
as naturally as possible into the logic of the
poem" (The Heath Guide to Literature 637)  How do
the two poems we read use the form of villanelle
to enrich their meanings and avoid monotony?

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Sound Sense -- Do not go gentle into that good
night
spondee

• Do not go gentle into that good night,
• Old age should burn and rave at close of day
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
• Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
• Because their words had forked no lightning they
• Do not go gentle into that good night.
• Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
• Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
  bay,
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

command
action
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Scanning -- Do not go gentle into that good
night (2)

• Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
• And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
• Do not go gentle into that good night.
• Grave men, near death, who see with blinding
  sight
• Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
• And you, my father, there on the sad height,
• Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I
  pray.
• Do not go gentle into that good night.
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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Questions for you

• What would you say to an aging elderly (relative
  or parent) if they are fading into the sunset?
• Would you be able to categorize yourself as a
  wise man, good man, wild man and grave man? Or
  which would you aspire to be?
• After reading two poems about death, which
  attitude would you possibly take if you were to
  face death? Or with the awareness of its
  inevitability, would you cherish life more and in
  what ways?

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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Image source
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Questions for Discussion

• To whom or what do you imagine the speaker of
  this poem is speaking? What's the significance
  or effect of the poet's use of the language of
  command or entreaty (Do this do that.)?
• What's the significance or effect of the way the
  poet mixes references to telephones, airplanes,
  and traffic policemen with references to stars,
  the moon, and the ocean? Of the way the poet
  moves from more concrete images from everyday
  life to more abstract and traditionally poetic
  ones?
• What's the significance or effect of the regular
  rhyme scheme?

Norton
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
W. H. Auden

• Stop all the clocks, cut off the
  telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a
  juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled
  drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
  Let aeroplanes circle moaning
  overheadScribbling on the sky the message He Is
  Dead,Put crepe bows round the white necks of the
  public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear
  black cotton gloves.

Four Weddings and a Funeral - "Funeral Blues"
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
(contd)

• He was my North, my South, my East and
  West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My
  noon, my midnight, my talk, my songI thought
  that love would last for ever I was wrong.The
  stars are not wanted now put out every onePack
  up the moon and dismantle the sunPour away the
  ocean and sweep up the wood.For nothing now can
  ever come to any good.

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Moment of Sadness

• One can be totally immersed in sadness, so that
  s/he commands all to stop and to mourn for
  his/her dead lover.
• On the other hand, there are ways to put death in
  its context of life, and for us to survive this
  overwhelming moment of sadness.

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Alanis Morissette Ironic

• ironies of life and deathwon the lottery and
  died the next day a death row pardon two minutes
  too late Mr. Play It Safe
• Twists and turns in life you think everything's
  okay and everything's going right/ (the other way
  around)
• ? the unfortunate?
• the unlucky a black fly in your Chardonnay rain
  on your wedding day A traffic jam when you're
  already late
• the funny coincidence free ride already paid
• Which do you think matters for you?

• Lyrics
• A comedians comment she just mourns over some
  unfortunate things.

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Your Responses?

1. A good laugh.
2. The comedian gives a literal definition of
   irony, while Morissette describes the
   situations which one does not expect and can not
   helpsituational irony, or the irony of fate.

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Literary Techniques (5) Irony

• Irony involves a contradiction.  "In general,
  irony is the perception of a clash between
  appearance and reality, between seems and is, or
  between ought and is" (Harper Handbook).  
• Verbal irony --"Saying something contrary to
  what it means"
• "Oh, how lucky we are to have SO MANY online
  materials offered by the Introduction to
  Literature class!" you said.
• Dramatic irony "saying or doing something while
  being unaware of its ironic contrast with the
  whole truth. 
• Situational irony "events turning to the
  opposite of what is expected or what should be. 

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Review Conclusion
Form Content
Free Verse
Villanelle Life and its constraints Do Not Go Gentle
One Sentence poem The Sick Rose
Death Do Not Go Gentle Because I could not Stop all the Clocks
Society The Sick Rose

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Poetry 4 Arts and Modern Society
Creative Adaptations Example (1) Do Not Go
Gentle, (2) American Icons Because I Could Not
Stop for Death

• Williams, William Carlos The Dance (p. 1106)
• Auden W. H. Musee des Beaux Arts (p. 1075)
• Stevens, Wallace Anecdote of the Jar (p. 1102)
  
• Pound, Ezra.  In the Station of a Metro (p.
  1102)

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W. H. Auden (19071973)
Norton
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Musée des Beaux Arts
Norton
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Recommended

• Analysis
• Literary Analysis Writing an Essay
• English Matters  the SPIDER approach to poetry
  (Scenario/Surface-Purpose-Imagery (language
  picture)-Diction-Economy-Rhythm and Rhyme)
• Lit. Analysis of Poetry - Because I Could Not
  Stop For Death by Dickinson
• Creative Adaptations
• (1) Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
• (2) American Icons Because I Could Not Stop for
  Death