Poetry 3: Nature and Art

1. Poetry 3: Nature and Art Rhyme and Rhythm (2) Intro to Lit

2. Outline • Nature and Art: Starting Questions • “Earth” (another view) • Dickinson, Emily "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" (1866) • “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” • paintings mentioned in “Musees des beaux arts”

3. Nature and Art • Which part(s) of nature do you like the best? How do you approach it(them)? How close can we get to nature? • Why do you think the word "earth" also means the Earth we live in? • If you live in a city, or in an apartment, you don't really get to touch earth that much. How, then, do we 'touch' earth, or the Earth? • Do you like fine arts? What do you think about their differences from and similarities to literature?

4. Earth by Derek Walcott Letthe day grow on you upwardthrough your feet, the vegetal knuckles, to your knees of stone, until by evening you are a black tree; feel, with evening,the swift thicken your hair,the new moon rising out of your forehead,and the moonlit veins of silverrunning from your armpitslike rivulets under white leaves.Sleep, as ants Images: 1, 2, 3, 4

6. Earth by Derek Walcott cross over your eyelids.You have never possessed anythingas deeply as this.This is all you have ownedfrom the first outcrythrough forever; you can never be dispossessed.

7. Earth Discussion Questions • The structure (or sentence pattern) of the poem? What is it about? • Why do some images combine human bodies and images of nature ("vegetal knuckles," "knees of stone," you a "black tree"; the moon "out of your forehead" and "the moonlit veins of silver"? Why are black tree, moon, swift and ants associated with human bodies? (Another view of our days?) • "You have never possessed anything as deeply as this./This is all you have owned./You can never be dispossessed.“ How is this possible?

8. Earth • Three lines in one stanza, alternating between long and short ones. • 3 imperative statements, followed by a definitive statement. • images suggesting the possible interactions between human bodies and natural beings ("vegetal knuckles," "knees of stone," you a "black tree"; the moon "out of your forehead" and "the moonlit veins of silver”). Human nature//body//Nature • We can never be dispossessed of nature, as long as we are open to it.

9. Another View there is no gravity the earth just sucks anonymous Note (by Ray Schulte) Graffiti seen on a bathroom wall in the late 1970s in a science hall at Harvard University and transcribed by Raphael Schulte.

10. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass(1866 p. 790) A narrow fellow in the grassOccasionally rides;You may have met him,--did you not,His notice sudden is.The grass divides as with a comb,A spotted shaft is seen;And then it closes at your feetAnd opens further on.He likes a boggy acre,A floor too cool for corn.Yet when a child, and barefoot,I more than once, at morn, Dickinson, Emily Images: 1

11. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass 2 • Have passed, I thought, a whip-lashUnbraiding in the sun,--When, stooping to secure it,It wrinkled, and was gone.Several of nature's peopleI know, and they know me;I feel for them a transportOf cordiality;But never met this fellow,Attended or alone,Without a tighter breathing,And zero at the bone.

12. Discussion Questions • How is the snake described? Why is it called “a narrow fellow” but not named? • How is the snake (“this fellow”) opposed to “nature’s people,” for whom the speaker feels “a transport of cordiality.” Why can’t the speaker feel so about the snake? • Is the snake dangerous, or…? [Note: cordiality –behaviour that is friendly, but formal and polite fellow: -- one who is in the same group, has the same job or interests as you; e.g. fellow feeling]

13. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass • The snake: personified (from an “anthropocentric view point”) –from being like a friend, to being swift, unpredictable and elusive • 1) first quatrain: a “fellow,” the snake’s movement is swift and over-riding, and our noticing it, “sudden.” • 2) past experience of the snake -- “a spotted shaft,” “a whiplash un-braiding in the sun”; “When, stooping to secure it,/It wrinkled, and was gone”) • the snake in the last quatrain: “this fellow” (zero at the bone) vs. “nature’s people,” for whom the speaker feels “a transport of cordiality • --Not because the snake is dangerous, but because it is ungraspable (elusive).

14. Rhythm//Snake’s Movement • alteration between the short and long lines • a pause in the middle (caesura): e.g. • You may have met him,--did you not • When, stooping to secure it, It wrinkled, and was gone • Several of nature's people I know, and they know me.

15. "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" (1865) • Theme: indoor lecture on the stars vs. outdoor appreciation of the stars -- Why does the speaker go outside? How does what he encounters outside contrast with the astronomer's lecture? • How is this poem a free verse?

16. "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"** (1865) 1 When I heard the learn'd astronomer, 2 Whenthe proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, 3 When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, 4 When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, 5 How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, 6 Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, 7 In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 8 Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDnodgqcrP8

17. "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" (1865) • Theme: indoor lecture on the stars –tedious and mechanical-- vs. outdoor appreciation of the stars—natural, direct and unconstrained. • Sound pattern: • 1st part (repetition of “when”; accumulation of nouns—charts, diagram, figures--and verbs—add, divide, measure; long and ungrammatical sentences) • 2nd part – open vowels and mellifluous sounds, • The whole poem – one sentence, to show the quick changes of mood.

18. Let’s Take a Break!!! Intro to Lit