The Power and Beauty of Poetry in English Literature

1. BBL 3217 POETRY AND DRAMA IN ENGLISH DR. IDA BAIZURA BAHAR ida@fbmk.upm.edu.my

2. What is poetry? Poetry is important...  It reaches inside people and heals their wounds like nothing else can.  It is an escape from reality and a method of coping with reality.  It's a certain feeling inside."                   Anonymous

3. "Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not.  We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is." Samuel Johnson "original combination of words, distinctive sound, and emotional impact" Anonymous What does poetry do to you?

4. What is poetry really? According to geocities.com, poetry is .. A form of expression written seeking approval from no one but read and interpreted by anyone and everyone It reveals your most inner thoughts that may never be spoken forming a deep communication to others and for you, a cherished token that you will always remember.

5. What do the poets say? • Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" • Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry" • Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

6. In brief, according to Mark Flanagan in About.com… • Poetry is the chiseled marble of language; it's a paint-spattered canvas - but the poet uses words instead of paint, and the canvas is you. • One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. • Defining poetry is like grasping at the wind - once you catch it, it's no longer wind.

7. What poetry is usually about? • Love – central experience in life • Death – taboo subject • Religion – mortal vs immortal • Nature – appreciate the beauty • People – families, friends • Domestic Matters * Everyday topics = familiar themes

8. LOVEProof – That I did always love thee by Emily Dickinson That I did always love,I bring thee proof:That till I lovedI did not love enough.That I shall love alway,I offer theeThat love is life,And life hath immortality.This, dost thou doubt, sweet?Then have INothing to showBut Calvary.

9. DEATHWake by Langston Hughes Tell all my mournersTo mourn in red --Cause there ain't no senseIn my bein' dead.

10. RELIGIONA Child’s Thought of God by Elizabeth Barrett Browning They say that God lives very high;  But if you look above the pinesYou cannot see our God; and why?And if you dig down in the mines,  You never see Him in the gold,Though from Him all that’s glory shines.God is so good, He wears a fold  Of heaven and earth across His face,Like secrets kept, for love, untold.But still I feel that His embrace  Slides down by thrills, through all things made,Through sight and sound of every place;As if my tender mother laid  On my shut lids her kisses’ pressure,Half waking me at night, and said,  “Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?”

11. How to Eat a Poem Don’t be polite. Bite in. Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin. It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are You do not need a knife or fork or spoon or plate or napkin or tablecloth For there is no core or stem or rind or pit or seed or skin To throw away. Eve Merriam

12. A Good Poem I like a good poem one with lots of fighting in it. Blood, and the clanging of armour. Poems against Scotland are good, and poems that defeat the French with crossbows. I don’t like that aren’t about anything. Sonnets are wet and a waste of time, Also poems that don’t know how to rhyme. If I was a poem I’d play football and get picked for England. Roger McGough

13. AN OVERVIEW OF THE DIFFERENT GENRES • WHAT IS POETRY? • WHAT IS DRAMA?

14. English Poetry Anglo-Saxon Period (0450-1066) Middle Ages (1066-1500) The Renaissance (1500-1660) 17th century (1600-1700) 18th century (1700-1800) Romantics (1785-1830) 19th century (1800-1900) English Drama Middle Ages to 1642 (1660-1700) (1700-1750) (1750-1800) (1800-1850) (1850-1890) Historical Development

15. The Anglo-Saxon Period (0450-1066) • No printing existed – handed down orally • Various devices used to facilitate memory, for e.g. alliteration and rhyme were used to make poetry easy to remember. Most work written in Latin. • Contained themes of battles and religion. Epic is the most famous form = a poem of historic scope. • Famous work: Beowulf (the longest as well as the richest of Old English poems). Found in a manuscript of the early eleventh century but composed 2 centuries earlier.

16. The Middle Ages (1066-1500) • Christian moral poems began to surface • Not only in English and Latin but French as well. • Epic and elegy gave way to Romance (tales of adventure and honorable deeds) and lyric. • First printed English book appeared in 1476, language assumed its modern form except for spelling. • Popular poet during this period is Geoffrey Chaucer (narrative poem) • His masterpieces are Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde

17. The Renaissance (1500-1660) • Experienced a revival of intellectualism because of renewed interest in ancient Greek and Latin language and literature • Invention of printing press (William Caxton) • This revolution encouraged the composition of poetry by great poets such as Sidney (The Shepheardes Calender), Spencer (Fairie Queene), Shakespeare, Marlowe, Lyly and Nashe.

18. The Seventeenth Century (1600-1700) • Two main groups of poets: lyrical poets and metaphysical poets • First group consists of Herrick, Lovelace and Suckling (wrote according to the conventions of Elizabethan lyricists) • Second group consists of Donne, Herbert and Vaughan who produced works by ‘intense feeling combined with ingenious thought; elaborate, witty images; an interest in mathematics, science and geography; an overriding interest in the soul; and direct, colloquial expression even sonnets and lyrics’

19. The Eighteenth Century (1700-1800) • The rise of the novel and consequently, the beginning of the end of epic poetry • Marked the disappearance of the patronage system • Poetry writing became a less lucrative endeavor. • Poets such as Blake and Pope became aware of the social problems • The emergence of sensibility - Gray

20. The Romantics (1785-1830) • Can be characterized by: • A return to nature • A shift of focus to the country side • A return to a life of senses and feeling • Not confined to logic and reason • Its appeal to emotions and imagination

21. The Romantics (II) • Also a revival of interest in the Middle Ages, the medieval, and the supernatural • A common word associated with the Romantics is ‘the Sublime’ which refers to “religious awe, vastness, natural magnificence, and strong emotion” • Overwhelmingly a poetic one • Poets of this era are: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats

22. The Nineteenth Century (1800-1900) • Known also as the Victorian Age (1880) • Industrial Age and the modern age of science • Middle class was brought into power, reducing the powers of aristocracy • Poetries often expressive, mournful, descriptive, of nature and of domestic and urban life • Poets emerged during this period: Tennyson, Browning and Arnold.

23. NARRATIVE POETRY GENERAL PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERYBURY TALES (WRITTEN AT THE END OF THE 14TH CENTURY) BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER (C.1343-1400)

24. http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/zatta/prol.htmlMiddle English version of General Prologue • 1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote 2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, 3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour 4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour; 5: Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth 6: Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 7: Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 8: Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne, 9: And smale foweles maken melodye, 10: That slepen al the nyght with open ye 11: (so priketh hem nature in hir corages); 12: Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, 13: And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, 14: To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

25. Middle English version of General Prologue • 15: And specially from every shires ende 16: Of engelond to caunterbury they wende, 17: The hooly blisful martir for to seke, 18: That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. 19: Bifil that in that seson on a day, 20: In southwerk at the tabard as I lay 21: Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage 22: To caunterbury with ful devout corage, 23: At nyght was come into that hostelrye 24: Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye, 25: Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle 26: In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle, 27: That toward caunterbury wolden ryde. 28: The chambres and the stables weren wyde, 29: And wel we weren esed atte beste.

26. General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales •   Bifel that in that seson on a day,  In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay  Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage  To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,  At nyght was come into that hostelrye  Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye  Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle  In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,  That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.  GP I.20-27

27. General Prologue • The poem opens with a passage about spring, the season when people long to get out and about after the rigors of winter. Chaucer does not only give the essence of the season itself, but a vivid realization of its effect on human beings. • The company of pilgrims meeting together at the Tabard Inn in Southwark for the journey to Canterbury. The journey usually took three days, though it could be done in less. The shrine of St. Thomas, who had been murdered in 1170 and canonized three years later, was a major place of pilgrimage, must have been a splendid sight in Chaucer’s time, adorned as it was with great quantities of gold and jewels. • At the end of the General Prologue, Chaucer says that he has described the ‘estate’ of all the pilgrims and his prologue is not merely a collection of portraits, but something that goes much further.

28. General Prologue • In the Middle Ages what is now known as ‘estates satire’ was popular: literature that described the characteristics qualities and failings of the members of the various ‘estates’, the trades, professions and ways of life of fourteenth-century people. • Thus, in describing the pilgrims, Chaucer was not merely inventing a group of interesting characters, or portraying actual people that he knew, but drawing upon a well-established but rather stereotyped mode of writing and transforming it, to give us the highly individualized group of people who make up the company assembled at the Tabard Inn. • In order to give a more comprehensive view of his society, Chaucer presents a very large company of pilgrims, and selected representatives from high up on the social scale (the Knight and his son, the Squire), and from both religious and secular life. • He has women as well men, he has poor as well as rich, learned and ignorant, and simple countrymen as well as sophisticated, worldly pilgrims.

29. The Knight • Given the first place to represent the highest class. • Though most of his other pilgrims are satirized, Chaucer’s Knight is presented as an entirely admirable member of his class, a representative of chivalry. • He fights for a religious ideal rather than for personal aggrandizement and has participated in many campaigns in foreign countries. • His ‘array’, described at the end of the portrait, suggests an unworldly disregard of outward appearance combined with concern for professional competence. • He has participated in no less than fifteen of the great crusades of his era. • Brave, experienced, and prudent, the narrator greatly admires him. • As the pilgrimage begins and the tales are told, the Knight’s social superiority and moral authority are recognized by the rest of the company including the Host.

30. The Squire (the Knight’s son) - a country gentleman, especially the chief landowner in a district • Also a representative of chivalry, but he is above all a young lover, as is natural for his age (20 years), and his devotion to his lady inspires him to perform deeds of courage. • Unlike his father, does not scorn elegant clothes or disregard his appearance: he is the embodiment of the romantic ideal of the young lover, with all the accomplishments that were considered appropriate. • He is accompanied by a Yeoman whose admirable professionalism and practical abilities qualifies him to be the servant of both Knight and Squire.

31. The Prioress (Madame Eglantine) – the female superior of a religious house or order/head of her convent • Chaucer describes in terms of a worldly beauty, as if she were the heroine of a romance rather than a woman dedicated to a life of religious devotion. • Chaucer makes his Prioress a beautiful and charming woman whose courtesy is her dominant characteristics. • Her table manners are dainty, she knows French (though not French of the court), she dresses well, and she is charitable and compassionate. • She wears a brooch which is inscribed “Love Conquers All Things’ but unsure whether the ‘love’ refers to love for God or earthly love. • She is the feminine counterpart of the Squire.

32. The Monk – a member of a community of men living apart from the world under the rules of a religious order. • Monks were often satirized, particularly for the gluttony and lack of spirituality traditionally attributed to the monastic orders. • Chaucer subtly suggests that his Monk his fond of good food, but does not explicitly state that he is greedy and he makes the monk appear physically attractive, rather than as gross and bloated. • He is fond of fine clothes and loves hunting.

33. The Friar – a member of certain Roman Catholic male religious orders and works among people in the outside world and not as enclosed orders. • In Chaucer’s time friars were often criticized for failing to live up to the ideals to which they were dedicated. Particularly criticized for their over-persuasive speech and flattery, often leading to the seduction of women. • Like the Monk, Chaucer’s Friar is an attractive figure, with his pleasant speech, healthy appearance and musical ability, but he has disagreeable characteristics too. He is greedy for money, extorting it from poor widows by his fair speech.

34. The Merchant (trades in fur and other cloths) – part of a powerful and wealthy class in Chaucer’s society • The Merchant belongs to the secular rather than to the ecclesiastical world. • Merchants were traditionally associated with fraud and dishonesty. Chaucer’s choice of words implies that his Merchant’s dealings were probably shady ones. • The very respectable and dignified appearance that the Merchant maintains probably both masks dishonest money-operations and enables him to conceal any losses that he may make, which might undermine the confidence of his clients

35. The Clerk (a scholar) • To be regarded as an admirable figure. • Does not seem as attractive as many of the other pilgrims, with his half-starved appearance, bony old horse and threadbare clothes. • He cares nothing for worldly success, and he spends no time trying to make money. • He does not waste words, though he finds time to pray for the souls of any who will enable him to further his studies. • His devotion to scholarship and his readiness to pass his learning conform to the contemporary ideal for the scholar.

36. The Wife of Bath (Bath is an English town on River Avon, not the name of the woman’s husband) • Misogynistic satire which discussed women’s faults and failings and the appropriate attitudes towards them that men should adopt. • Such writing often denounced women for pride and bad temper – here we can see that the Wife is infuriated if she is not allowed to make her offering in church before other women. • Chaucer also drew form earlier tradition which portrayed elderly woman as knowing all about love, and ready to instruct others, even when they themselves too old for it. • Chaucer shows his originality by making the Wife a very experience older woman but one who is still ready for love if anyone will give her a chance. • Though she is a seamstress by occupation, she seems to be a professional wife. • She has been married five times and had many other affairs in her youth, making her well-practiced in the art of love.

37. Prologue • After Chaucer has introduce all the pilgrims, he excuses himself in advance for any displeasure that he may cause by attempting to report accurately the uncensored words of his companions, and he also apologizes for not introducing the pilgrims in exactly the correct order. • Then he introduces the Host, Harry Bailey, who unlike the other members of the party, was a real person. • The Host is both manly and jolly, and a very competent organizer. • His character is to emerge in the course of the pilgrimage, as he arranges the story-telling. At this point in the proceedings, he puts forward his plan: the teller who tells the most memorable and interesting stories will be rewarded with a free supper at the Tabard Inn on his return.

38. INTRODUCTION TO SONNET • SHAKESPEAREAN SONNETS

39. What is a sonnet? • Lyric poem of 14 lines with a formal rhyme scheme, expressing different aspects of a single thought, mood, or feeling, resolved or summed up in the last lines of the poem. • Originally short poems accompanied by mandolin or lute music, sonnets are generally composed in the standard metre of the language in which they were written—iambic pentameter in English, the Alexandrine in French, for example.

40. The term • The term sonnet is derived from the provencal word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning little song. By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines following a strict rhyme scheme and logical structure. The conventions associated with the sonnet have changed during its history.

41. Form • The two main forms of the sonnet are the Petrarchan (Italian), and the English (Shakespearean). • The former probably developed from the stanza form of the canzone or from Italian folk song. • The form reached its peak with the Italian poet Petrarch, whose Canzoniere (c. 1327) includes 317 sonnets addressed to his beloved Laura.

42. The convention of a sonnet • The Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave (8 line stanza), and a sestet(6 line stanza). • The octave has two quatrains, rhyming a b b a, a b b a; the first quatrain presents the theme, the second develops it. • The sestet is built on two or three different rhymes, arranged either c d e c d e, or c d c d c d, or c d e d c e; the first three lines exemplify or reflect on the theme, and the last three lines bring the whole poem to a unified close. • Among great examples of the Petrarchan sonnet in the English language are Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591), which established the form in England. There, in the Elizabethan age, it reached the peak of its popularity.

43. Petrarchan style How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, (a)Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! (b)My hasting days fly on with full career, (b)But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. (a)Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, (a) That I to manhood am arrived so near, (b) And inward ripeness doth much less appear, (b) That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. (a) Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, (c) It shall be still in strictest measure even (d) To that same lot, however mean or high, (e) Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. (d) All is, if I have grace to use it so, (c) As ever in my great Task-master's eye. (e)

44. English Sonnets • Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, are credited with introducing the sonnet into England with translations of Italian sonnets as well as with sonnets of their own. • Though English sonnet is always identified as Shakespeare sonnet, he is not the first to introduce this from. Nonetheless the poet is the famous practitioner.

45. Shakespeare Sonnets • The English sonnet, exemplified by the work of Shakespeare, developed as an adaptation to a language less rich in rhymes than Italian. • This form differs from the Petrarchan in being divided into three quatrains, each rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet that makes an effective, unifying climax to the whole. The rhyme scheme is a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g.

46. Life and Times of William Shakespeare • Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The son of a successful middle-class glove-maker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582, he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king’s players. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare’s death, such luminaries as Ben Jonson hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre.

47. The Sonnets • Shakespeare’s sonnets are very different from Shakespeare’s plays, but they do contain dramatic elements and an overall sense of story. Each of the poems deals with a highly personal theme, and each can be taken on its own or in relation to the poems around it. The sonnets have the feel of autobiographical poems, but we don’t know whether they deal with real events or not, because no one knows enough about Shakespeare’s life to say whether or not they deal with real events and feelings, so we tend to refer to the voice of the sonnets as “the speaker”—as though he were a dramatic creation like Hamlet or King Lear.

48. The Sonnets • There are certainly a number of intriguing continuities throughout the poems. The first 126 of the sonnets seem to be addressed to an unnamed young nobleman, whom the speaker loves very much; the rest of the poems (except for the last two, which seem generally unconnected to the rest of the sequence) seem to be addressed to a mysterious woman, whom the speaker loves, hates, and lusts for simultaneously. The two addressees of the sonnets are usually referred to as the “young man” and the “dark lady”; in summaries of individual poems, I have also called the young man the “beloved” and the dark lady the “lover,” especially in cases where their identity can only be surmised. Within the two mini-sequences, there are a number of other discernible elements of “plot”: the speaker urges the young man to have children; he is forced to endure a separation from him; he competes with a rival poet for the young man’s patronage and affection. At two points in the sequence, it seems that the young man and the dark lady are actually lovers themselves—a state of affairs with which the speaker is none too happy. But while these continuities give the poems a narrative flow and a helpful frame of reference, they have been frustratingly hard for scholars and biographers to pin down. In Shakespeare’s life, who were the young man and the dark lady?

49. The Shakespearean Sonnet: Overview • William Shakespeare wrote one hundred fifty-four sonnets. A sonnet is a form of lyric poetry with fourteen lines and a specific rhyme scheme. (Lyric poetry presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet as opposed to poetry that tells a story or presents a witty observation.) .The topic of most sonnets written in Shakespeare's time is love–or a theme related to love. 

50. The Shakespearean Sonnet: Overview • Shakespeare addresses Sonnets 1 through 126 to an unidentified young man with outstanding physical and intellectual attributes. The first seventeen of these urge the young man to marry so that he can pass on his superior qualities to a child, thereby allowing future generations to enjoy and appreciate these qualities when the child becomes a man. In Sonnet 18, Shakespeare alters his viewpoint, saying his own poetry may be all that is necessary to immortalize the young man and his qualities.