Poetry 3: Society & Mortality

1. Poetry 3:Society & Mortality Metaphor, Imagery & Symbolism Rhyme & Rhythm Analysis & Comparison

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

3. Topics for Comparison • Poetry I: Identity and Daily Life • Q I: How is identity constructed, and daily (family) life presented?

4. Poetry I: Identity, Lyric & ToneQ.1-2: With what tone, sound and images?

5. Poetry II: Nature and LoveQ 2: How is nature/love presented, and for what purposes?

6. Poetry II: Diction & Figurative LanguageQ 2-2. With what poetic language?

7. You Be the Critics 1) G10 Hughes, Langston “Harlem” 2) G5 & G8 Dickinson, Emily “Because I could not stop for Death---” 3) G4 William Blake “Sick Rose” 4) G11 “Wild Geese”4) G1 Auden “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”5) G 3 & G9 How are social problems analyzed differently by Brooks & Hughes?6) G 6 & G12 Unit 1 Question7) G 2 & G7 Unit 2 Question  To Analyze and Compare …

9. 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

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

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

12. The Sick Rose = symbolic meanings • 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 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.

13. Iambic (﹀/) -- suggest Trochaic (/ ﹀) -- double Dactylic (/ ﹀﹀) -- credible Anapaestic (﹀﹀/)– at recess; spondee, spondaic The Sick Rose: sound & sense O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howlingstorm: Has foundout thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy lifedestroy. 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.

14. Harlem Image and info. source

15. Langston Hughes “Harlem” • What words and images promote the theme “frustration with self-fulfillment” in this poem? How do the images develop? • 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?

16. "Harlem" 1951 What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up likea raisin in the sun? Or fester likea sore – And then run? Does it stink likerotten meat? Or crust and sugar over – likea syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags likea heavy load. Or does it explode? (video clip; a lecture) Image source

17. Harlem Renaissance • During the 1920s-1930’s, 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/

18. "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) • Equal Opportunity (Affirmative Action backlash). • Obama as president  police brutalities against the blacks in US

19. "Harlem" 1951 • Rhetoric questions: call for a “yes” response • development of the similes – 1) inedible food (a raisin in the sun & rotten meat) vs. the apparently edible (sugar-coated food); 2) (work for hope) vs. physical wound & mental/physical burden. 3) the round shape: from food, to candy, balloon, to bomb.

20. Emily Dickinson Because I Could not Stop for Death

21. 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

22. Because I could not stop for Death Personified; turning point Or rather--he passed Us-- The Dews grew quivering and chill-- For only Gossamer my Gown-- My Tippet--only Tulle (薄紗)-- We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground-- The Roof was scarcely visible– The Cornice(簷口)--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; 絲tulle: a thin, fine netting used for veils, scarfs,薄紗tippet: covering for the shoulders 披肩

23. “Because I could not stop for Death” 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? A change of tense? 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?

24. Scanning “Because I could not stop for Death” Tetrameter Trimeter The others: pentameter, bimeter… 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-- Iambic (﹀/) – suggesting smooth action

25. 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 (薄紗)-- 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--

26. “Because I could not stop for death”More Questions for you … • Where do you find the rhythm irregular? Why so? • There are two switches in the speaker’s 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?

27. 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.

28. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone Image source

29. Stop all the clocks 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

30. 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"

31. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone (cont’d) He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.For nothing now can ever come to any good.

32. 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.

33. Alanis Morissette: Ironic • ironies of life and death:won 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 comedian’s comment: she just mourns over some unfortunate things.

34. Your Responses? • A good laugh. • The comedian gives a “literal” definition of “irony,” while Morissette describes the situations which one does not expect and can not help—situational irony, or the irony of fate.

35. 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. 

36. Review & Conclusion

37. 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)

38. W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Norton

39. Musée des Beaux Arts Landscape with the Fall of Icarus in the Musée des Beaux Arts Bruegel, The Massacre of the Innocents, 1565-7 Bruegel,The Census at Bethlehem, 1566 Norton

40. 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