HS 204: Introduction to Literature: Poetry Section Spring 2008
Prof. Milind Malshe
Dept of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT, Powai, Mumbai.
Introduction
OUTLINE I) The Human Species II) The Idea of Humanities III) Literature: LANGUAGE FORMS/GENRES IV) Poems & Poets
I) The Human Species:
presence, distinctiveness & ascent
1. The all-pervading presence and ascent 2. The biological background 3. Distinctive biological characteristics 4. Society & Culture 5. Comparison: “Animals”
The Human Species : presence and ascent:
1. The all-pervading presence and ascent: Presence: The spread and dominance of human beings all over the earth is unrivalled in completeness Ascent: Conquest of the most diverse and hostile places and made them habitable → no part of the earth is unaffected by the human presence
The Human Species :
biological background
2. The biological background: Biologically, human beings → animal ↓ classification: The highest order of mammals → PRIMATES (i.e. monkeys, apes, human beings) → strong physical similarities
The Human Species : distinctive biological characteristics
3. But 3 most important biological characteristics separate human beings from ALL other animals: Characteristics that have made ASCENT possible: (a) ability to walk upright → from quadrupedalism (walking on all fours) to bipedalism (the striding walk) → hands were left free and the visual field expanded considerably
The Human Species : distinctive biological characteristics
(b) fully developed opposable thumb: 2 types of grips developed → power grip → precision grip → unique and it enhanced the accuracy of hb‟s touch → manufacturing and using tools with accuracy
The Human Species : distinctive biological characteristics
(c) comparatively enormous brain → unique sensory perception, intelligence, speech, imagination, reasoning skills and knowledge (including self-awareness) → MIND: thinking, reflection
The Human Species : society & culture
4. Society & Culture Society: many animals do exhibit “social” instinct, i.e. instinct to stay together (the “herd” instinct) and to form social relations for the sake of security & protection – e.g. they have systems of communication mainly for survival and procreative purposes
The Human Species : society & culture
Culture: but no other animal has “culture”, i.e. behaviour based on norms and conventions which are predominantly ETHICAL (e.g. “fasting”, “taboos”) & AESTHETIC (e.g. art) – Note that human language has functions far beyond survival and procreation
Comparison
We have been comparing the human species with the other animal species This has been mainly a rational, scientific approach to the comparison Let us now see how a poet can approach this comparison
ANIMALS by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
I think I could turn and live with animals, They are so placid* and self-contained; I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat or whine* about their condition They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied - not one is demented* With the mania* of owning things; Not one kneels* to another, nor to his kind that Lived thousands of years ago; Not one is respectable or industrious over the earth.
ANIMALS
Words which you must know: placid (adj) = easy-going, peaceful whine (v) = comstantly complain demented (adj) = wild, mad, uncontrolled mania (n) = obsession, craze kneels (v) = go down on one‟s knees, stoop
ANIMALS
What is the “theme/central idea” of this poem? Animals? What are the “expressive devices” used? Let‟s look at another poem by the same poet, Walt Whitman:
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN‟D ASTRONOMER When I heard the learn‟d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the Classroom, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander‟d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look‟d up in perfect silence at the stars.
What is the “theme” of the poem? Stars? Astronomy? Boredom? Astronomy= science, scientific schematization, quantification What is the poet‟s attitude ? Choice of words: learn‟d, applause Syntactic structures: repetition, passive voice Length of the lines The two divisions of the poem: contrast between the two approaches to NATURE
II) The Idea of Humanities
Humanities
(1) definition: study of human life, mind, society, culture, history (2) Social evolution of human beings (3) The meaning of “Culture” (4) Dimensions of Society & Culture (5) Comparison: Science vs Poetry
II) Humanities: 1. Definition
Dictionary meaning: “the branches of learning having primarily a cultural character” i.e. study of culture study of human life, mind, society, culture, history
II) Humanities: (2) Social evolution of human beings
From hunter-gatherer to sophisticated technological being (about 12,000 years) Quite rapid when compared to evolution From ape-like ancestors To homo-sapiens (millions of years) The rapid social evolution possible because of the MENTAL power
Nature: understanding ↓ manipulation Culture Thus, humanities = study of the human mental faculty and society/culture ≠ psychology ≠ sociology ≠ anthropology
II) Humanities: (3) The meaning of “Culture”
What is CULTURE? Dictionary def.: (a) training & develop of the mind (→ process) (b) refinement of taste & manner thro‟ such training (→ product) (c) social & reli. structures wh. characterize a society (→ foundations)
II) Humanities: Culture the breakup of a civilization/culture
Let‟s have a look at poems which thematize the issue of the breakup of a society, civilization or culture: “London” by William Blake (1757-1827) “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold (18221888) “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
London by William Blake ( 1757-1827)
I wander through each chartered* street, Near where the chartered* Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, In every Infant‟s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles* I hear. How the chimney-sweeper‟s cry Every blackening Church appals*; And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls. But most through midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot‟s curse Blasts the new-born Infant‟s tear, And blight* with plagues the Marriage hearse*.
Blake‟s London
Words which you must know: chartered=well-organized, streamlined (according to a “charter”?) mind-forged manacles= chains made by the mind appals= shocks, fills with horror blights= destroys hearse=a vehicle for conveying the dead body to the place of burial
Blake‟s London
Is it a poem about the city of London? The “territory”? The land? Streets, the Thames Or the “society”? Indicators? Faces, cry, voice What kind of human beings are described? Are any social institutions mentioned? Why? What is the “theme”? A key phrase?
TECHNIQUE: THE RHYME SCHEME I wonder through each chartered* street, Near where the chartered* Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
a b a b c d c d e f e f g/d h g/d h
In every cry of every Man, In every Infant‟s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles* I hear. How the chimney-sweeper‟s cry Every blackening Church appals*; And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls. But most through midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot‟s curse Blasts the new-born Infant‟s tear, And blight* with plagues the Marriage hearse*.
London: Technique
The use of “I”: personal identity? Repetitions: chartered, mark (v) & (n) every I hear Sentence Structure: Main clauses: I wander…, (I) mark… I hear… ; I hear how…
Dover Beach Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Dramatic Monologue: drama within a poem, implied listener Is it a love poem? What does Dover Beach stand for? The sea as a metaphor for life. Sophocles: Gr. Tragedian (Oedipus rex), symbol for human tragedy
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre* The falcon* cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi* Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle*, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches* towards Bethlehem* to be born?
The Second Coming words & refs you must know
The Second Coming= The second coming of Christ to usher in the millennium; end of human history & the start of the Christian culture Here, end of the 2000plus years of Christian culture & the start of a new supernatural force
widening gyre= cycle (of histotry) [The birth of Christ brought to an end the first cycle 2000BC to the dissolution of the GreecoRoman culture] the falcon=a bird which can be trained to hunt other birds; a bird of prey Spiritus Mundi= the spirit or soul of the world, containing past memories of the race
The rocking cradle=the cradle of the infant Christ “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” Ref to the Russian Revolution of 1917 “ceremony of innocence”: Yeats believed that ritual was the basis of civilized living Also see SPINX (separate file)
We have so far seen three very significant poems about the break-down of civilization and cultural values Let‟s now see a poem expressing an optimistic vision of “freedom”: about one‟s “motherland” (one‟s own territory; attachment; patriotism, etc) Rabindrnath Tagore (1861-1941)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Where the mind is without fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action ... Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.
Language & Structure
Comment on the use of “thee” and “my father” Also, identify the major figures of speech: Personification? “tireless striving stretches its arms” “stream of reason has not lost its way” What effect is produced by the repetition of the “where”-construction? Also comment on “led by thee” and “let my country awake”
`Where‟- ideal, visionary world `desert sand of dead habit‟Convention as opposed to tradition
Dead, sheer habit living, changing Passive voice: `I‟ is never mentioned. (Notion of nationalism is problematic; the political nation-state is a modern
concept, it is the British who organized the Indian state.) `fear‟ of oppression not just from outside, but internal; `self-critique‟
`orientalism‟: construction of the east by the west ;`post-colonialism‟: describes the condition after colonization ; European double-speak: European countries were getting rid of hierarchic structures within their own countries but imposing it in the colonies.
Stephen Spender (1909-1995) The Express
After the first powerful, plain manifesto* The black statement of pistons, without more fuss But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station. Without bowing and with restrained unconcern She passes the houses which humbly crowd outside, 5 The gasworks, and at last the heavy page Of death, printed by gravestones in the cemetery. Beyond the town, there lies the open country Where, gathering speed, she acquires mystery, The luminous self-possession of ships on ocean. 10 It is now she begins to sing --- at first quite low Then loud, and at last with a jazzy madness… The song of her whistle screaming at curves, Of deafening tunnels, brakes, innumerable bolts. And always light, aerial, underneath 15
Retreats the elate* metre of her wheels. Streaming through metal landscapes on her lines, She plunges new eras of wild happiness, Where speed throws up strange shapes, broad curves And parallels clean like trajectories from guns. 20 At last, further than Edinburgh or Rome*, Beyond the crest of the world, she reaches night Where only a low stream-line brightness Of phosphorus on the tossing hills is light. Ah, like a comet through flame, she moves entranced, 25 Wrapt* in her music no bird song, no, nor bough Breaking with honey buds, shall ever equal (1933)
Language: Lexical Choice & Figures of Speech
manifesto (n)=a public statement of opinions or intentions on behalf of an organized body (Does it bring any specific “manifesto” to your mind?) elate (adj)=giving joy Edinburgh= capital of Scotland (University 1583) What does it stand for? Rome= capital of Italy, the spiritual centre of medieval Europe wrapt (adj)=wrapped, covered, enclosed
Identify the similes & metaphors: Manifesto Like a queen The heavy page of death Like a comet through flame Music no bird song … shall ever equal What is the effect of these? Do these suggest the theme of the poem? What is the theme? What is the tone of the poem?
III) Literature:
LANGUAGE & FORMS/GENRES
LANGUAGE: structure & function FORMS/GENRES: narrative, lyric, dramatic, discursive telling emoting showing discoursing
LANGUAGE: structure & function
Language: structure Levels of structuring: sounds -> phonology words -> morphology sentences-> syntax meanings -> semantics Arbitrariness of language 3 types of signifier-signified relations: ICONIC, INDEXICAL, SYMBOLIC
LANGUAGE: structure & function
Language: functions: emotive/expressive: ref to self/sender persuasive/conative: ref to the other/receiver referential/descriptive: ref to the context metalingual: ref to the code (lang about lang) phatic/ritualistic: ref to the contact poetic/aesthetic: ref to the unique message
Poetic Language
Special “poetic diction”? Poetry as “A WAY OF SAYING”: “what oft was thought / But never so well expressed” Special relationship bet content & form: “organic”? FORM: imagery & figures of speech
Appreciation of a poem:
The “theme” or the “central idea” The “technique” or the “devices” which structure and express the theme Why the poem is “appealing” or “interesting” or “significant” Analyze both the text and the context
Text and Context: CONTEXT
The poet: his/her period & background The historical and cultural context The “local” significance The “universal” significance
Textual Analysis
The title: direct & indirect relevance to theme The indicators of time & space/territory The identity of the speaker “I” (and the listener “you”): the use of pronouns The opening & closing lines The Tone or the Mood Reality (imitation, description) vs. Vision vs. Expression Rhyme & Rhythm: repetition Imagery & Symbolism
A River by A. K. Ramanujan (1929-1993)
In Madurai, city of temples and poets, who sang of cities and temples, every summer a river dries to a trickle in the sand, baring the sand ribs, straw and women's hair clogging the watergates at the rusty bars under the bridges with patches of repair all over them the wet stones glistening like sleepy crocodiles, the dry ones shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun The poets only sang of the floods.
He was there for a day when they had the floods. People everywhere talked of the inches rising, of the precise number of cobbled steps run over by the water, rising on the bathing places, and the way it carried off three village houses, one pregnant woman and a couple of cows named Gopi and Brinda as usual.
The new poets still quoted the old poets, but no one spoke in verse of the pregnant woman drowned, with perhaps twins in her, kicking at blank walls even before birth.
He said: the river has water enough to be poetic about only once a year and then it carries away in the first half-hour three village houses, a couple of cows named Gopi and Brinda and one pregnant woman expecting identical twins with no moles on their bodies, with different coloured diapers to tell them apart.
Theme
Is it about the river? About Madurai? About the poets and the poetic? Life versus Poetry? Concrete versus Abstract? Real versus Imaginary? The old poets versus the new poets “The poets” sang of “cities and temples” and “only of the floods” “He” versus “the poets”?
Imagery & Form
Significance of Madurai: location, territory Also “people everywhere”: location and life “every summer”, “for a day”, “only once a year”: time REALISM: concrete details of life: e.g. names of cows See how the image of the pregnant woman is developed in its concrete detail in every stanza
Now look at the last stanza: Is there anything strange about the image of the pregnant woman? All the concrete details of realism But does the entire image go beyond REALISM? SURREALISM: thoughts and visions of the subconscious mind, dreamlike images: Do you find any such images? The final stanza?
The Persistence of Memory (1931) is one of Salvador Dalí's (1904-1989) most famous works: shows soft, flexible clocks which are being dried like clothes
FORMLESSNESS?
e. e. cummings (1894-1962): American poet Experimentation, innovation Look at capitalization, line-structure, use of pronouns Does the poem tell a “story”? “anyone lived in a pretty how town”
anyone lived in a pretty how town
anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did Women and men (both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn't they reaped their same sun moon stars rain children guessed (but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer) that noone loved him more by more when by now and tree by leaf she laughed his joy she cried his grief bird by snow and stir by still anyone's any was all to her someones married their everyones laughed their cryings and did their dance (sleep wake hope and then) theysaid their nevers they slept their dream stars rain sun moon (and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face) busy folk buried them side by side little by little and was by was all by all and deep by deep and more by more they dream their sleep noone and anyone earth by april wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men (both dong and ding) summer autumn winter spring reaped their sowing and went their came sun moon stars rain
IRONY, SATIRE & PARODY
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• • • • •
We have seen poems with a sense of irony and satire: e.g. Auden‟s “The Unknown Citizen” Auden: poet of the 1930‟s, influenced by Marxist thought; Spanish Revolution. Tone of sarcasm Passive voice: impersonal Govt. flattens individuality Rhyme scheme indicates regularity, monotony Utilitarianism In e.e.cummings, we saw a deliberate distortion of form: lexical, graphical, phonological, syntactic
George Herbert (1596-1633) THE PULLEY
WHEN God at first made man, Having a glasse of blessings standing by ; Let us (said he) poure on him all we can : Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span. So strength first made a way ; Then beautie flow‟d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure : When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure, Rest in the bottome lay. For if I should (said he) Bestow this jewell also on my creature, He would adore my gifts in stead of me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : So both should losers be. Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlesnesse : Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse May tosse him to my breast.
Let‟s now look at another poem which distorts conventional belief with an ironical and satirical tone: a 17th century “METAPHYSICAL” poem Metaphysical conceit: two disparate ideas are brought together in a single image, e.g. Donne‟s “The Flea”,the lovers metaphorically unite in the flea that sucks their blood. Anthropomorphic God; blasphemous, God as `jealous‟. Pun on `rest‟ Tone of irony: “said he”
Discussion: “Death be not Proud” by John Donne
Elizabethan Age: peak of prosperity; Death was an obsessive fear Tone of defiance: satirical argumentation „me‟ as part of humanity `sleep‟, `rest‟: imitations of death; `death‟ as a temporary state before the spirit is liberated.
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
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And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
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Discussion: “Lucy” by William Wordsworth
Romanticism: movement in nineteenth century: reaction against „neo-classicism‟ ( 18.c.) which was an age of prose, everything was rule-governed, etiquette, morality, rationality were important values Romanticism: Nature as a model; spirituality in nature; Rousseau “noble savage”: nature vs. culture, culture corrupts Major Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Tennyson, Browning
William Wordsworth ( 1770-1850)
She dwelt among th‟untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love. A violet by a mossy stone Half-hidden from the Eye! -Fair, as a star when only one Is shining in the sky! She liv‟d unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceas‟d to be; But she is in the Grave, and Oh! The difference to me.
“Lucy”: begins like a narrative Lyrical, expressive Loneliness, alienation from society, environment is nature: “child of nature” `Eye‟: society, the sun Two images: of the violet and the star, sigifies movement from earth to the sky: lifting from earthly reality to a cosmic existence. Note opening She‟ and closing `me‟. Last line: personal expression of grief.
Emotions of amusement, scorn, contempt, indignation expressed through the “tone” Comments on social manners, moral degradation, cultural evils Parody is an exaggerated imitation of another literary text, like a caricature or a cartoon, an extreme expression of irony and satire Look at “The Dover Bitch: A Criticism of Life” by Anthony Hecht (b. 1946)
“The Dover Bitch: A Criticism of Life” by Anthony Hecht (b. 1946)
So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me, And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad All over, etc., etc.„ Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read Sophocles in a fairly good translation And caught that bitter allusion to the sea, But all the time he was talking she had in mind The notion of what his whiskers would feel like On the back of her neck. She told me later on That after a while she got to looking out At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad, Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought All the way down from London, and then be addressed As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty. Anyway, she watched him pace the room And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit, And then she said one or two unprintable things. But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is, She's really all right. I still see her once in a while And she always treats me right. We have a drink And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year Before I see her again, but there she is, Running to fat, but dependable as they come. And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.
Poets & Poems
We have studied:
1. Whitman‟s ANIMALS 2. Whitman‟s WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN‟D ASTRONOMER 3. Blake‟s LONDON 4. Arnold‟s DOVER BEACH 5. Yeats‟s THE SECOND COMING 6. Tagore‟s WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR 7. Spender‟s THE EXPRESS
8. Frost‟s STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING 9. Auden‟s AN UNKNOWN CITIZEN 10. cumming‟s anyone lived in a pretty how town 11. Ramanujan‟s A RIVER 12. Wordsworth‟s SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS 13. Hecht‟s DOVER BITCH 14. Donne‟s DEATH BE NOT PROUD 15. Herbert‟s THE PULLEY
Poems for self-study:
1. Poe‟s SONNET: TO SCIENCE 2. Yeats‟s A PRAYER FOR MY DAUTHTER 3. Ramanujan‟s ASTRONOMER 4. Blake‟s THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER 5. Keats‟s ODE TO AUTUMN 6. Shelley‟s TO A SKYLARK 7. Frost‟s THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 8. MacLeish‟s ARS POETICA 9. Donne‟s THE FLEA 10. Auden‟s EPITAPH ON A TYRANT 11. Wordsworth‟s LONDON, 1802 12. Wordsworth‟s MY HEART LEAPS UP 13. Milton‟s ON HIS BLINDNESS 14. Shakespeare‟s LET ME NOT (SONNET116) 15. Dickenson‟s I‟M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?
Edger Allan Poe ( 1809-1849) Sonnet- To Science
Science! true daughter of old time thou art! Who alertest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet‟s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? Or how deem these wise, Who wouldst not love him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies, Albeit he scared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car, And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Yeats‟s A PRAYER FOR MY DAUTHTER
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool, While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-leggd smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
Yeats‟s A PRAYER FOR MY DAUTHTER (continued)
In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. O may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind?
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
Ramanujan‟s ASTRONOMER
Sky-man in a manhole with astronomy for dream, astrology for nightmare; fat man full of proverbs, the language of lean years, living in square after almanac square prefiguring the day of windfall and landslide through a calculus of good hours, clutching at the tear in his birthday shirt as at a hole in his mildewed horoscope,
squinting at the parallax of black planets, his Tiger, his Hare moving in Sanskrit zodiacs, forever troubled by the fractions, the kidneys in his Tamil flesh, his body the Great Bear dipping for the honey, the woman-smell in the small curly hair down there.
Blake‟s THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER
A little black thing among the snow, Crying "'weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe! "Where are thy father and mother, say?" "They are both gone up to the church to pray. "Because I was happy upon the heath, And smiled among the winter's snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. "And because I am happy and dance and sing, They think they have done me no injury, And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King, Who make up a heaven of our misery.”
Keats‟s ODE TO AUTUMN
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Keats‟s ODE TO AUTUMN
(continued)
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Shelley‟s TO A SKYLARK
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight -
Shelley‟s TO A SKYLARK
(continued)
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see -we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Frost‟s THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as far, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
MacLeish‟s ARS POETICA
A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit Dumb As old medallions to the thumb Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown – A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves Twig by twig the night-entangled trees, Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves Memory by memory the mind –
A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs A poem should be equal to: Not true For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf For love The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea – A poem should not mean But be.
Donne‟s THE FLEA
Mark but this flea, and mark in this How little that which thou deny'st me is; It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, we're met And cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and sayst that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now; 'Tis true, then learn how false fears be; Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Auden‟s EPITAPH ON A TYRANT
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
Wordsworth‟s LONDON, 1802
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Wordsworth‟s MY HEART LEAPS UP
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began, So is it now I am a man, So be it when I shall grow old Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
Milton‟s ON HIS BLINDNESS
When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask; But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Shakespeare‟s LET ME NOT (SONNET116)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Dickenson‟s I‟M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?
I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us -don't tell! They'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
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 played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling on the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then „tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses‟ heads Were toward eternity.