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B.A/B.Sc. Hons-II (Poetry) Eng-201

ENG 201 POETRY

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 94

1. The Aim Was Song Robert Frost 99

2. Sound and Sense Alexander Pope 100

3. There Is No Frigate Emily Dickinson 101

4. Shall I Compare Thee William Shakespeare 102

5. The Demon Lover Anonymous 103

6. Written In Early Spring William Wordsworth 106

7. The Human Seasons John Keats 107

8. Crossing the Bar Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1089. My Last Duchess Robert Browining 109

10. Dover Beach Matthew Arnold 112

11. Gods Grandeur G.M. Hopkins 114

12. Neutral Tones Thomas Hardy 115

13. The Second Coming W.B. Yeats 116

14. Preludes T.S. Elot 117

15. Mental Cases Wilfred Owen 119

16. Mother to Son Langston Hughes 120

17. Fern Hill Dylan Thomas 121

18. The Whipping Robert Hayden 123

19. Aubade Philip Larkin 124

20. The Thought Fox Ted Hughes 126

21. Aunt Jennifers Tigers Adrienne Rich 127

22. Geography Lesson Zulfiker Ghose 128

23. Once Upon a Time Gabriel Okara 129

24. The Story We Know Martha Collins 131

25. Opening the Cage Edwin Morgan 132

26. Literary Terms 133

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AN INTRODUCTIONT TO POETRY

Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. The most primitive

peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated it. In all ages and in all

countries, poetry has been written, and eagerly read or listened to, by all kinds andconditions of people by soldiers, statesmen, lawyers, farmers, doctors, scientists,

clergy, philosophers, kings, and queens. In all ages it has been especially the concern

of the educated the intelligent, and the sensitive, and it has appealed, in its simpler

forms, to the uneducated and to children. Why? First, because it has given pleasure.

People have read it, listened to it, or received it because they like it because it gave

them enjoyment. But this is not the whole answer. Poetry in all ages has been regarded

as important, not simply as one of the several alternative forms of amusement, as one

person might choose bowling, chess, and poetry. Rather, it has been regarded as

something central to existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life,something that we are better off for having and without which we are spiritually

impoverished. To understand the reasons for this, we need to have at least a provisional

understanding of what poetry is provisional, because people have always been more

successful at appreciating poetry than at defining it.

Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more

intensely than does ordinary language. To understand this fully, we need to understand

what poetry says. For language is employed on different occasions to say quite

different kinds of things; in other words, language has different uses.

Perhaps the commonest use of language is to communicate information. We say

that it is nine oclock, that we like a certain movie, that bromine and iodine are members

of the halogen group of chemical elements. This we might call the practical use of

language; it helps us with the ordinary business of living.

But it is not primarily to communicate information that novels, short stories, plays

and poems are written. These exist to bring us a sense and a perception of life, to widen

and sharpen our contacts with existence. Their concern is with experience. We all have

an inner need to live more deeply and fully and wither greater awareness, to know theexperience of others, and to understand our own experience better. Poets, from their

own store of felt, observed, or imagined experiences, select, combine, and reorganize.

They create significant new experience for their readers significant because focused

and formed in which readers can participate and from which they may gain a greater

awareness and understanding of their world. Literature, in other words, can be used as

a gear for stepping up the intensity and increasing the range of our experience and as a

glass for clarifying it. This is the literaryuse of the language, for literature is not only an

aid to living but a means of living.

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Literature exists to communicate significant experience significant because

concentrated and organized. Its function is not to tell us about experience but to allow

us imaginatively to participate in it. It is a means of allowing us, through the imagination,

to live more fully more deeply, more richly, and with greater awareness. It can do this in

two ways: by broadening our experience that is, by making us acquainted with arange of experience with which, in the ordinary course of events, we might have no

contact more understandingly the every day experiences all of us have or by

deepening our experience that is, by making us feel.

We can avoid two mistaken approaches to poetry if we keep this conception of

literature firmly in mind. The first approach always looks for a lesson or a bit of moral

instruction. The second expects to find poetry always beautiful.

Poetry takes all life as its province. It primary concern is not with beauty, not with

philosophical truth, not with persuasion, but with experience, beauty and philosophicaltruth are aspects of experience, and the poet is often engaged with them. But poetry as

a whole is concerned with all kinds of experience beautiful or ugly, strange or

common, noble or ignoble, actual or imaginary. One of the paradox of human existence

is that all experience even painful experience is, for the good reader, enjoyable

when transmitted through the medium of art. In real life, death and pain and suffering

are not pleasurable, but in poetry they may be. In real life getting soaked in a rainstorm

is not pleasurable, but in poetry they may be. In real life getting soaked in a rainstorm is

not pleasurable, but in poetry they may be. In real life getting soaked in a rainstorm is

not pleasurable, but in poetry it can be. In actual life, is we cry, usually we are unhappy;but if we cry in a movie, we are manifestly enjoying it. We do not ordinarily like to be

terrified in real life, but we sometimes seek movies or books that will terrify us. We find

some value in all intense living. To be intensely alive is the opposite of being dead. To

be dull, to be bored, to be imperceptive is in one sense to be dead. Poetry comes to us

bringing life and therefore pleasure. Moreover, art focuses and organizes experience so

as to give us a better understanding of it. And to understand life is partly to be master of

it.

The difference between poetry and other literature is one only of degree. Poetry

is the most condensed and concentrated from of literature. It is language whose

individual lines, either because of their own brilliance or because they focus so

powerfully what has gone before, have a higher voltage than most language. It is

language that grows frequently incandescent, giving of both light and heat.

Poetry is a kind of multidimensional language. Ordinary language the kind that

we use to communicate information is one dimensional. It is directed at only part of the

listener, the understanding. Its one dimension is intellectual. Poetry, which is language

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used to communicate experience, has at least four dimensions. If it is to communicate

experience, it must be directed at the whole person, not just at your understanding. It

must involve not only your intelligence but also your senses, emotions, and imagination.

To the intellectual dimension poetry adds a sensuous dimension, an emotional

dimension, and an imaginative dimension.

Poetry achieves its extra dimensions its greater pressure per word and its

greater tension per poem by drawing more fully and more consistently than does

ordinary language on a number of language resources, none of which is peculiar to

poetry. These various resources are connotation, imagery, metaphor, symbol, paradox,

irony, allusion, sound repetition, rhythm, and pattern. Using these resources and the

materials of life, the poet shapes and makes a poem. Successful poetry is never

effusive language. If it is to come alive it must be as cunningly put together and

efficiently organized as a tree. It must be an organism whose every part serves a useful

purpose and cooperates with every other part to preserve and express the life that is

within it.

Read a poem more than once. A good poem will not yield its full meaning on a

single reading. One should make the utmost effort to follow the thought continuously

and to grasp the full implications and suggestions. Because a poem says so much,

several readings may be necessary.

One starting point for understanding a poem at the simplest level, and for

clearing up misunderstanding, is to paraphrase its content or part of its content. To

paraphrase a poem means to restate it in different language, so as to make its prose

sense as plain as possible. The paraphrase may be longer or shorter than the poem,

but it should contain all the ideas in the poem in such a way as to make them clear to a

puzzled reader, and to make the central idea, or theme, of the poem more accessible.

In a paraphrase, figurative language gives way to literal language; similes

replace metaphors and normal work order supplants inverted syntax. But a paraphrase

retains the speakers use of first, second, and third person, and the tenses of verbs.

Though it is neither necessary nor possible to avoid using some of the words found in

the original, a paraphrase should strive for plain, direct diction.

To aid us in the understanding of a poem, we may ask ourselves a number of

questions about it. Two of the most important are Who is the speaker?And Whatis the

occasion? A cardinal error of some readers is to assume that a speaker who uses the

first person pronouns (I, my, mine, me) is always the poet. A less risky course would be

to assume always that the speaker is someone other than the poet. Poems, like short

stories, novels and plays, belong to the world of fiction, an imaginatively conceived

world that at its best is truer than the factually real world that it reflects. When poets

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put themselves or their thoughts into a poem, they present a version of themselves; that

is, they present a person who in many ways is like themselves but who, consciously or

unconsciously, is shaped to fit the needs of the poem. We must be very careful,

therefore, about identifying anything in a poem with the biography of the poet. However,

caution is not prohibition. Sometimes events or ideas in a poem will help us tounderstand some episodes in the poets life. More importantly for us knowledge of the

poets life may help us understand a poem. We may well think of every poem, therefore,

as a being to some degree dramatic that is, the utterance of a fictional character

rather than of the person who wrote the poem.

A third important question that we should ask ourselves upon reading any poem

is What is the central purpose of the poem?The purpose may be to tell a story, to reveal

human character, to impart a vivid impression of scene, to express a mood or an

emotion, or to convey vividly some idea or attitude. Whatever the purpose is, we must

determine it for ourselves and define it mentally as precisely as possible. Only by

relating the various details in the poem to the central purpose or theme can we fully

understand their function and meaning. Only then can we begin to assess the value of

the poem and determine whether it is a good one or poor one.

Guide for Studying Poetry

The following guide will help you to recognize the types of poetry and the

techniques a poet uses to join form and meaning.

Speaker and Tone

1. Who or what is the poems speaker? In what ways are the poets word

choices appropriate to that speaker?

2. What tone does the speaker use throughout the poem?

Sound of Poetry

1. What pattern can you find in the poems rhythm? Does it have a regular

meter?

2. What rhymes can you find in the poem? If the poem contains end rhymes,

what is its rhyme scheme? If the poem not rhyme, is it written in blank verse

orfree verse?

3. Does the poem contain repetition orparallelism?

Imagery and Figurative Language

1. What vivid images does the poem contain?

2. What examples can you find ofpersonification?

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THE AIM WAS SONGRobert Frost

Before man came to blow it right

The wind once blew itself untaught,

And did its loudest day and night

In any rough place where it caught.

Man came to tell it what was wrong:

It hadnt found the place to blow;

It blew too hard the aim was song.

And listen how it ought to go!

He took a little in his mouth,

And held it long enough for north

To be converted into south,

And then by measure blew it forth.

By measure. It was word and note,

The wind the wind had meant to be

A little through the lips and throat.The aim was song the wind could see.

QUESTIONS:

1. Frost invents a myth about the origin of poetry. What implications does it

suggest about the relation of man to nature and of poetry to nature?

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SOUND AND SENSEAlexander Pope

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,

The sound must seem an echo to the sense:

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;

When Ajax strives some rocks vast weight to throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow;

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Hear how Timotheus varied lays surprise,

And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

QUESTIONS:

1. This excerpt is from a long poem (calledAn Essay on Criticism) on the arts of

writing and judging poetry. Which line states the thesis of the passage?

2. There are four classical allusions: Zephyr (5) was god of the west wind; Ajax

(9), a Greek warrior noted for his strength; Camilla (11), a lengendary queen

reputedly so fleet of foot that she could run over a field of grain without

bending the blades or over the sea without wetting her feet; Timotheus (13), a

famous Greek rhapsodic poet. Does the use of these allusions enable Pope

to achieve greater economy?

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THERE IS NO FRIGATE LIKE A BOOKEmily Dickinson

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

Or prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take without oppress of toll.

How frugal is the chariot

That bears the human soul!

QUESTIONS:

1. What is lost ifmiles is substituted for lands (2) orcheap for frugal (7)?

2. How is prancing (4) peculiarly appropriate to poetry as well as to coursers?

Could the poet without loss have compared a book to coursers and poetry to

a frigate?

3. Is this account appropriate to all kinds of poetry or just to certain kinds?

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THE DEMON LOVERAnonymous

O where have you been my long, long love,

This long seven years and mair?

O Im come to seek my former vows

Ye granted me before.

O hold your tongue of your former vows,

For they will breed sad strife;

O hold your tongue of your former vows,

For I am become a wife,

He turned him right and round about,

And the tear blinded his ee:

I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground,

If it had not been for thee.

I might hae had a kings daughter,

Far, far beyond the sea;

I might have had a kings daughter

Had it not been for love o thee.

If ye might have had kings daughter,

Yer sel ye had to blame;

Ye might have taken the kings daughter.

For ye kend that I was nane.

If I was to leave my husband dear,

And my two babes also,

O what have you to take me to,

If with you I should go?

I hae seven ships upon the sea ___

The eighth brought me to land ___

With four and twenty bold mariners,

And music on every hand.

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She has taken up her two little babes,

Kissed them baith cheek and chin:

O fair ye weel, my ain two babes,

For Ill never see you again.

She set her foot upon the ship,

No mariners could she behold;

But the sails were o the taffetie,

And the masts o the beaten gold.

They had not sailed a league, a league,

A league but barely three,

When dismal grew his countenance,

And drumlie grew his ee.

They had not sailed a league, a league,

A league but barely three,

Until she espied his cloven foot,

And she wept right bitterlie.

O hold your tongue of your weeping, says he,

Of your weeping now let me be;

I will show you how the lilies grow

On the banks of Italy.

O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills,

That the sun shines sweetly on?

O yon are the hills of heaven, he said,

Where you will never win.

O whaten mountain is yon, she said,

All so dreary wi frost and snow?

O yon is the mountain of hell, he cried,

Where you and I will go.

He strack the tap-mast wi his hand,

The fore-mast wi his knee

And he brake that gallant ship in twain,

And sank her in the sea.

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QUESTIONS:

1. What takes place between lines 28 and 29.

2. What is the first hint that supernatural forces are at work?

3. What does the cloven foot (line 43) signify? Is the spirit motivated by

malice? By love? Big both?

4. What are the characteristics of a ballad.

5. Vocabulary: drumlie gloomy.

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WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRINGWilliam Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran:

And much it grieved my heart to think

What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hoppd and playd,

Their thoughts I cannot measure, ___

But the least motion which they made

It seemd a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan

To catch the breezy air:

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Natures holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What Man has made of Man?

QUESTIONS:

1. Wordsworth has been called the priest of nature. What evidence of this do

you find in this poem?

2. Is this poem narrative, descriptive, dramatic or lyrical? Give reasons for your

choice.

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THE HUMAN SEASONSJohn Keats

Four seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Springs honeyd cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature.

Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

QUESTIONS:

1. Is this a Shakespearean sonnet or Petrarchan? What is the difference

between the two?

2. Is there any difference between an Elizabetham and a Shakespearean

sonnet?

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CROSSING THE BARAlfred. Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

QUESTIONS:

1. What two sets of figures does Tennyson use for approaching death? What is

the precise moment of each in each set?

2. In troubled weather the wind and waves above the sandbar across a harbors

mouth make a moaning sound. What metaphorical meaning has the moaning

of the bar here (3)? For what kind of death is the speaker wishing? Why does

he want no sadness of farewell (II)?

3. What is that which drew from out the boundless deep? What is the

boundless deep? to what is it opposed in the poem? Why is Pilot (15)

capitalized?

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MY LAST DUCHESSRobert Browning

Ferrara

Thats my last duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolfs hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Willt please you sit and look at her. I said

Fra Pandolf by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The Curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, twas not

Her husbands presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess cheek, perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, her mantle laps

Over my ladys wrist too much, or, Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat. Such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart how shall I say? too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whateer

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

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Sir, twas all one! My favor at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men good! But thanked

Somehow I know not how as if she ranked

My gift of a nine hundred years old name

With anyboyds gift. Whod stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech which I have not to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse

Een then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Wheneer I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Willt please you rise? Well meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The count your masters known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

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Though his fair daughters self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, well go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity,

Which Clause of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

QUESTIONS:

1. Vocabulary: officious (27) munificence (49)

2. Ferrara is in Italy. The time is during the Renaissance, probably the sixteenth

century. To whom is the Duke speaking? What is the occasion? Are the Dukes

remarks about his last Duchess a digression, or do they have some relation to

the business at hand?

3. Characterize the Duke as fully as you can. How does your characterization differ

from the Dukes opinion of himself? What kind of irony is this?

4. Why was the Duke dissatisfied with his last Duchess? What opinion do you get of

the Duchesss personality, and how does it differ from the Dukes opinion?

5. What characteristics of the Italian Renaissance appear in the poem (marriage

customs, social classes, art)? What is the Dukes attitude toward art? Is it

insincere?

6. What happened to the Duchess? Should Browning have told us?

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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 darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

QUESTIONS:

1. Vocabulary: strand (11), girdle (23) darkling (35). Identify the physical locale of

the cliffs of Dover and their relation to the French coasts; identify the Aegean and

Sophocles.

2. As precisely as possible, define the implied scene: What is the speakers

physical location? Whom is he addressing? What is the time of day and the state

of the weather?

3. Discuss the visual and auditory images of the poem and their relation to illusion

and reality.

4. The speaker is lamenting the decline of religious faith in his time. Is he himself abeliever? Does he see any medicine for the worlds maladies?

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GODS GRANDEURGerard Manely Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears mans smudge and shares mans smell; the soil

Is bare now nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs ___

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the theme of this sonnet?

2. The image in line 3-4 possibly refers to olive oil being collected in great vats from

crushed olives, but the image is much disputed. Explain the simile in line 2 and

the symbols in lines 7-8 and 11-12.

3. Explain reck his rod (4), spent (9), bent (13).

4. Using different-colored pencils, encircle and connect examples of alliteration,

assonance, consonance and internal rime. Do these help to carry the meaning?

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PRELUDEST.S. Eliot

I

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways

Six oclock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gustyshower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat

On broken blinds and chimney pots

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

II

The morning comes to consciousness

Of faint stale smells of beer

From the sawdust-trampled street

With all its muddy feet that press

To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades

That time resumes,

One thinks of all the hands

That are raising dingy shades

In a thousand furnished rooms.

III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,

You lay upon your back, and waited;

You dozed, and watched the night revealing

The thousand sordid images

Of which your soul was constituted;

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They flickered against the ceiling.

And when all the world came back

And the light crept up between the shutters

And you heard the sparrows in the gutters

You had such a vision of the street

As the street hardly understands;

Sitting along the beds edge, where

You curled the papers from your hair,

Or clasped the yellow soles of feet.

In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies

That fade behind a city block,

Or trampled by insistent feet

At four and five and six O clock;

And short square fingers stuffing pipes,

And evening newspapers and eyes

Assured of certain certainties,

The conscience of a blackened street,

Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gently

Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;

The worlds revolve like ancient women

Gathering fuel in vacant at lots.

QUESTIONS:

1. Modernist poetry centered around the city. List the images and symbols used to

evoke the atmosphere of a metropolitan city.

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MENTAL CASESWilfred Owen

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?

Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,

Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,

Baring teeth that leer like skulls teeth wicked?

Stroke on stroke of pain, - but what slow panic,

Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?

Ever from their hair and through their hands palms

Misery swelters. Surely we have perished

Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.

Memory fingers in their hair of murders,

Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.

Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,

Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.

Always they must see these things and hear them,

Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,

Carnage incomparable, and human squander

Rucked too thick for these mens extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented

Back into their brains, because on their sense

Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black

Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.

Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,

Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.

Thus their hands are plucking at each other;

Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;

Snatching after us who smote them, brother,

Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.

QUESTIONS:

1. Are wars necessary or can they be dispensed with?

2. Can this be called a PROTEST poem?

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MOTHER TO SONLangston Hughes

Well, son, Ill tel you:

Life for me aint been no crystal stair.

It had tacks in it:

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor-

Bare.

But all the time,

I se been a climbin on,

And turnin corners,

And sometimes goin in the dark

Where there aint been no light.

So, boy, dont you turn back.

Dont you set down on the steps

cause you find its kinder hard.

Dont you fall now-

For Ise still goin, honey,

I see still climbin

And life for me aint been no crystal stair.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the central thought of this poem?

2. What symbolic meaning is attached to crystal stair?

3. List the admirable human qualities which you think the mother possess.

4. Does the mothers counsel have universal application? Explain.

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FERN HILLDylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

The night above the dingle starry,

Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honored among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

Trail with daisies and barely

Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

In the sun that is young once only,

Time let me play and be

Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

And the Sabbath rang slowly

In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

And playing, lovely and watery

And fire green as grass.

And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

Flying with the ricks, and the horses

Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder; it was all

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Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

The sky gathered again

And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

Out of the whinnying green stable

On to the fields of praise.

And honored among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

In the sun born over and over,

I ran my heedless ways,

My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

Before the children green and golden

Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

In the moon that is always rising.

Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like they sea.

QUESTIONS:

1. Comment on Thomas selection and arrangement of words, phrase and images.

2. How do you understand and the Sabbath rang slowly in the pebbles of the holy

streams.

3. Substantiate the claim that this poem is an elegy as also in Dover Beach.

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THE WHIPPINGRobert Hayden

The old woman across the way

is whipping the boy again

and shouting to the neighborhood

her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant-ears

pleads in dusty zinnias,

while she in spite of crippling fat

pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circlingboy till the stick breaks

in her hand. His tears are rainy weather

to wound like memories:

My head gripped in bony vise

of knees, the writhing struggle

to wrench free, the blows, the fear

worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I

no longer knew or loved

well, it is lover now, its is over,

and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against

a tree, exhausted, purged

avenged in part for lifelong hidings

she has had to bear.

QUESTIONS:

1. What similarities connect the old woman, the boy, and the speaker? Can you say

that one of them is the main subject of the poem?

2. Does this poem express, any beauty? What human truth does it embody? Could

you argue against the claim that it is over now, it is over (19)?

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AUBADEPhilip Larkin

I work all day, and get half drunk at night.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.

Till then I see whats really always there:

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,

Making all thought impossible but how

And where and when I shall myself die.

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse

The good not done, the love not given, time

Torn off unused, nor wretchedly because

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feelnot seeing

That this is what we fear-no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,

Nothing to love or link with,

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The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,

A small unfocused blur, a standing chill

That slows each impulse down to indecision.

Most things may never happen: this one will,

And realization of it rages out

In furnace fear when we are caught without

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape;

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,

Have always known, know that we cant escape,

Yet cant accept. One side will have to go.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world beings to rouse.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is an aubade?

2. Is there any irony involved in the choice of title?

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THE THOUGHT FOXTed Hughes

I imagine this midnight moments forest:

Something else is alive

Beside the clocks loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow

A foxs nose touches twig, leaf;

Two eyes serve a movement, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow

Between trees, and warily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,

Brilliantly, concentratedly,

Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

The window is starless still; the clock ticks;

The page is printed.

QUESTIONS:

1. What hints are given in the poem that it is about literary creativity?

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AUNT JENNIFERS TIGERSAdrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifers tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

They do not fear the men beneath the tree;

They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifers fingers fluttering through her wool

Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.

The massive weight of Uncles wedding band

Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifers hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie

Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.

The tigers in the panel that she made

Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

QUESTIONS:

1. List the items in this poem which denote confinement and Freedom.

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GEOGRAPHYZulfiker Ghose

When the jet sprang into the sky,

it was clear why the city

had developed the way it had,

seeing it scaled six inches to the mile.

There seemed an inevitability

about what on ground had looked haphazard,

unplanned and without style

when the jet sprang into the sky.

When the jet reached ten thousand feet,

it was clear why the country

had cities where rivers ran

and why the valleys were populated.

The logic of geography-

that land and water attracted man-

was clearly delineated

when the jet reached ten thousand feet.

When the jet rose six miles high,

it was clear that the earth was round

and that it has more sea than land.

But it was difficult to understand

that the men on the earth found

causes to hate each other, to build

walls across cities and to kill.

From that height, it was not clear why.

QUESTIONS:

1. Each stanza represents a different level of seeing. What is the view of each

stanza?

2. How would you describe the main thought of the poem?

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ONCE UPON A TIMEGabriel Okara

Once upon a time, son,

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes:

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts:but thats gone, son,

Now they shake hands without hearts

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.

Feel at home! Come again:

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be not thrice-

for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses homeface,

officeface, streetface, hostface,

cocktailface, with all their comforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

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I have also learned to say, Goodbye

when I mean Good-riddance:

to say Glad to meet you,

without being glad; and to say its been

nice talking to you, after being bored.

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you. I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to relearn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirrorshows only my teeth like a snakes bare fangs!

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you.

QUESTIONS:

1. Who is talking in this poem?

2. What can you gather about his circumstances?

3. What kind of person do you imagine him to be?

4. What has he learnt to do with his own feelings? How can you tell? Who is the

person addressing?

5. What does he hope to learn from him?

6. What does he mean by wanting to unlearn all these muting things?

7. Why do you think the poet has given it the title, Once Upon a Time?

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OPENING THE CAGEEdwin Morgan

14 variations on 14 words

I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.

John Cage.

I have to say poetry and is that nothing and am I saying it

I am and I have poetry to say and is that nothing saying it

I am nothing and I have poetry to say and that is saying it

I that am saying poetry have nothing and it is I and to say

And I say that I am to have poetry and saying it is nothing

I am poetry and nothing and saying it is to say that I have

To have nothing is poetry and I am saying that and say it

Poetry is saying I have nothing and I am to say that and it

Saying nothing I am poetry and I have to say that and it is

It is and I am and I have poetry saying say that to nothing

It is saying poetry to nothing and I say I have and am that

Poetry is saying I have it and I am nothing and to say that.

And that nothing is poetry I am saying and I have to say it

Saying poetry is nothing and to that I say I am and have it

QUESTION:

1. What is the significance of the title?

2. What does this poem tell about the nature of poetry?

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LITERARY TERMS

ALLITERATION The repetition of sounds, most often consonant sounds, at the

beginning for words.

ALLUSION A reference in a work of literature to a well-known character, place, or

situation from another work of literature , music, or art or from history.

ANALOGY A comparison made between two things to show how one is like the other.

ANECDOTE A brief account of an event, usually intended to entertain, to explain an

idea, and to reveal personality through a persons actions,

ANTAGONIST A person or force that opposes the protagonist, or central character in

a story or drama.

ARGUMENT That kind of writing in which reason in used to influence peoples ideas or

actions.

ASIDE In a play a comment made by a character who is heard by the audience but not

by the other characters on stage. Because other characters are on stage at the time,

the speaker turns to one side, aside.Asides reveal what a character is thinking and

feeling.

ASSONANCE The repetition of vowel sounds, especially in a line of poetry. For

example, the I sound is repeated in this line from Shall I compare Thee to a Summers

Day?

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

ATMOSPHERE The emotional quality, or mood, of a story.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY The story of a persons life written by that person.

BALLAD a short, musical narrative poem. Folk ballads, or popular ballads, were

passed on by word of mouth of generations before beingwritten down. Literary ballads

are written in imitation of folk ballads.

BIOGRAPHY The account of a persons life written by someone other than the subject.Biographies can be short or can be book-length.

BLANK VERSE Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is a meter

made up of five iambic feet to a line of verse, each foot containing one unstressed and

one stressed () syllable. Shakespeare wrote his plays in blank verse.

See also FOOT, METER, RHYTHM.

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DIALECT A variation of language spoken by a particular group, often, within a particular

region. Dialects differ from standard language because they contain different sounds,

forms, and meanings.

DIALOGUE Conversation between characters in a literary work.

DRAMAA play performed before an audience by actors and actresses on a stage. Most

drama before the modern period can be divided into two basic types: tragedy, such as

Shakespeares Julius Caesar, and comedy, such as Cyrano de Bergerac. The two

basic parts of a drama are its script, which includes dialogue and stage directions,

and the staging, which prepares the play to be performed.

See also COMEDY, TRAGEDY

DRAMATIC CONVENTION A device that a playwright uses to present a story on stage

and that the audience accepts as realistic. Shakespeares audience, for example,

accepted the convention of boys playing the roles of women.

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE A form of dramatic poetry that presents only one speaker,

who address a silent listener. MY LAST DUCHESS is a dramatic monologue.

See also DRAMATIC POETRY

DRAMATIC POETRY Poetry in which one or more characters speak to other

characters, themselves, or the reader.

See also DRAMATIC

MONOLOGUE, SPEAKER

EPICA long narrative poem that traces the adventures of a hero. Epics intertwine

myths, legends, and history, reflecting the values of the societies in which they originate.

In epics gods and goddesses often intervene in the affairs of humans. Homers lliadand

Odyssey, two of the most famous epics, were first recited or sung before they were

collected and written down.

See also EPIC HERO

EPIC HEROA legendary, larger-than-life figure whose adventures form the core of the

epic poem. The hero embodies the goals and virtues of an entire nation or culture. Forexample, King Arthur in Malorys Morte d Arthurifunctions as an epic hero because he

personifies his societys ideals of courage, nobility, and justice.

ESSAYA short piece of nonfiction writing on any topic. The purpose of the essay is to

communicate an idea or opinion. The formal essay is serious and impersonal. The

informal essay entertains while it informs; it usually takes a light approach to its subject

and uses a conversational style. The personality of the author often shines through the

informal.

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FRAME STORY A plot structure that includes the telling of a story within a story. The

frame is the outer story, which usually precedes and follows the inner and more

important story.

FREE VERSE Poetry that has no fixed patter of meter, rhyme, line length, or stanza

arrangement.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER A specific meter in a line of poetry comprised of five feet

(pentameter) most of which are iambs. The iamb consists of one Unstressed syllable

followed by a stressed syllable. This line from Puritan Sonnet exemplifies iambic

pentameter:

I love/those skies/thin blue/or snow/y gray

See also BLANK VERSE,

FOOT, METER

IMAGE A reference to something that can be experienced through one of the five

senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch. Note the images of sight and touch in

these lines.

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear.

That is delicate as the skin over a girls wrist.

See also FIGURATIVE

LANGUAGE, IMAGERY

IMAGERY The collection of sense images that helps the reader of a literary work to

visualize scenes, hear sounds, feel textures, smell aromas, and taste foods that are

described in the work.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, IMAGE

IRONYA contrast between reality and what seems to be real. Situational Irony exists

when the actual outcome of a situation is the opposite of some ones expectations.

Verbal irony exists when a person says one thing and means another.

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience has important information that characters in

a literary work do not have. In Julus Caesar, for example, when Caesars wife warns

him not to go to the Senate, the audience knows of the murder plot, although those two

characters do not.

LITERAL LANGUAGE Language that means nothing more than exactly what it says.

See FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

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LOCAL COLOR A technique of writing that uses specific details to evoke a particular

region. Local color re-creates the language, customs, geography, and habits of the

area.

LYRIC POETRY Poetry that expresses a speakers personal thoughts and feelings.

Lyric poems are usually short and musical.

METAPHOR A type of figurative language used to compare or equate seemingly ulike

things. In these lines from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, for instance, life is

equated with three different things

Lifes but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

See also FIGURATIVE

LANGUAGE, SIMILE

METER A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a line of

poetry a predictable rhythm.

See also FOOT

RHYTHM

MONOLOGUE A long speech by a character in a play.See also SOLILOQUY

MOODThe emotional quality or atmosphere of a story.

See also ATMOSPHERE

SETTING

MORALA practical lesson about right and wrong conduct, often in an instructive story

such as a fable or parable.

NARRATION The kind of writing or speech that tells a story. Narration is used in novels,

short stories, and narrative poetry. Narration can also be an important element in

biographies and essays.

See also DESCRIPTION,

EXPOSITION, PERSUASION

NARRATIVE POETRYVerse that tells a story. The narrative poem is generally more

selective and concentrated than the prose story.

See also BALLAD

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NARRATOR The person who tells a story in a work of fiction. In some cases the

narrator is a character in the story.

See also POINT OF VIEW

NONFICTION Factual prose writing. Nonfiction deals with real people and experiences.

Among the categories of nonfiction are biographies, autobiog, raphies, and essays.

See also AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY, ESSAY,

FICTION

NOVEL An extended fictional prose narrative. The novel has more scope than a short

story in its presentation of plot, character, setting, and theme. Because novels are not

subject to any limits in their presentation of these elements, they encompass a wide

range of narratives.

See also SHORT STORY,FICTION

ONOMATOPOEIA The use of a word or phrase that actually limitates or suggests the

sound of what it describes. For example, the following lines imitate the sound of a

windstorm:

The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare

A night of gnashing and enormous moan

See also SENSORY

LANGUAGE

PARABLE A simple story from which a lesson should be drawn.

See also FABLE, MORAL

PARALLELISM The use of a series of words, phrases, or sentences that have similar

grammatical form, Parallelism emphasizes the items that are arranged in the similar

structures, Notice the parallel form, for example, of the clauses in this sentence. It

came from the past and it looked to the past. The subject of each clause is it, followed

by a verb and prepositional phrase ending in the word past, Parallelism adds to the

sense of unity in a place of writing.

See also REPETITION

PERSONIFICATION A figure of speech in which an animal, object, or idea is given

human form or characteristics.

See also FIGURATIVE

LANGUAGE

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PERSUASION The type of writing that aims to make the audience accept an opinion.

See also ARGUMENT, DESCRIPTION,

EXPOSITION, NARRATION

PLOT The sequence of events in a story, novel, or play, each event causing or leadingto the next. The plot begins with exposition, which introduces the storys characters,

setting, and situation. The plot catches the readers attention with the narrative hook.

The rising action adds complications to the storys conflicts, or problems, leading to the

climax, or point of highest emotional pitch. The falling action is the logical result of the

climax, and the resolution presents the final outcome.

POETRY A concentrated kind of writing in which imagery, figurative language, rhythm,

and often rhyme combine to create a special emotional effect. Poetry is usually

arranged in lines and groups of lines known as stanzas. Types of poetry include

narrative poetry, which tells a story, lyric poetry, which expresses emotion, and dramatic

poetry, which presents a character.

POINT OF VIEW The relationship of the narrator, or storyteller, to the story. In a story

with first person point of view, the story is told by one of the characters, referred to as

I. The reader generally sees everything through that characters eyes. Quality, for

instance, has a first person narrator.

In a story with a limited third-person point of view, the narrator reveals the

thoughts of only one character but refers to that character as he or she.

In a story with an omniscient point of view, the narrator reveals the thoughts of

several characters.

See also NARRATOR, TONE

PROTAGONIST The central character in a story or drama. Generally the audience is

meant to sympathize with the protagonist.

See ANTAGONIST, CONFLICT

PUN A play on words, or a joke based on words with several meanings or words that

sound alike but have different meanings. Shakespeare uses puns frequently.

REPETITION The recurrence of sounds, words, phrases, lines, or stanzas in a speech

or piece of writing. Repetition increases the feeling of unity in a work. When a line or

stanza is repeated in a poem, it is called a refrain.

See also PARALLELISM

RESOLUTION The part of a plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or

suggesting the outcome of the conflict.

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RHYME The repetition of sounds in words that appear close to each other in a poem.

End rhymes occur at the ends of lines.

RHYME SCHEME The pattern of rhymes formed by the end rhyme in a poem. Rhyme

scheme is designated by the assignment of a different letter of the alphabet to each new

rhyme. For instance, the rhyme scheme in the first part of Puritan Sonnet is abba:

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones a

Theres something in this richness that I hate b

I love the look, austere, immaculate b

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones a

See also SONNET

RHYTHM The pattern of beats created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed

syllables, particularly in poetry. Rhythm gives poetry a musical quality that helps convey

its meaning. Rhythm can be regular, with a predictable pattern or meter, or irregular.

RISING ACTION The part of a plot that adds complications to the plots problems and

increases reader interest.

ROMANCE A story concerning a knightly hero. His exciting adventures, and pursuit of

love.

SATIRE A form of writing that ridicules abuses for the sake of remedying them.

SCANSION The analysis of the rhythm of a line of verse. To scan a line of poetry

means to note stressed and unstressed syllables and to divide the line into its feet, or

rhythmical units.

See also FOOT, RHYTHM

SETTING The time and place in which the events of a story, novel, or play occur. The

setting often helps create an atmosphere, or mood.

See also ATMOSPHERE, MOOD

SHORT STORY A brief fictional narrative in prose. Elements of the short story includeplot, character, setting, point of view, theme, and sometimes symbol and irony.

SIMILE A figure of speech usinglike oras to compare seemingly unlike things.

See also FIGURATIVE

LANGUAE, METAPHOR

SOLILOQUY A long speech spoken by a character who is alone on stage. This speech

usually reveals the private thoughts and emotions of the character.

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SONNET A lyric poem of fourteen lines, almost always written in iambic pentameter and

usually following strict pattern of stanza divisions and rhymes.

The Shakespearean, orEnglish, sonnet consists of three quartrains, or four-

fine stanzas, followed by a couplet, or pair of rhyming fines. The rhyme scheme is

usually abab, cdcd, erer, gg. The rhyme couplet often presents a conclusion to the

issues or questions presented in the three quatrains. Shall Compare Thee to a

Summers Day? is a Shakespearean sonnet.

In the Petrarchan, orItalian, sonnet fourteen lines are divided into two stanzas.

The first eight lines, called an octave, usually present a situation, idea, or question. The

remaining six lines, or sestet, provide a resolution, comment, or answer. The rhyme

scheme for the octave is usually abbaabba; for the sestet the rhyme scheme is usually

cdecde. Puritan Sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet.

See also COUPLET, RHYMESCHEME, STANZA

SPEAKER The voice of a poem sometimes that of the poet, sometimes that of a

fictional person or even a thing. The speakers words communicate a particulartone, or

attitude toward the subject of the poem.

STAGE DIRECTIONS Instructions written by the dramatist to describe the appearance

and action of characters, as well as sets, costumes, and lighting.

STANZA A group of lines forming a unit in a poem.

STYLE The authors choice and arrangement of words. In a literary work. Style can

reveal an authors purpose in writing and attitude toward his or her subject and

audience.

SYMBOL Any object, person, place, or experience that means more than what it is.

THEMEThe main idea of a story, poem, novel, or play, usually expressed as a general

statement. Some works have a state theme; which is expressed directly and explicitly.

More frequently works have an implied theme, which is revealed gradually through such

other elements as plot, character, setting, point of view, symbol, and irony. For example,

in Quality the implied theme is that devotion to an ideal can make a small life heroic.

TONE The attitude taken by the author or speaker toward the subject of a work. The

tone conveys an emotion or several emotions. For example, in John Galsworthys

Quality the tone is somber, almost.

See also NARRATOR,

POINT OF VIEW, SPEAKER

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TRAGEDY A play in which a main character suffers a downfall. That character often is a

person of dignified or heroic stature. The downfall may result from outside forces or

from a weakness within the character, which is known as a tragic flaw.

WORD CHOICE The selection of words in a piece of literature to convey meaning,

suggest attitude, and create images.

See also CONNOTATION

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ENG 201 (Part-2) Poetry