amimetobios

A first class on Wordsworth, which is really a class on ballads, from "The Twa Corbies" and "Lord Randall" to Beddoes's "Ghost's Moonshine" (as it is called) from Death's Jest Book.  The idea of the anonymous eerie third person otherness of the ballad, a spooky point of view on how we all become part of the spooky point go view.  Scott's "Proud Masie."  That balladic spookiness combined with the first person expressiveness of the lyric in the anonymous (in 1798) Lyrical Ballads. Payoff = a reading of "A Slumber did my spirit seal."

A first class on Wordsworth, which is really a class on ballads, from "The Twa Corbies" and "Lord Randall" to Beddoes's "Ghost's Moonshine" (as it is called) from Death's Jest Book.  The idea of the anonymous eerie third person otherness of the ballad, a spooky point of view on how we all become part of the spooky point go view.  Scott's "Proud Masie."  That balladic spookiness combined with the first person expressiveness of the lyric in the anonymous (in 1798) Lyrical Ballads. Payoff = a reading of "A Slumber did my spirit seal."

General comment about paper writing, because we were handing back papers. What I regard as very basic techniques for writing sentences that will almost automatically lead to clearer writing.  Then on to one more Blake poem: the "Chimney Sweeper" Song of Innocence, with some notice of technique similar to what I had urged at the opening of the class.  Next up: Wordsworth!

General comment about paper writing, because we were handing back papers. What I regard as very basic techniques for writing sentences that will almost automatically lead to clearer writing.  Then on to one more Blake poem: the "Chimney Sweeper" Song of Innocence, with some notice of technique similar to what I had urged at the opening of the class.  Next up: Wordsworth!

A bit more about Pope, and the amazing cleverness of Rape of the Lock.  Then on to Blake, the meaning of calling something a "Song of Innocence," some pairings between the songs of innocence and of experience, and a line by line reading of one Song of Innocence: "The Little Black Boy."  The way the poem criticizes the normativity of whiteness that the little boy has almost been induced to buy into.

A bit more about Pope, and the amazing cleverness of Rape of the Lock.  Then on to Blake, the meaning of calling something a "Song of Innocence," some pairings between the songs of innocence and of experience, and a line by line reading of one Song of Innocence: "The Little Black Boy."  The way the poem criticizes the normativity of whiteness that the little boy has almost been induced to buy into.

Since apparently most people didn't get a chance to read the poem, this became more about the way heroic couplets work, as opposed to Miltonic and Shakespearean blank verse. Basic idea: the severe constraints of the couplet require extreme push back from the poet in terms of balance, variation, surprise.  We talk about rhyming and look in some detail at one four line sequence from the start: 

Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel

A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?

Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,

Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?

Since apparently most people didn't get a chance to read the poem, this became more about the way heroic couplets work, as opposed to Miltonic and Shakespearean blank verse. Basic idea: the severe constraints of the couplet require extreme push back from the poet in terms of balance, variation, surprise.  We talk about rhyming and look in some detail at one four line sequence from the start: 

Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel

A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?

Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd,

Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?

Abandoning Paradise Lost today, with some more consideration of our love for the unreal -- fictional characters in comedy and tragedy, and how the very fact that they're fictional contributes to their effect.  We don't need to worry about what happens after "happily ever after" ("that is called Fiction" --Oscar Wilde), we can feel sadder about their losses, which are more total.  Adam's commitment to marriage.  The fall in PL is not the fall into sex, because they already have sex, but the fall into marriage, into the limits of love and sex.  That's what's tragic.  Partly that it doesn't end with the fall (into sex, into death), but keeps going on, into the real unreality of our lives.  Eve's greatness after the fall.  Adam's running to meet her.  Their expulsion.

Abandoning Paradise Lost today, with some more consideration of our love for the unreal -- fictional characters in comedy and tragedy, and how the very fact that they're fictional contributes to their effect.  We don't need to worry about what happens after "happily ever after" ("that is called Fiction" --Oscar Wilde), we can feel sadder about their losses, which are more total.  Adam's commitment to marriage.  The fall in PL is not the fall into sex, because they already have sex, but the fall into marriage, into the limits of love and sex.  That's what's tragic.  Partly that it doesn't end with the fall (into sex, into death), but keeps going on, into the real unreality of our lives.  Eve's greatness after the fall.  Adam's running to meet her.  Their expulsion.