amimetobios

A bit about forms and what they're metaphors for, and then mainly Stevens's "Emperor of Ice Cream," with other Stevens ("The Snow Man," "Auroras of Autumn") mentioned briefly.

Discussion of Ruskin's pathetic fallacy; the metaphor of the villanelle in Rowan Ricardo Phillips; some villanelles, by AE Stallings, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop; Stevens's "Emperor of Ice Cream."

A quiz (not recorded) based on the set of poems the students could write about, and some discussion of the answers.  Then the conclusion of Shelley's "Mont Blanc," with some discussion of the pathetic fallacy, to be continued.

Some reminders about metaphor, and then more about the contest between mind and mountain in P.B. Shelley's "Mont Blanc."  So far the mountain is like the Astros, leading the mind 3 games to 2, more or less.  (This comparison is not going to have staying power, but there you go.)

Assignments for a paper on metaphor.  Salty discussion of metaphors, of plagiarism, of past and future assassinations.  Then (most of the class) a beginning of a discussion of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mont Blanc" and the contest to see what is metaphor and what is reality.

Metaphor: Ezra Pound (and Wordsworth). Some more consideration of sonnets and their relation to metaphor and simile: Alice Oswald, Elizabeth Bishop.  Waley's translation of Tao Yuan-Ming and its similarity to Shakespeare's sonnet 73.   

Sonnets and metaphor: Wyatt and Surrey's translations of Petrarch, and then Some Shakespeare (with remarks about Starbuck)

Some more on Pope and how the sound seems to be an echo to the sense; another line of Milton's -- "Awake, arise, or be forever fallen" -- and how it divides; Wyatt's "They Fle From Me."

More on iambic pentameter.  Examples from Milton and Pope.  A bit on sonnets.  Why poetry tends to flirt with prime numbers -- five feet per line, seven pairs of rhymes in sonnets, etc.  Examples from Shakespeare.

More on the theology of Paradise Lost; I keep wanting to get back to the formal surface but we talked a lot about content and context.  Also: The thirteen men effect!