Edward’s Nerd Audios

How is "How do I love thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning thematically and structurally, different from the Shakespeare sonnets we studied?

English Poetry Lecture 18: Victorian Poetry: Tennyson & Hardy Matthew Arnold's says poetry should fulfill the condition of 'criticism of life'. To what extent does this apply to the two poems, "The Eagle" and 'The Oxen'? Discuss briefly.

What's your favourite line of verse in Arabic? Why is it your favourite line? Do you think Poetry has the ability to change us?

■Does the reading of literary texts change according to when, where, and who? Do you have an example to give?

• How credible is the traveller?
• Translate the poem into your native language.
• Write a parody sonnet.

Just a review

The Daffodils by Wordsworth

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Romantic Features

1.A Return to Nature

2.Imagination (secondary over primary)

3.Individuality

4.Simplicity of Language

5.Anti-mainstream/anti-Rules of Decorum (rejection of artistic conventions)

6.Form is content

7.Memory

8.Feelings and emotions as opposed to reason

●

Q’s on Wordsworth’s ‘The Daffodils’

■1. “The Daffodils” is said to contain most, if not all, features of Romantic literature. Discuss.

■2. Where and why does the poem shift from one tense to another?

■3. How does memory play a role in the poem?

■4. ‘A poet could not but be gay’ is said to be loaded with tension. Where and why?

■5. In real life, Dorothy, Wordsworth’s sister, was with him. What is she erased from the poem?

■ 6. “A trivial subject matter, as Ann Seward thought a daffodil to be, does not deserve the ecstatic diction of vacancy, pensive, and bliss.” Discuss.

■

Upon Westminster Bridge by Wordsworth

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

■1. Romantic literature is said to be a Nature literature. How can you explain Wordsworth’s fascination with the city of London in this poem?

■2. Comment on the way Wordsworth positions himself in the poem’s time and place.

■3. Comment on the form of the poem. **

English Poetry Lecture 13: English Poetry: Romantic Poetry: William Blake

Then READ the following quotes by Blake AND then Google Quotes by Blake and post a SHORT quote (not mentioned below) in the comments section below.

What is another poem you like by Blake? Why?

Blake in Quotes

1. Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

2. Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

3. Both read the Bible day and night,

But thou read black where I read white.

4. I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.

5. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

6. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that

7. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

8. What is now proved was once only imagined.

9. Poetry fettered fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.

10. To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

11. When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do. 12. Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

13. If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

14.Without contraries [there] is no progression.

15. I care not whether a man is good or evil;

all that I care Is whether he is a wise man or a fool.

Go! put off holiness,

And put on intellect.

The Sick Rose

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

William Blake

William Blake

Nurse's Song

From Songs of Innocence

When voices of children are heard on the green,

And laughing is heard on the hill,

My heart is at rest within my breast,

And everything else is still.

'Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise;

Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,

Till the morning appears in the skies.'

'No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,

And we cannot go to sleep;

Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,

And the hills are all covered with sheep.'

'Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,

And then go home to bed.'

The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,

And all the hills echoed.

The Nurse’s song

I. Nurse's SongWhen the voices of children are heard on the green,

And whisperings are in the dale,

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise;

Your spring and your day are wasted in play,

And your winter and night in disguise.

English Poetry Lecture 12:

English Poetry: Neoclassical/Augustan Poetry Questions!

1. How does Milton's poem reflect the rules of decorum in the Neoclassical age?

2. Why does Pope think there is no room for originality and innovation?

3. Do you prefer classical literature/poetry or modern/experimental literature? Why?

The tasks for this lecture are:

Can you write a concrete poem? See comments for examples written by previous students.

Metaphysical poetry has many, characteristics. Choose TWO features, comment on them briefly, AND give an example, an example I did not mention in the class.

Google Concrete poetry, and post a poem you like.

Easter Wings

BY GEORGE HERBERT

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,

Decaying more and more,

Till he became

Most poore:

With thee

O let me rise

As larks, harmoniously,

And sing this day thy victories:

Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne

And still with sicknesses and shame.

Thou didst so punish sinne,

That I became

Most thinne.

With thee

Let me combine,

And feel thy victorie:

For, if I imp my wing on thine,

Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Write a short essay on the differences between Donne's "Death be not proud" and Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee". Use textual evidence. Comment critically on Donne's representation of women in his poetry.