Edward’s Nerd Audios

Task: Look up poetry written by John Donne, choose a couple of lines or a short extract, post it here and tell us why you think the poetry is different/interesting.

English Poetry Lecture 8: John Donne I "The Bait"

•Using a short essay format, compare briefly between Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Beloved” and John Donne’s “The Bait” in terms of:

•1) Form and structure

•2) Representation of women

•3) Language

The Bait

BY JOHN DONNE

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,

With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run

Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;

And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,

Will amorously to thee swim,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,

By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,

And if myself have leave to see,

I need not their light having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poor fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;

Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,

Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait:

That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,

Alas, is wiser far than I.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow Rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

Questions

1. Is the poem convincing? Do you think the addressed woman accepted Marlowe’s advances?

2. From a feminist viewpoint, what do you think of Marlowe’s ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’?

3. How does the poem, as a work of fiction, create a particular image of women in our minds?

4. What textual evidence in the text is there to prove the poet/speaker himself is not confident about his argument.

5. Read Raleigh's reply to Marlowe and write your own reply in poetry.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow Rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

Can you write a parody on the tongue of a woman replying to Shakespeare's sonnet 130?

Questions to think about.

•1. How can this sonnet be read as a parody of courtly love poetry of the time? Could the poem be a self-parody? What does that tell about Shakespeare?

•2. Why would a woman feel uncomfortable about the way this poem portrays the mistress?

•3. Where is the woman in the poem? Is that enough?

•4. Explain the turn the sonnet takes in the final couplet. How do these lines invite readers to reassess the first twelve lines?

Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Correction, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets.

The Powerpoint file is on Moodle.

Again, watching the video and taking your notes are the most important things to do.

Tasks:

Google Shakespeare's sonnet and post a sonnet you like and tell me which line you like most.

Translate the sonnet into your mother tongue.

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

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

Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind

BY SIR THOMAS WYATT

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

English Poetry Lecture 4: Sir Tomas Wyatt | 'Whoso List to Hunt'

Briefly, comment on 3 of the following. Choose ones different from the ones your friends choose. Always use textual evidence from the text.

–1. Does the poem reflect its age? How?

–2. And how does the poem create a particular image of women? Is it positive?

–3. What type of sonnet is this? What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?

–4. Does the poet really give up on the woman he likes? or is it a trick to win her heart?

–5. Whose voice is dominating? The man's or the woman's? Explain.

–6. Comment on the form (structure) of the poem and its relation to its content (theme)

–7. Writing as/like a woman: write a parody reply to Wyatt:

8. How similar or different is this love poem from the classical love poems in Arabic (or in your culture)?

9- Compare the use of the image of the deer in both English and Arabic poetry (or from your culture) and

they are often related to women. Give examples.

A) What other poem do you like by Tamim? Post a few lines from it.

B) Determine whether the following statements are True or False.

Poetry helps us make sense out of the chaos around us.

'In Jerusalem' does not follow one particular structure or form.

In the rhyme of a poem, we pay attention to the letters, not the sounds.

'Eye', 'Cry', and 'Sigh' do not rhyme because they end with different letters The ending sound or sounds of a line of verse is called rhyme.

The ending sounds of the whole poem is called a rhyme scheme.

Arabic follows the same rhyme scheme technique as English.

Reading a poem aloud, or reciting it, is key to understanding the poem's tone.

In literature, authors or poets use of binary opposition to explore differences between people, times, states of mind etc.

Tamim Al-Barghouti's 'In Jerusalem' is a poem that only laments the past.

While the first stanza presents some kind of dialogue (it contains more than one voice), the second one is monologic (it is dominated by one voice or world view.).

12 Definitions of Poetry

1.Poetry is like painting (Horace (65-8BC) a Roman poet)

2.Poetry is a speaking picture, with this end to teach and delight. (Sir Philip Sidney (1554- 1584) an English poet)

3.The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings … recollected in tranquility. (William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) a Romantic poet)

4.Prose is words in their best order; poetry is the best words in their best order. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) an English Romantic poet)

5.Poetry makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar. (Percy Shelley (1792- 1822) a Romantic poet)

6.The rhythmical creation of beauty (American poet & writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849))

7.The criticism of life (Matthew Arnold (1822- 1888) English poet and critic)

8.If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry (American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886))

9.Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat (Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet)

10.Poetry is as exact a science as geometry (Gustav Flaubert (1821- 1997) French novelist)

11.The poet's first and most important tool is syntax; the challenge is to make it do what you want it to invisibly. (Susan Wicks (1947- ) English poet)

12.Rhythm is the unconscious engine of poetry. (Anne Stevenson (1933- ) English poet)

Advanced English Poetry Refaat Alareer English Department Islamic University, Gaza, Palestine الشعر الإنجليزي رفعت العرعير الجامعة الإسلامية غزة قسم اللغة الإنجليزية فلسطين

• 1) Tell me about a situation in which you used or heard a line of verse and felt proud or special
• 2) What is your favourite Arabic and English line of verse?
• 3) Read Ali Abunimah's poem and Answer the questions

Notes on Ali Abunimah’s ‘Regrets on the Way to an Airport

–The poem is very short. What is the poem about? How does it achieve what it wants to achieve?

–It consists of only 5 long lines of verse (Why?). Each line consists of 14 syllable

–The poem has the same rhyme scheme with the sound /ai/ AAAAA. Why?

–Abunimah uses ‘an airport’ not the more usual usage ‘the airport’. Why?

–The poet uses 7 words that indicate negative. Why?

–The poet employs beautiful and significant figures of speech such as ” filled my suitcase with the remnants of the sky”, ” the naked onion”, and “Nor clothed the new-born desert”. What does each metaphor indicate?

––The poem starts with ‘I’ making the sound /ai/ and ends with the same sound /ai/. Why?

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