unit 6: lyric poetry 2

MEETING 1: john donne, “the flea”, “song”

Last semester we developed a tripartite system for approaching a poem for the first time: Look at the (1) Speaker and conflict, (2) Shifts and movements, and (3) Devices and interpretations. This is a good plan for organizing your preparation for a poetry analysis.

This unit we’re going to look at poems that might seem a bit harder than the ones we studied in the fall—these are poems with more challenging conceits, with archaic diction and syntax, with more rigid and formal structures and schemes.

So, what are some strategies for dealing with a more difficult poem?

(1) Train your brain to notice repetitions: sound patterns, rhythms, images, rhymes, or ideas. How do these repetitions affect the reader’s impressions of the speaker and the poem’s ideas? Also, take note of when the speaker breaks repetitions; often, these occur at places where the poet packs away something important.

(2) Train your brain to sense tonal shifts, and draw a line to indicate that shift. We covered this last semester, but it cannot be overstated how important it is to notice movements in a poem.

(3) Separate the poem into thoughts, which will be arranged around full stops. Mark where all of the thoughts break and see if you can paraphrase each thought as simply as you can.

(4) Where you see a series of pronouns with unclear referents, draw an arrow to the antecedent to make more clear the subjects and objects of the poem.

(5) Don’t be afraid of thy’s, thou’s, and thine’s. It’s nothing more than the informal second person pronoun. You’re a Crusader; don’t cower.

Let’s practice these with two John Donne poems: “The Flea” and “Song: Seetest love, I do not go”.

meeting 2: 17th-C sonnets

How does a sonnet tend to work structurally? Why do poets use rhyme, rhythm, and metrical patterns? How do those formal features of poetry underscore the thematic elements of poetry?

Donne, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”: Who is the speaker, and what is his conflict? Are you able to detect the shifts and movements within the poem? What are the poem’s central figures, and how do they contribute to theme?

Donne, “Death, be not proud”: How does the final irony at the end of the poem add meaning? Are you able to find the individual thoughts from the stanzaic pattern? Which figurative and/or imagistic elements did you find most relevant to an interpretation of the poem?

Shakespeare, “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”

Shakespeare, “Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore”

me eting 3: a quiz

interlude: research day

Before turning to Wallace Stevens in our next class, I want pause for a day to work on the research portion of your final essay. We’ll begin by looking at my sketch of an Othello essay and work to identify possible areas of further inquiry that will supplement my thinking.

In the second half of class, you’ll have the chance to work through the same process in relation to your own project.

meeting 4: wallace stevens

“Of Modern Poetry”: This poem is an example of a poem within the genre of ars poetica poems, poems on the art of poetry. Broadly speaking, what are speaker’s thoughts about modern poetry?

“Of Mere Being”

“The Emperor of Ice Cream”: Read the poem yourself. As you read, resist the urge to try to “figure out what the poem means”; these Modernist poems can be enigmatic, but it’s not a puzzle to be decoded. Rather, focus on how the poem stages an experience of a moment in time: what does the speaker want?

Austin Allen, “"Wallace Stevens, 'The Emperor of Ice-Cream': The chilly heart of a whimsical poem"