english final
"The Flea" - John Donne (1633) 1) Defamiliarization What is sex? Presents it to us in this strange way to make us think about it differently 2) Metaphysical Conceit sex is like mixing fluids in the belly of a flea 3) religious tones Flea bite is like marriage - you don't want to dishonor that do you? Tries to use her innocence to seduce her Once she kills the flea and nothing happens, he tries to say that just as you didn't lose your life when the flea died, you won't experience much loss of honor if you surrender your virginity 4) rhyme He's forcing it at one point "Spare" and "are" don't actually rhyme but close enough! In the lines about marriage; so this reflects how he's trying so hard to connect the flea's bite to a holy matrimony 5) tone Goes from aloof and reasonable to passionate and excited Mainly at the religious part Tries different angles to convince her, argumentation 6) estrangement how are we like insects? 7) puns and innuendos Trying to reflect his wit S's looked like f's in this time, so saying "sucked me" is like saying "f*cked me" 8) word choice Uses sexual words in a non-sexual way, which hints at his sexual repression
Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met, And cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; 'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
"Holy Sonnet 14" - John Donne 1) metaphysical conceit the idea of the speaker as a city barricaded against God's advances 2) Rhyme Scheme Matches the petrarchan sonnet form But it changes in the last tercet, bringing attention to it "I" and "enemy" is a partial rhyme while all the others aren't Speaker is distancing these two concepts 3) Can feel the speaker's confusion because he can't say exactly what he wants Speaker is frantically exploring his relationship with God 4) defamiliarization of desire and identity When are you most yourself? When you act on your deep impulses or when you tamper down your desires? Makes us think about desire in new terms How it relates to our identity 5) metaphor Comparing himself to a pot that needs to be redeemed, broken, blowed, burned and made new Religiously of course 6) Writing about religion in a medium meant for love Idealization of the beloved A desire for contact that is never provided The ups and downs of romance Blaming God/Feeling regret for sin 7) erotic word choice Ravish, betrothed Of course Donne is not erotically attracted to God The contrast between the language of theology and desire 8) paradox I will only be happy when i no longer seek happiness I will only be free from sin when fully controlled by God I will be weak until i'm destroyed and my desires are crushed
The apparition of these faces in the crowd, Petals on a wet, black bough
"In a Station of the Metro" - Ezra Pound (1913) 1) Imagism Emphasizes direct expression (like common speech) No excess verbiage 2) written like a haiku Japan is famous for its beautiful flowering trees, pound thinking about trees 3) Tone is Eerie and melancholy Decay and loss No more blooming, rain has knocked petals off and stuck them to the bough Apparition - ghostly image of someone 4) Juxtaposition Dirtiness of a metro to the beauty of petals Pound is not making an argument or producing a figure of speech that compares faces to petals He is contrasting images that make each one clearer 5) Invites us to look at things differently The juxtaposition makes us see comparisons and contrasts among things we might not have before 6) Comparison of faces to petals - not a figure of speech but still tells us something about the way he thinks Both experience change The faces on the dark train remind him of petals on a dark branch 7) the title of the poem is the first line and how short is it This is unusual; makes us think about poetry differently similarly to how the whole poem forces us to think differently 8) imagery You feel like you're there because of his verbiage
According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing his field the whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling near the edge of the sea concerned with itself sweating in the sun that melted the wings' wax unsignificantly off the coast there was a splash quite unnoticed this was Icarus drowning
"Landscape With the Fall of Icarus" - William Carlos Williams (1960) 1) Ekphrasis of the painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" A poetic response to a visual art about the speaker's encounter with the piece 2) similar to Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts Both writing about the same painting in terms of human suffering and how people are indifferent to it 3) irony death in the midst of life "Awake tingling" Springtime is about new awakenings 4) selfishness and individualism among mankind "The edge of the sea concerned with itself" Tragedy to one doesn't matter to another Indifference towards suffering 5) Language: Imagism Matter-of-fact, clear and precise language to emphasize direct expression of the tragedy absence of any punctuation Reflects this indifference 6) Enjambed lines It's easy to just keep talking Reflects the idea that you can ignore the pain of those around you 7) imagery Paints the scene for you Sound and visuals 8) organization The considerably short length of each stanza creates a feeling of unimportance
Forget pearls, lace-edged kerchiefs, roomy pleats— this is my most matronly adornment: stitches purling up the middle of me to shut my seam, the one that jagged gaped upon my fecund, unspeakable dark, my indecorum needled together with torquemadan efficiency. But O! the dream of the dropped stitch! the loophole through which that unruly within might thread, catch with a small snag, pull the fray, unknit the knots unnoticed, and undoily me. Don't lock up the parlor yet; such pleasure in unraveling, I may take up the sharps and darn myself to ladylike again.
"Ode on My Episiotomy" - Kimberly Johnson 1971 1) Celebration of femininity childbirth becomes scary, dangerous and violent When we think of this procedure, we think of the violence and physical demand associated with it She ties this together with her vagina; evokes the power of femininity 2) Language of knitting Normalizes the procedure "Shut my seam" 3) Structural irony The ode treats elevated matter, but this ode is about the extremity of childbirth in its medical immediacy A particularly evocative and unsettling procedure 4) Verbal irony An episiotomy scar is not matronly in the same way that pearls are 5) Situational irony The thing that makes a mother matronly (giving birth) is treated as if it is too improper to be associated with a mother 6) language and word choice emphasize the contrast between the idealized matronly qualities and the realistic ones "Jagged," "unspeakable," unruly" "Pleasure," "ladylike," "undoily" 7) the Dionysian impulse Negotiations with the chaotic, the ecstatic, and the destructive The pleasure of destruction 8) tone Kind of dark - she finally feels truly matronly and then has to return to the old expectations and definitions of it "Darn myself to ladylike again"
It was on that day when the sun's ray was darkened in pity for its Maker, that I was captured, and did not defend myself, because your lovely eyes had bound me, Lady. It did not seem to me to be a time to guard myself against Love's blows: so I went on confident, unsuspecting; from that, my troubles started, amongst the public sorrows. Love discovered me all weaponless, and opened the way to the heart through the eyes, which are made the passageways and doors of tears: so that it seems to me it does him little honour to wound me with his arrow, in that state, he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed.
"Rime 3" - Francesco Petrarch 1) Religious Aspect Being shot by love on Good Friday of all days is unfair Supposed to be mourning the death of Jesus but now is focused on love 2) Post-Medieval Tradition "Weaponless" distance between lover and beloved. The love is out of reach, abstract. 3) Personification of Love "Guard myself against Love's blows" Makes love a scary thing; he's being attacked 4) rhyme scheme Strays away from the conventional Petrarchan sonnet rhyme, but at least follows the right form and subject matter Reflects his moments of disorder bc of his "attack" 5) The problem posed in the first part: we see a description of the situation I see you on Easter but I play it cool bc it's Easter I'm invulnerable to love Attacked by Cupid while bound by love 6) The solution offered in the second part: Comments on the first Love is unfair and dishonorable This is where the rhyme especially starts to get messed up as the speaker describes his pain 7) courtly love sonnet tradition focused on the ideal fantasy of love 8) the turn features how distraught he is Once he starts thinking about his beloved he falls apart - switches into the sestet
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created, Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
"Sonnet 20" - William Shakespeare 1609 1) Queer Theory Don't ask is the speaker gay Instead, look at the forces of desire as they are situated in this historical moment; we'll find that it's more complex than gay and straight can capture a queer analysis of the poem shows how dumb these strict categories are 2) Negative Capability the speaker of the poem is uncertain about his feelings and is therefore unable to express his desires "Master-mistress" A willingness of Shakespeare to dwell on uncertainty Don't try to categorize everything - explore how various energies circulate rather than try to identify them 3) Personification Makes mother nature a human figure A way to place blame for giving him a dick 4) misogyny This man of his affection has good feminine traits minus the negative stuff women have to offer 5) follows shakespearean sonnet form which mocks the traditional sonnet content SITUATION in the first two quatrains Explains the beauty of the young man EXPLANATION in the third quatrain Then how a young man gets pretty Mother nature COMMENTARY in the couplet A solution to the problem Platonic (sexless) love 6) follows Shakespearean rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG 7) Syllables/Lineation This poem has 11 syllables, when Shakespearean sonnets usually have 10 It has a little "extra" (like the extra penis on the man) 8) Catachresis: the incorrect or strained use of a word Master-mistress Trying to articulate the unarticulatable
I want to date-rape life. I kiss the cactus spines. Running a fever in the cold keeps me alive. My twin, the garbage truck seducing Key Food, whines And dines and crushes, just like me, and wants to drive. I want to drive into a drive-in bank and kiss And kill you, life. Sag Harbor, I'm your lover. I'm Yours, Sagaponack, too. This shark of bliss I input generates a desert slick as slime.
"Spring" - Frederick Seidel 1) Estrangement Casually references sexual violence to make a point about something else Makes us think about ways we can approach life 2) Conceptual Juxtaposition of pain and pleasure Kiss and cactus spines Fever in the cold Kiss and kill 3) Enjambed lines Produce disorientation, just like the content of the poem 4) repetition of "drive" Places importance on how our drive is animalistic, in your gut He is driven and asking us to look at what our drives and desires are 5) Reference to Sag harbor a site that represents decadence, money, vulgar activities Fits in with his violent and unsettling themes 6) similarities to the flea Estrangement In the flea it's about sex, here it's about life itself 7) negative capability How we view life is uncertain and it can remain that way 8) Language Vile, shocking, and offensive, but also aesthetic and fascinating The language here is designed to declare, estrange and unsettle
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
(2005) 1) First person point of view Gives us insight into character lives and allows us to empathize with them 2) Time Jumps Going back into her childhood and young adulthood to tell a story Doesn't come in chronological order 3) Holding on to memories A way to cope with loss Nostalgia keeps them going It is too painful to look forwards 4) the limits of humanity Are the clones humans? They have feelings, create art, and engage in other human activities Ethical experiment Human beings are no longer necessarily natural because we've overcome the natural limits of humans We can modify ourselves, altering the characteristics that make us human 5) science fiction vs speculative fiction Hard science vs soft science Ishiguro isn't concerned with the actual mechanics of the science but rather the implications the science have 6) Social realism It imagines a society or a world in which individual people/parts are caught up (in a vast social structure that determines the course of our life) They exist in a much larger world Every individual is treated in broad social totality 7) the theme of caring and nurturing Kathy always cares for tommy, it only progresses as the novel goes on The guardians are supposed to be caring for the students Conceals the horrors that are going on 8) art They think having an education in the humanities is a way to elevate their status and be a better person They work as a social good and alternate religion
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
1603 1) performance It only exists when it's performed Every single one is different, even if it's the same actors and stage Enforces the idea that we don't know hamlet 2) bibliography Different folios Which version of Hamlet is the one Shakespeare intended for us to read? Could end up changing the entire play 3) study of modern subjectivity People don't understand themselves based on their social situation, but rather within the minds of themselves Everyone else is obsessed with the other's internal thoughts Hamlet doesn't know himself and we see how he doesn't see himself since he can't even explain his absence of motivation 4) hamlet's madness Standing on the outside of minds is crucial in ethical judgments Shows how we have to use traps and tricks to find out what's in their heads 5) ophelia's suicide Reflects the themes of life's value, the meaning of suffering, and the legitimacy of suicide as an answer to life's pain 6) hamlet's inability to act This sense of uncertainty speaks to a general air of skepticism that really ties along with that time period and the whole play itself 7) figure out based on passage 8) figure out based on passage
The Weather - Kenneth Goldsmith
2005 1) Connection to Musee des Beaux Art Also writing about something grand/important but uses mundane language or form to do so The indifference of suffering 2) focus on the mundane What's more boring than the weather? Formulaic reports 3) makes us consider the indifference of humans We hear weather reports as background noise but for some, it changes their entire lives Ignore the noise we hear 4) start thinking about how it affects us The Weather is the most intimate and impersonal news But it can make or break your entire day 5) draws our attention to the medium that he pulls from The form of the weather report 6) identity politics the question of if poets should have a responsibility to write about the current political sphere 7) repetition of the word "uh" Reflects the mundane some more It's how we talk but we don't usually notice it - kind of like how we don't notice the weather reports 8) not about artistic expression Values the concept instead Which in turn is an art form and makes us consider art differently Actually resists personal expression and identity
Citizen - Claudia Rankine
2014 1) Visibility and invisibility Throughout the book people just don't see black Americans On the other hand, there's a hyper-visibility of the black body 2) Accumulation of microaggressions Collection of poems makes sense as a whole Each section reverberates with the others 3) Shifts away from lyric conventions of First person speaker Second-person speaker Uses the word "you" Allows the reader to connect with the personal experiences being told and view it as first-person she plays with perspective 4) long sentences Sounds like a stream of consciousness Helps us connect to her thoughts 5) Shifts away from lyric conventions of content Writes about politics and race 6) features seemingly unimportant moments that actually have tons of racism Shows that one cannot live outside of racism 7) Relates to Ishiguro Characters believe art makes them see people in a more humane way Rankine hopes that empathy will reduce racial discrimination 8) tone describes her anger in a seemingly dispassionate way Lyrics are usually musical, she writes monotonically
Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner's bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it.
Digging- Seamus Heaney (1964) 1) Metaphorical he digs with a "pen," which is symbolic of his reconciliation of the fact that he can't dig but he can write He digs out his emotions and secrets with the pen 2) Sense of disinheritance and alienation Doesn't dig the same way his father and grandfather did Feels like being a poet makes it so he can't be apart of their world 3) detachment "My father, digging. I look down" vertigo 4) simile "Snug as a gun" Implies that the pen has power and is threatening 5) Rhyme scheme First couple of stanzas have a strict rhyme scheme, but it fades away as the poem goes on, similarly to how his thoughts about his family and his alienation go away 6) Transformation at the end Reestablishes the broken link with the past The pen allows him to re-identify with his living roots He'll dig the way they did (but with a pen instead) 7) what poetry can do poem fundamentally changes his world, which compels us to re-imagine ours 8) word choice Descriptions of the digging are so beautifully precise The smell, the sound Makes you feel like you're present
About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Musee des Beaux Arts - WH Auden (1939) 1) Formalist analysis Devote our attention to the intrinsic nature of the work If it's meaningful, it means something because of the words on the page (not the historical context) 2) Ekphrasis of the painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" A poetic response to a visual art about the speaker's encounter with the piece- INTERPRETIVE & LITERARY 3) Bathos Striving for elevated and noble but writes in mundane terms His simple phrasing normalizes the sorts of indifference he describes 4) similar to Williams' Landscape at the Fall of Icarus Both writing about the same painting in terms of human suffering 5) rhyme Have to really look to find them Shows how the speaker is overwhelmed Unable to control the material 6) juxtaposition the juxtaposition of mundane and grand is a source of poignancy The human position of suffering and the old masters vs eating, window-opening, walking 7) tone Beginning: Conversational but also decidedly philosophical He's not upset about the suffering (Dispassionate) he ends up angry and critical at the end 8) Lineation A mix of enjambed and end-stopped lines reflect the speaker's fluctuation between being sure of himself (making quick confident assertions-end stop) and being unable to control himself (can't finish his thoughts-enjambed)
I can only find words for. And sometimes I can't. Here are these flowers that stand for. I stand here on the sidewalk. I can't stand it, but yes of course I understand it. Everything has to have meaning. Things have to stand for something. I can't take the time. Even skin-deep is too deep. I say to the flower stand man: Beautiful flowers at your flower stand, man. I'll take a dozen of the lilies. I'm standing as it were on my knees Before a little man up on a raised Runway altar where his flowers are arrayed Along the outside of the shop. I take my flames and pay inside. I go off and have sexual intercourse. The woman is the woman I love. The room displays thirteen lilies. I stand on the surface.
Ode to Spring - Frederick Siedel (1936) 1) The repetition of stand Means different things in different contexts - "i stand here" vs "have to stand for something" Reinforces the idea that not everything has to be significant One thing can stand for another 2) End-stop lines Periods at the end of each even if it's not a full sentence it represents a full thought 3) No rhyme scheme Anti Poem - doesn't follow typical conventions Can't express his feelings, rhyming won't help 4) Sexual aspect of it "I go off and have sexual intercourse" Literalization of the speaker's feelings towards love He cannot describe his feelings with words - abrupt outburst 5) Other works it's connected to : Sonnet 20 He cannot openly express his desire for master-mistress 6) mundane language He's disconnected and dispassionate "I stand on the surface" - not digging very deep 7) negative capability Can't explain everything and that's ok; he mocks this by saying how he can't stand how "Everything has to have meaning" He understands it but he doesn't like it, because not everything does have to mean something 8) anti-poem Doesn't describe anything in great detail He himself can't even put a finger on what he's trying to describe
