JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: analysis, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 26 - 50 of 71
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: analysis in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
After yesterday's poem, "Full Fathom Five" by William Shakespeare, I seriously considered posting about The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. I even spent hours reading and pondering yesterday, but it's a ridiculous notion - I could spend a week on that poem, and more than one post on any one section of it. My next thought was to post "I started Early - Took my Dog" by Emily Dickinson but I posted that one last year during National Poetry Month as part of this "Building a Poetry Collection" series.
Then I got to thinking about that bell in "Full Fathom Five", which led me to think of this passage from John Donne's Meditation XVII, presented here with modernized spellings:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
Such a lovely snippet, though the entire Medititation is pretty great. The Meditation comes from Donne's religious persona. Donne lived in the late 16th and early 17th century, and wrote an interesting mix of work - some religious, some quite, um, not-religious.
About two hundred years after his birth, Dr. Samuel Johnson dubbed him a "Metaphysical Poet", part of (and in truth, founder of) a loosely associated group of poets who used art, history and religion as extended metaphor (known as a conceit, a word which here has absolutely nothing to do with being stuck-up. The Metaphysical Poets delighted in using what was considered unusual imagery and syntax in their poems. Expediency caused him to convert from Catholicism to the Anglican church; Donne was eventually forced by King James I to become an Anglican clergyman (by royal decree, preventing him from occupying any other job, no less).
Many of Donne's poems dwell on issues of death and mortality, including one of my favorites of his works, "Death Be Not Proud", which I've been remiss in not posting before. The poem is actually entitled "Holy Sonnet X" or "Divine Sonnet X", but is usually called by its first few words.
Death Be Not Proud by John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Form: It's a Petrarchan or Italianate sonnet written in iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM) - that first line is written "death BE not PROUD though SOME have CALL-ed THEE" - when reading it aloud, however, I always go with modern pronunciations, which makes the line read as follows "DEATH BE not PROUD though SOME have CALLED thee". No sense torturing the language just to make the meter fit when the result sounds awkward to modern ears.
The rhyme scheme is ABBAABBACDDCEE (remembering that in Donne's day "eternally" rhymed with "die").
Discussion: The poem uses apostrophe, meaning that the poem is a poem of address directed to an imaginary figure or an abstract idea. Here, th
0 Comments on Death Be Not Proud by John Donne as of 1/1/1900
Before I even hit "post" on yesterday's poem, "Home-Thoughts from Abroad" by Robert Browning, I knew that this was today's choice. Amazing that it took me until after dinner to get around to posting it, huh? But I spent the morning reading Volume II of Sense and Sensibility, and the afternoon on writing and errands, and the day got away from me. But I digress. The reason that I knew I wanted to post this poem today is because of Robert Browning's description of the yellow buttercups that so reminded him of April in England; today's poem also involves yellow flowers and memory.
Some of you may know this poem as "Daffodils", though that's not its actual name; its real name is "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", and it's an extremely popular, much-anthologized poem.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
I wandered 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 stretched 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 Out-did 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.
Form: Each stanza has 6 lines, is written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line: taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), and has a rhyme scheme of ABABCC; this form, essentially an open form in "sixain" (six lines to a stanza), was first developed by Shakespeare in "Venus and Adonis", and was used by Wordsworth in this poem, written in 1804.
Discussion: If you read this one aloud, it is easy to fall into a "pause-at-the-end-of-each-line" mentality, as a means of emphasizing the rhyme scheme, but this is something you SHOULD NOT DO, because you will be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the rhythm and sing-song rhyme effect you achieve, and you will not truly hear the poem.
Here's the first stanza written out with pauses only where they naturally occur:
I wandered 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.
If you go back and read the poem aloud, following the punctuation, you will be able to better hear what Wordsworth is saying. And while references to nature and use of metaphor are common devices in modern poetry, they are used in part because Wordsworth came along and wrote in the way that he did, with a reverence for and appreciation of nature, and with a focus on emotional response to nature and other stimuli. As a result, Wordsworth is widely credited as being one of the first poets in the Romantic era, along with his friend Coleridge, whose poems were included in the 1798 publication Lyrical Ballads, which I referenced in a now-old quoteskimming post.
Today's poem is one of the best-loved and most well-known in the English language, and that is with good reason: its imagery is lovely, its rhyme and metre make it easy to memorize, and the story it tells (of seeing some
0 Comments on I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth as of 1/1/1900
Following yesterday's poem selection, A Man Said to the Universe by Stephen Crane, I considered posting something from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass that begins "A child said 'What is the grass?'", but it turns out I posted that as part of this series already, on April 2nd of last year. I toyed with posting a second Crane poem ("In the Desert"), but opted instead to go with a poem that - at least on its surface - addresses communication by a speaker on earth with a body out in space. It is a partial reprise of a post I did in January of 2009 about the dialogue between poets - in this case, Keats and Frost and, as you'll see, T.S. Eliot as well.
Choose Something Like a Star by Robert Frost
O Star (the fairest one in sight), We grant your loftiness the right To some obscurity of cloud— It will not do to say of night, Since dark is what brings out your light. Some mystery becomes the proud. But to the wholly taciturn In your reserve is not allowed. Say something to us we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says, 'I burn.' But say with what degree of heat. Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. Use language we can comprehend. Tell us what elements you blend. It gives us strangely little aid, But does tell something in the end. And steadfast as Keats' Eremite, Not even stooping from its sphere, It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.
This 25-line poem is written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line), and uses a complicated nested rhyme scheme (AABAABCBDEDEFGGFGHIIHJKKJ), although one could fairly characterize the final eight lines as stanzas set in envelope rhyme. The starting 17 lines use a nested rhyme technique that is quite similar to what T.S. Eliot used in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", posted here previously, and rest assured, that is no coincidence.
Frost specifically references Keats's poem within his, both by addressing a star in the first place and by specifically talking about the steadfastness of the star and "Keats' Eremite". Were this poem to be performed on the stage, there'd be no fainting couch around, and the speaker would essentially be arguing with the star for a good 17 lines. Because it's not until the final 8 lines of this poem that Frost stops addressing the star directly. Yet there, at the start of the 18th line - "And steadfast as Keats' Eremite" - is a volta, where the poet stops hollering at the star and turns to his audience to address them directly.
Now, Frost's poem is actually quite lovely on its surface. It purports to be about a star in the night sky, and the speaker asks it questions, seeking answers, and the star tells us precious little about itself. "It says 'I burn'./But say with what degree of heat./Talk Fahrenheit. Talk Centigrade. Tell us what elements you blend." The speaker wants facts and specifics, something he can wrap his head around.
But, to quote Eliot's Prufrock, "That is not it at all,/That is not what [he] meant, at all." Frost, you see, told at least one of his classes that the "star" to which the poem is addressed was a contemporary star in the world of poetry: T.S. Eliot. Frost is being his usual cantankerous self, criticizing Eliot for his highbrow ways and for combining elements (Sanskrit, Hebrew, myt
0 Comments on Choose Something Like a Star by Robert Frost as of 4/12/2010 12:46:00 PM
Sometimes the mental path between two poems is pretty plain, as with the progression the other day from La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats to Song of the Wandering Aengus by W.B. Yeats, and sometimes it looks like a quantum leap. I thought, therefore, that I'd explain the hop-skip-jump of today's selection by walking through it.
Yesterday's selection, Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats, had me scratching my head this morning. At first, I thought about how I should've engaged in an examination of the ars longa, vita brevis component of it, and I cast about for a poem on that subject - of which there are many, really, but it wasn't the theme I felt like talking about today. Instead, this partial line of the "Ode" leapt at me: "therefore, ye soft pipes, play on[.]"
It called to mind the opening of one of my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, Twelfth Night, which finds a pining Orsino saying "If music be the food of love, play on!" Here, in fact, is his opening speech of 15 lines. Notice how the first three lines establish that there's a lovelorn backstory already in play, and that this is a comedy - since Orsino says, in essence, that if music feeds love, he wants to hear so much of it that he chokes to death, thereby ending his suffering.
If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe'er, But falls into abatement and low price, Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical.
It being in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), I considered declaring it a poem and calling it good, but that simply wouldn't do. However, I'd arrived at Shakespeare, hadn't I? And that ars longa, vita brevis notion was still tickling my brain, so I have arrived at least at today's poem:
Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments, Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils* root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick** fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
*broils: tumults, battles
**quick: probably intended for its double meaning: 1) fast-burning and 2) the sort that burns something to its quick, or its very heart/center
Form: A Shakespearean sonnet, of course, written in iambic pentameter (5 iambic feet per line, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), and with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The first eight lines are grandstanding, in a way: "Monuments shall fall into ruin, but not your reputation" is the gist of it. The next six lines take a slight turn (or volta) when the focus shifts away from monuments falling to wars and the ravages of time and more to the active nature of the poem and its ability to preserve the memory and reputation of the Fair Youth: "My poems about you will
1 Comments on Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare, last added: 4/11/2010
I just discovered your blog today. Thank you for your interesting discussion of Sonnet 55. Thanks also for the link to your comments on "Ozymandias." There is a verse from Byron's "Don Juan" that has a similar theme (it's from Canto One, CCXIX), and, I suppose, it is a sort of antithesis to your Shakespeare entry from today:
What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King Cheops erected the first pyramid And largest, thinking it was just the thing To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid; But somebody or other rummaging, Burglariously broke his coffin's lid: Let not a monument give you or me hopes, Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.
All that talk of the Greek and Roman gods yesterday in the post about "The Garden" by Andrew Marvell called to mind one of the most famous of famous Keats poems, which I've not yet posted here. It seemed high time to remedy that situation, and so it is that today's selection is one of the five famous Odes written by Keats in 1819: "Ode on a Grecian Urn". The title doesn't mean that he physically wrote the poem on an urn, but that he was inspired by the frieze around the outside of a Grecian urn.
The poem closes with a maxim based on the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose works on the nature of art were well-known and respected by Keats and many of his readers: "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady*? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic** shape! Fair attitude! with brede*** Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
*Tempe or the dales of Arcady: Tempe and Arcadia are beautiful locations in Greece, representing here a form of idealized rural or pastoral beauty
**Attic: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of Athens or its ancient civilization; marked by simplicity, purity or refinement (per
My dear Write2Ignite! friend, Dee Dee Parker's first book Josie Jo's Got to Know is a sweet read. Perfect, I think, for bed time or snuggle time. Jenny Allen's illustrations capture beautifully the tender and ticklish personality of the freckle-faced MC. Her curiosity about just about everything keeps the reader turning those pages.
Dee Dee's first book is a self-published venture. All proceeds
Yesterday's post about Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky", which used a form of hymn metre (three lines of more-or-less iambic tetrameter followed by a line of trimeter). Although it is indeed a nonsense poem, "Jabberwocky" is also a narrative poem, meaning one that tells a story. And all that talk of slaying monsters made me think of knights, making today's choice obvious (at least for me).
Today, one of my favorite short narrative poems, by the incomparable John Keats. It's called "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", by which Keats meant "the beautiful woman without pity/mercy" and not "the beautiful woman without thanks" - the title comes from a medieval French court poem by Alain Chartier. This lyric narrative poems tells a seemingly simple story in the form of a stylized folk ballad. In the first three stanzas, a speaker asks a woeful knight what's wrong, and the remainder of the poem is the knight's answer. I absolutely, flat-out adore this poem, which was part of the impetus for my own poem, "La Belle Dame Sans Regrets", which was written in response to a picture prompt posted by The Merry Sisters of Fate, based on a painting inspired by . . . well, by this Keats poem. I begin to tire of my circular digression, and will move straight to the poem:
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful— a faery's child: Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean, and sing A faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said— 'I love thee true.'
She took me to her elfin grot, And there she gazed and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep And there I dreamed— Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dreamed On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; Who cried— 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!'
I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gapèd wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill side.
And that is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.
Form: Each stanza contains four lines. Were you to number the lines 1-4, lines 2 & 4 rhyme. The first three lines in each stanza are roughly in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line: taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), although sometimes Keats adds an extra syllable here or there, usually meaning that one of the feet has a third syllable, as in the third line of the final stanza: "Though the sedge has withered from the lake", which still has four poetic feet in the line: an anapest (tadaDUM) followed by three iambs (taDUM taDUM taDUM). In any case,
0 Comments on La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats as of 1/1/1900
Yesterday's poem, "The butterfly obtains" by Emily Dickinson, got me thinking about butterflies and caterpillars (whence butterflies come), and about the latest movie version of Alice in Wonderland, which I mentioned on my blog after I first saw it in 2D with M. (I have since seen it in 3D with hubby, and copied down quite a few quotes while there. Why yes, I am a geek, thank you very much.) But rather than presenting you with the poem sometimes called "Advice from a Caterpillar" but known as well or better as "Father William" or "You Are Old, Father William", I opted to post about the Jabberwocky, which is in a version of hymn meter - as was Dickinson's poem yesterday. (See what I did there?)
By the by: I am nearly certain that all of you know that Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, but did you also know that "Lewis Carroll" is derived from "Charles Lutwidge"? Charles in Latin is Carolus, and "Carroll" is a derivation of that. Lutwidge in Latin would be Ludovicus, and "Lewis" is an anglicized derivation there as well. That's right - he put his names into Latin, then pulled them back out again another way. Just what you'd expect from Alice's creator, but I digress. First the poem, then some discussion:
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
I cannot get the image of Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen out of my head - and in light of today's poem, I picture Christian Slater's character (the Knave, or Stayne) telling her what the Oracular says about the Frabjous Day, when it is foretold that Alice will slay the Jabberwocky. (She looks up at him and says "My jabberbabywocky?" So great!) Which reminds me of the scene where she repeatedly slaps Stayne in response to his short, declarative phrases that are part of a single sentence, which I found hilarious both times. But again, I digress.
Form: The poem opens and closes with the same stanza: what starts as an introduction forms almost a benediction at the end. Each stanza is cross-rhymed (ABAB). The first three lines of each stanza have 8 syllables (4 roughly iambic feet), and the fourth line has 6 (3 feet).
Discussion: The poem was intended by its author to be a condemnation/satire of pretentious poetry, a poke at literary critics, and a sort of warning along the lines of "how not to write a poem", but it quickly earned its own reputation. It is now one of the best-known and most widely-referenced poems in the English language (to the extent that all those portmanteau and nonsense words count as English).
Why this poem rocks for kids
During school visits where I've been asked to teach kids abou
0 Comments on Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll as of 1/1/1900
Yesterday's poem, "It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" was a form of sonnet by William Wordsworth. There was something about its feeling of calm - and its feeling of being somewhat alone, for all that the speaker in the poem addressed a young girl with whom he was walking - that reminded me of Robert Frost's poems "Mowing" and "The Tuft of Flowers", both of which were found in the same 1910 collection of poems (A Boy's Will), and both of which have to do with making hay (literally, not figuratively, although perhaps there's a bit of that as well). Rather than choose one or t'other (I tried, I really did), I'm giving you both today. I liked "The Tuft of Flowers" for the revelation to be found in a bit of nature (thematically related to yesterday's poem) and "Mowing" for its being a rather interesting sonnet (or sonnet-like) poem, as well as its content. Hard-pressed to select a favorite among the two, I give you both, with analysis tucked behind cuts for those of you reading it at Live Journal.
The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost
I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart, ‘Whether they work together or apart.’
But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a ’wildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name, Finding them butterfly weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus, By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon, Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart, ‘Whether they work together or apart.’
Form and analysis: The poem is written in iambic pentameter, meaning that each line consists of five iambs (a poetic "foot" consisting of two syllables - an unstressed one followed by a stressed one: taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM). It is also written in rhymed couplets - two lines that rhyme with one another - and Frost has made that abundantly clear by setting each couplet separately. The way Frost has written his couplets in iambic pentameter and with masculine end rhymes makes them "heroic couplets". Many of the lines are end-stopped (with punctuation like a comma, period or semi-colon) which makes the end-rhy
0 Comments on The Tuft of Flowers and Mowing by Robert Frost as of 1/1/1900
Yesterday, I posted a snippet form the old English carol, "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day". Today is the first day of National Poetry Month, and, as I did last year, I'll be presenting a poem a day, along with analysis, in a series I call Building a Poetry Collection. Each poem will be related in some way to the one from the day before. However, just as brainradio can be unpredictable in what song is playing in my head at any given time, so too are my associations a bit unusual from time to time.
Yesterday's carol has a first line the same as its title. Initially, I rather expected my brain my kick up a love poem, since I spent so much time singing the chorus, but I found this line coming to mind instead "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" It's the final line from today's poem selection, "Among School Children" by William Butler Yeats. A confession: I analyzed this poem here before, so the rest of the post is essentially a reprise of previous content. It is a lengthy post, but I hope you'll read it nevertheless
The set-up Imagine that you're a sixty year-old Irish poet walking through a school in County Waterford back in 1926, because you happen to also be a member of a committee addressing schools. As you walk through, you'd carry with you your sixty years of life experience and education, including your training in the classics, such as the theories of Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras. You'd also bring with you your recollection of school days, and might wonder if any of the girls in class resemble the woman you consider your soul-mate, believing as you do in a Platonic reality where every soul is split in two and housed in separate bodies, but which, when reunited, creates a sublime single entity. You might ponder the state of education. What the school (and teacher) looks like. Comparing your sixty year-old self to the young children there, you might think about how you were once a child, and that might make you think of your mother: was your life worth the pain of your birth? You might wonder whether there is meaning to life, after all, as you stand there at age sixty, looking at the exuberance of youth surrounding you.
And if you it truly were you, you'd be William Butler Yeats. And you would then go on to write a gorgeous poem about it. Of course, you'd use your own personal mythological associations, like references to Leda (once impregnated by Zeus, who took the form of a swan) as a stand-in for the woman you love. And in the end, you'd have an answer, contained in the following poem:
The poem, with a few interjections
The poem consists of eight stanzas, each containing eight lines, each written in iambic pentameter and with an end-rhyme scheme (per stanza) of ABABABCC, which is known as ottava rima.
Among School Children by William Butler Yeats
I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading - books and histories, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way - the children's eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
This first stanza is the set-up: where he is, what starts him musing.
II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire, a tale that she Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event That changed some childish day to tragedy - Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent Into a sphere from youthful sympathy, Or else, to alter Plato's parable, Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
Leda was a favorite topic of Yeats's. She was visited by Zeus in the form of a swan, and is the subject of Yeats's poem, "Leda and the Swan".
III
And thinking of th
0 Comments on Among School Children by William Butler Yeats as of 1/1/1900
Today, one of the early poems to the Fair Youth sequence. Throughout the first seventeen sonnets, Shakespeare is urging the Fair Youth to find a woman and have children. This particular poem uses a farming metaphor that results in (among other things) a rather bawdy sexual reference involving ploughing and a rather clever double meaning of the word "husbandry", which meant both "the care of a household" and "the cultivation or production of plants". First the poem, then the discussion.
Sonnet 3 by William Shakespeare
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so fond will be the tomb Of his self-love, to stop posterity? Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time. But if thou live remembered not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
Form: A Shakespearean sonnet, as per usual. This means it's written in iambic pentameter and rhymed ABABCDCDEFEFGG. You will note the "feminine" endings of the first four lines: viewest/renewest and another/mother each result in lines of 11 syllables, ending with an unstressed syllable known as a "feminine" ending.
Discussion: The poem is one of address, directed to the Fair Youth. The first quatrain says "Go to your mirror and give yourself a good talking to: You ought to have children now, and if you don't, you are depriving the world and, moreover, depriving some woman of being the mother of your children."
The second quatrain launches with the farming metaphor. First, the gist of the stanza: "There's no woman who wouldn't want to bear your children. And you shouldn't be so caught up in yourself to stop posterity by not breeding." Now a bit about the farm metaphor in the first two lines - he begins it with a reference to an "uneared womb" - an analogy in which the womb is a field, and is barren (lacking ears of corn), then refers to "the tillage of thy husbandry", a bawdy play on words, since tillage relates to ploughing, a word related to the sex act as well as to the act of turning soil in the field. A married man was called a husband then, as now, but the word meant both "the care of a household" (a reference to the source of the word husband) and to the raising of crops and animals. Naughty, naughty Will. The second two lines in this quatrain is a reference to vanity - Shakespeare asks if he's willing to go to his grave without having procreated, with an implication (I think) that the young man needs to pick a woman and get busy, and not be too fastidious in his selection process.
The third quatrain introduces yet another argument, and it's a more guilt-laden one, since the Bard invokes the Fair Youth's mother: "When your mother looks at you, she's reminded of her own beauty in her youth; similarly, if you have children, when you are old, you'll remember your time now." Although he doesn't go to the "give your mother some grandchildren and make her happy argument" directly, it's lingering there anyway in the reading in my opinion.
The final couplet is the real turn in this poem, in my opinion: "If you don't want to be remembered, then by all means, die single and without a 'copy' of yourself." The phrase "you selfish young man" is implied, don't you think? "Go ahead and die childless! The world will forget you!" Geez, Will, pile it on, why don't you?
You may listen to a good recitation of the poem in this YouTube presentation, which features a portrait of William Shakespeare and the text of the poem:
Today, a fairly lengthy poem. I hope that when you get a 10-15 minute window of time, you will come read this poem in its entirety, for it is a marvel of construction (written in accentual verse - two or four (sometimes three or five) stressed syllables per short line - and cleverly using rhyme throughout, although in no set pattern) and it tells a most marvelous (in pretty much all senses of that word) tale of two sisters, one of whom allows herself to be tempted by the goblin men and their lovely fruit, only to find herself wasting away. Can the other sister sort out how to save her? And what does this allegory mean?
I know several YA authors have been influenced by this story, including National Book Award nominee Laini Taylor, whose story "Goblin Fruit" in Lips Touch Three Times is inspired by Rossetti's poem and my friend Tessa Gratton, who wrote this inspired piece at Merry Sisters of Fate about it. I like Tess's summary and explanation quite a bit, and so will you, I think.
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries- Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries-- All ripe together In summer weather-- Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy; Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try: Currants and gooseberries, Bright-fire-like barberries, Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye, Come buy, come buy." Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bowed her head to hear, Lizzie veiled her blushes: Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger-tips. "Lie close," Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?" "Come buy," call the goblins Hobbling down the glen. "O! cried Lizzie, Laura, Laura, You should not peep at goblin men." Lizzie covered up her eyes Covered close lest they should look; Laura reared her glossy head, And whispered like the restless brook: "Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie, Down the glen tramp little men. One hauls a basket, One bears a plate, One lugs a golden dish Of many pounds' weight. How fair the vine must grow Whose grapes are so luscious; How warm the wind must blow Through those fruit bushes." "No," said Lizzie, "no, no, no; Their offers should not charm us, Their evil gifts would harm us." She thrust a dimpled finger In each ear, shut eyes and ran: Curious Laura chose to linger Wondering at each merchant man. One had a cat's face, One whisked a tail, One tramped at a rat's pace, One crawled like a snail, One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry, One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry. Lizzie heard a voice like voice of doves Cooing all together: They sounded kind and full of loves In the pleasant weather.
Laura stretched her gleaming neck Like a rush-imbedded swan, Like a lily from the beck, Like a moonlit poplar branch, Like a vessel at the launch When its last restraint is gone.
Backwards up the mossy glen Turned and trooped the goblin men,
0 Comments on Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti as of 1/1/1900
Today, another of Shakespeare's sonnets addressed to the Fair Youth. This one is similar in some ways to Sonnets 55 ("Nor marble, nor the gilded monuments"), which I analyzed before, which falls into the "there's nothing permanent on the face of this earth" argument, but it extends it to the impermanence of things found in nature. It also has a bit in common with those sonnets in which Shakespeare plays around with legal terminology: the mentions of holding a plea and an action are a play on words, using legal terms as well as making sense without resort to that particular level of analysis. As in, say, the closing of the end of Sonnet 18 ("So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee"), the closing of this party expresses an intention to memorialize the loved one for eternity, but instead of expressing confidence that it will be so, he expresses only hope that it may be so - it's a qualified statement.
Sonnet 65 by William Shakespeare
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O, none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Form: Shakespearean sonnet, of course, written in iambic pentameter and using the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG.
Analysis: The word "oversways" is not widely used in modern parlance, but think of it as "trumps", in a way. Brass, stone, earth and sea have power, but death's power is stronger than all of them.
Shakespeare employs an interesting back and forth in the first two quatrains (four-line segments are called quatrains). The first two lines of the first and second two of the second are about rocks and brass and things built by man (as well as natural elements like earth and sea) and how they change over time. The second two lines of the first quatrain and the first two of the second one are about something smaller and far more fragile: Beauty, which has only the strength of a flower, and can be so easily trampled. How, Shakespeare asked, can something so fragile stand the test of time when big, strong things like rock and metal can't manage it?
He develops that theme more fully into the third quatrain, asking what the best way to preserve beauty is. How can he make some lasting record of the Fair Youth's beauty? And is there some way to keep Time from ruining whatever he produces? In the end, he prays for a miracle - that somehow, his written record of his love for the Fair Youth will last through the generations.
Dear Will,
Wish granted.
0 Comments on Sonnet 65 by William Shakespeare as of 1/1/1900
Today, some lines by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the opening lines of which seemed terribly appropriate given that we've just had another Nor'easter come through, and it's a snow day for the kids. Since the final two stanzas seem to refer to a dead person, I figured I should make clear they do not apply.
The cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone; And all around, With a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow The breath of night like death did flow Beneath the sinking moon.
The wintry hedge was black; The green grass was not seen; The birds did rest On the bare thorn’s breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, Had bound their folds o’er many a crack Which the frost had made between.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare Of the moon’s dying light; As a fen-fire’s beam On a sluggish stream Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there, And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair, That shook in the wind of night.
The moon made thy lips pale, belovèd; The wind made thy bosom chill; The night did shed On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky Might visit thee at will.
Each of the stanzas follows the rhyme scheme ABCCAAB, and mostly uses iambs (two-syllable poetic feet consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one - taDUM), although some of the lines incorporate anapests as well (ta-da-DUM). I like the rhythm of the poem, the way it trips along, the clever line scheme, and the varying line lengths.
0 Comments on Lines from Percy Bysshe Shelley for Poetry Friday as of 2/26/2010 8:54:00 PM
Today, a sonnet in which Shakespeare claims that his love is not idolatry, although he promptly claims to worship a three-in-one love, rather than the Holy Trinity. Cheeky, no?
Sonnet 105 by William Shakespeare
Let not my love be called idolatry, Nor my belovèd as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous excellence; Therefore my verse, to constancy confined, One thing expressing, leaves out difference. 'Fair, kind, and true' is all my argument, 'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words; And in this change is my invention spent, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. 'Fair, kind, and true,' have often lived alone, Which three till now never kept seat in one.
Form: Shakespearean sonnet, of course, which means it's written in iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line - taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM) and with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG.
Discussion: Shakespeare begins the sonnet by disclaiming idolatry - the worship of pagan idols or polytheistic gods - but makes clear that he is engaging in idolatry of a different sort, as he establishes the Fair Youth as a godlike figure - one that he essentially worships through his verse, and a tripartite god at that: "Fair, kind, and true" is not only established as a trinity, but is repeated itself thrice during the poem, and he makes plain in the final couplet that they form a sort of trinity of characteristics never before united in one being.
In the first quatrain (or first four lines, if you prefer), Shakespeare says: Don't call my love idolatry or depict the Fair Youth as an idol: all my songs and praises are to only one person, so it doesn't count as idolatry. The third and fourth lines in particular sound to me like a parody of hymn lyrics or phrases from the Book of Common Prayer, but an hour of online searching and reference to my Folger Shakespeare Sonnets hasn't helped me sort out if that's so. Still "Since all alike my songs and praise be/To one, of one, still such, and ever so" sounds close to language used in the Church of England at the time, while being slanted to suit Shakespeare's purposes.
In the second quatrain, Shakespeare describes his beloved as kind, saying that he's constantly kind. His argument in the second two lines of the quatrain runs that since his poems are confined to the Fair Youth, who is constant (now invoking the additional meaning of "faithful"), he expresses only one thing, not many. The phrase "leaves out difference" serves the double purpose of explaining that he only writes about one thing (the Fair Youth) and also that he doesn't write about discord or argument (an alternate meaning of the word "difference").
In the third quatrain we find the volta, or turn. (Dance afficianados may enjoy knowing that the term volta was also a dance move in Shakespeare's time, in which the male dancer picked the female up and turned with her - there have been some rather sexy depictions of it in movies about Elizabeth I. But I digress.) In the third quatrain, he makes explicit what he says about the Fair Youth: "Fair, kind, and true" is his claim; this is his theme, he claims, when he speaks of the Fair Youth, and all of his sonnets are various ways of saying this same thing. (Let us put aside that if one reads all the sonnets about the Fair Youth, "kind" and "true" essentially go out the window now and again.) What he essentially argues in the last two lines of this quatrain is "I spend all my time and invention figuring out different ways of saying the same thing" - a true statement in many instances, as we see multiple sonnets on almost any point he wishes to make about the Fair Youth. In the final line, he makes plain that he is engaging in a form of idolatry when he references "Th
0 Comments on Sonnet 105 by William Shakespeare as of 1/1/1900
Yestereve, I mentioned the writing exercises I undertake with . This week, I set out to write a poem based on this prompt from The Write-Brain Workbook by Bonnie Neubauer: "Dear Dolores, I know it has been 37 years since I have been in touch". Since the line following the greeting falls naturally into iambs (two-syllable poetic feet composed of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one), I resolved to write a sonnet using iambic pentameter, and following one of the usual sonnet rhyme schemes (if you're interested in them, I've discussed them before).
I wrote the first four lines using the ABAB rhyme scheme. The last word of line four was "clutch", so as I entered into the fifth line, I was surprised to find what my gentleman narrator was clutching at. If I was surprised in line five, I was positively startled in line six to learn he had an official diagnosis.
I should mention that these are supposed to be 5-10 minute exercises, and by this point, I'd already put more than three hours into this poem, and I was starting to ponder how to get out of it so I could get back to work on the Jane project, what with Jane standing over my left shoulder, arms crossed, foot tapping, throat clearing and all. And I realized that just as I'd interrupted myself, perhaps someone might interrupt my gentleman writer.
Having given you Angela's response to the short poem, I figured I ought to let you see it. It's no masterpiece, but I don't think it sucks, either. It would undoubtedly benefit from time and revision and a better title; nevertheless, here it is as it now stands:
Dear Dolores by Kelly R. Fineman
Dear Dolores,
I know it has been 37 years since I have been in touch. You meant so much to me back then. I find, as old age nears, I think of you quite often, and I clutch at memories as if they'd hold me afloat, a life preserver in Alzheimer's sea –
"Excuse me, Mr. Loomis, here's your coat."
"This note – it's to Dolores. Who is she?"
Analysis of form: It ends up being two cross-rhymed quatrains written in iambic pentameter. This means there are five iambic feet per line (taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), and the ending words use the following rhyme scheme: ABABCDCD. The second quatrain is split to make the alternating lines of dialogue easier to follow, but otherwise it's a fairly simple, traditional form.
0 Comments on Dear Dolores - an original poem for Poetry Friday as of 1/1/1900
Today's selection is a song that comes from Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, sc. 2. I confess to not having read this particular play yet, although I hope to remedy that situation this year, particularly since the synopsis I read tells me that it includes a woman in drag as a man, which is one of my all-time favorite literary tropes. But I digress.
In the text below, I've retained the spelling as "Silvia", although it is sometimes recast as "Sylvia". Silvia is a pretty young lady who is sought after by quite a lot of young swains, including the pair of friends at the start of the book, Valentine and Proteus (who has already exchanged rings and vows with the fair Julia, who turns up in drag as Sebastian). This song is performed outside her tower window by musicians, hired by yet another guy (Thurio, Silvia's father's choice of suitor) in order to woo her.
Who is Silvia? by William Shakespeare
Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admirèd be.
Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness, And, being helped, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.
Analysis of form: The song is organized into three five-line stanzas. Each of the stanzas uses the rhyme scheme of ABABA within it, including the third stanza. While you might, at a glance, note the "-ings" in all five lines the A lines are a simple "-ing", while the B lines are "-elling" endings.
The A lines are all written in trochaic meter with a truncated (or masculine) ending or, if you prefer, consist of two trochees (DUM-ta) followed by an amphimacer or cretic foot (DUM-ta-DUM). Regardless what you call it, the stress pattern alternates, starting and ending with a stressed syllable: DUM-ta DUM-ta DUM-ta DUM.
The B lines are opposite - either iambic meter with a truncated (feminine) ending or, if you prefer, two iambs (ta-DUM) followed by an amphibrach (ta-DUM-ta). Either way, you have alternating stress patterns, starting and ending with an UNstressed syllable: ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ta.
Productions
Franz Schubert did a setting of this song, known in German as An Silvia, and in English as Who is Silvia?, which can be found in a host of performances on YouTube and elsewhere. Here's a rather dizzyinv video that "reads along" with the lyrics auf Deutsch while a recording by one of my favorite baritones ever, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, sings to a simple piano accompaniment by Gerald Moore. Seriously, it doesn't get much better than that pairing when it comes to art songs. But again, I digress:
Steve Winwood did a bit of a rewrite and came up with Silvia (Who is She?) on his 2003 album About Time. The song also appeared (evidently) as part of a musical called Shakespeare, Sonnets, and Rock 'n' Roll, which I wish I'd known about before today. But I have found it out on the YouTube, and present this song (which starts after a few sentences of introdu
0 Comments on Who is Silvia? by William Shakespeare as of 1/1/1900
Given the near-blizzard conditions outside - lovely large flakes blowing nearly sideways, piling atop fenceposts and blowing the birds about as they try to light on the feeder - I thought this poem was pretty much perfect for today.
The Snowstorm by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come see the north wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly, On coop or kennel he hangs Parian* wreaths; A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall, Maugre** the farmer's sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work. And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.
*Parian: denoting or relating to a fine white marble mined in classical times in Paros **maugre: in spite of
Emerson's poem is written in blank verse, which is to say, in unrhymed iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line: taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), except for a single line written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line): "Come see the north wind's masonry."
That line is the turning point in the poem, which opens with an evocative but quick overview of the storm and its effect on people. After Emerson's invitation to "see the north wind's masonry," however, he moves to a personification of the storm and enters into an extended metaphor (known as a "conceit"), in which the north wind (representing the storm) is compared to a mason (and perhaps to a sculptor as well), who spends his night constructing structures of snow.
The use of sensory details is terrific in this poem, from the opening use of sound - it's quite the Stürm und Drang beginning, isn't it, with "all the trumpets of the sky" and the frenzy of the snow's arrival? And the central conceit - "the north wind's masonry" - produces some phrases that are entirely swoon-worthy: "his wild work/so fanciful, so savage, nought cares he/for number or proportion"; he "leaves . . . astonished Art to mimic in slow structures . . . the mad wind's night-work,/the frolic architecture of the snow."
I hope those of you in the snowy places of the world are safe and warm inside. I'm off to enjoy a cup of tea. And to watch the birds on the feeder - so many of them at a time, and such an interesting assortment. Usually they would not all tolerate one another so well, but on a day like today when they need the calories, they seem inclined to allow more company than usual (12 on the one feeder at last count - and it's not what one would call an overly large feeder).
0 Comments on The Snowstorm by Ralph Waldo Emerson as of 1/1/1900
This week I've managed to keep my days straight, so I know it's Wednesday. And it being Wednesday, I've got a Shakespeare post for you.
Sonnet 56 by William Shakespeare
Sweet love, renew thy force. Be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but today by feeding is allayed, Tomorrow sharpened in his former might. So, love, be thou. Although today thou fill Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness, Tomorrow see again, and do not kill The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness. Let this sad int'rim like the ocean be Which parts the shore where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see Return of love, more blest may be the view. Else call it winter, which, being full of care, Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.
Form: Shakespearean sonnet, meaning that it's written in iambic pentameter (5 iambic feet per line, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM), with the following rhyme scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG Note that Shakespeare has taken a bit of liberty in the lines ending with "fullness" and "dullness" (which would have been exact rhymes in his time - that's not the liberty taken). Both fullness and dullness consist of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one - something which is known as a "feminine ending", which is totally allowed in iambic ptenameter now and agian, and which results in 11-syllable lines. Only if you count up pronounced syllables in those lines, you end up with 12 and 13 pronounced syllables, assuming you enunciate all of them. My guess is that the "even" in the "fullness" line is supposed to be elided to the poetic "e'en", which would take that one back down to a standard iambic-pentameter-with-feminine-ending length. The line ending with dullness is a bit trickier - if you say "spirit" quickly (with both syllables getting stressed), then count the "ual" of perpetual as a single slurred vowel sound rather than saying it "you - uhl", you end up at the iambic-pentameter-with-feminine-ending length as well. Tricky, but do-able. And then the penultimate line (Else call it winter, which, being full of care), which requires both syllables of being to be unstressed in order for the meter to work. Very tricky stuff, Mr. S!
Analysis: In the first four lines, Shakespeare addresses love - but love as a notion or spirit or emotion. He implicitly compares love to appetite (for food), urging love to stay keener/sharper than the appetite for food, which is quickly satisfied today, returning again tomorrow. His analogy, therefore, is read by some people to be a comparison between lust (appetite for "love") and hunger (appetite for food).
In the second four lines, the "love" he addresses is a person (the Fair Youth), urging him not to get his head turned by others, but to realize that even if he's tired of it today, his "hunger" will return tomorrow. The use of the word "dullness" is probably to indicate depression or apathy, and not, say, stupidity. The poem is a wish that absence will make the heart grow fonder, essentially.
The volta or "turn", a characteristic element of any good sonnet, occurs in the next four lines, where Shakespeare turns his attention to his actual point: he and the Fair Youth, in love though they are, have been separated for a time. Although the precise circumstance is not clear - whether they are actually at some distance from one another, or are merely precluded from spending time together as they might wish - Shakespeare finds an analogy for their circumstance. He makes reference to the physical separation of amorous young lovers separated by an ocean, waiting eagerly to see the other person once again. This particular set-up sounds like a reference to the story of Hero and Leander, which I discussed a bit in this post about Romeo & Juliet du
0 Comments on Sonnet 56 by William Shakespeare as of 1/1/1900
I’ve never written a manuscript I didn’t revise many, many times. I’ll look for different things at different times. I’ll have a list in mind. The “Do I have this? Do I have that? list. Some examples of questions I might ask myself to clarify and strengthen the manuscript are—
Does this scene have enough physical detail? Does it have too much physical detail? Is it clear what my characters want? Is it clear what they don’t want? Is it clear what’s in the way of what they want? Is it clear what their strengths/weaknesses are? Is there an arc to character? What’s the main conflict? What’s the conflict in this scene? What’s the big picture? What are some themes I’m after? Is the voice clear throughout? Where are the weak sentences? Is there any place I got lazy? Is each chapter pushing the story forward? Is something at stake in the story? Is the pacing right?
My point here is that there’s a time during revision where you have to be more analytical. The story is in place and the characters are real and your manuscript feels like all the elements are fitting together. To get to this evolutionary moment in the manuscript, you had to depend on your creative side: instinct and imagination and inspiration. But now you need the analytical side that evaluates. You have to distance yourself a little and look at the manuscript in a different way. Both sides are usually needed to make manuscripts successful.
Immediately following "Her Voice" in published collections comes "My Voice". I believe that Wilde intended for the poems to be a dialogue, most likely between either his wife or his former girlfriend, noted beauty Florence Balcombe Stoker (she dumped Wilde and married Bram Stoker) and himself. Whether the conversation is based on something that occurred in actuality or is merely played out in his mind, I think it apparent that "Her Voice" was intended by Wilde to be the words of the woman in a failing relationship, and "My Voice" to be his version of events. First the poems, then the analysis. As always, I hope you can read these aloud wherever you are - they are so much better that way, and the first poem in particular is magnificent.
Her Voice by Oscar Wilde
The wild bee reels from bough to bough With his furry coat and his gauzy wing. Now in a lily-cup, and now Setting a jacinth bell a-swing, In his wandering; Sit closer love: it was here I trow I made that vow,
Swore that two lives should be like one As long as the sea-gull loved the sea, As long as the sunflower sought the sun,— It shall be, I said, for eternity ’Twixt you and me! Dear friend, those times are over and done, Love’s web is spun.
Look upward where the poplar trees Sway and sway in the summer air, Here in the valley never a breeze Scatters the thistledown, but there Great winds blow fair From the mighty murmuring mystical seas, And the wave-lashed leas.
Look upward where the white gull screams, What does it see that we do not see? Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams On some outward voyaging argosy,— Ah! can it be We have lived our lives in a land of dreams! How sad it seems.
Sweet, there is nothing left to say But this, that love is never lost, Keen winter stabs the breasts of May Whose crimson roses burst his frost, Ships tempest-tossed Will find a harbour in some bay, And so we may.
And there is nothing left to do But to kiss once again, and part, Nay, there is nothing we should rue, I have my beauty,—you your Art, Nay, do not start, One world was not enough for two Like me and you.
My Voice by Oscar Wilde
Within this restless, hurried, modern world We took our hearts’ full pleasure—You and I, And now the white sails of our ship are furled, And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan, For very weeping is my gladness fled, Sorrow hath paled my lip’s vermilion, And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to thee No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell Of viols, or the music of the sea That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
Both poems talk about the end of a relationship, but the voices are very different. Completely intentional, of course - that's why he's made clear that he's presenting things in different voices. He doesn't just mean that he's conveying the words of two different people; he's writing from completely different points of view. In "Her Voice", he's not saying, "look, this is what I heard her say," he's saying "as an author, I am stepping into her shoes, and this is how it is from her point of view."
It's not just the structure of the poems, but the word choices and the viewpoint as well. Both parties speak with regret, but it's clear that their points of regret differ. The woman that Wilde channels in "Her Voice" uses far more words and a more embellished way of making her point (as women are often wont to do); the man's version is shorter, and assumes far more of the weight of responsibility for the relationship's failure. The woman seems to indicate that she loves the man, but just can't stay in the relationship anymore; the man seems to feel crushing sorrow, and may be sickly; further, he notes that "Ruin draws the curtains of my bed". All of this comports with the facts of Wilde's life: Having been sent to jail for "gross indecency", he emerged a sickly, ruined man. His wife, who never divorced him, changed her and their sons' last name to Holland, and terminated Wilde's parental rights. Bram Stoker (husband to Florence) remained friendly with Wilde and visited him on the Continent after he left England.
Discussion of form: In "Her Voice", the first four lines and the sixth line each have four stressed (or accented syllables), and the fifth and seventh line of each stanza has two stressed syllables. The short lines are mostly iambs (taDUM), but not always. Each of the six stanzas uses the following end-rhyme scheme within it: ABABBAA. The fluidity of the form (with the two shorter lines and the way the end-rhymes mix about) gives the poem a lightness, as well as a more emotional feel due to the ebb and flux of the lines.
In "My Voice", there are only three stanzas (half as many as in "Her Voice"), and they are written in quatrains (four-line stanzas) using a very traditional rhyme and metre: ABAB rhyme in iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM). "His" poem sounds more regimented and less emotional as a result of its rigid metre scheme.
In addition to discussing parting and loss, both poems make reference to dreams. In "Her Voice," the speaker talks about how she promised forever (and oh the swoony goodness of those declarations about sunflowers and seagulls!), but now feels that they were living inside a dream. The real world has turned up to burst the bubble: "Ah! can it be/We have lived our lives in a land of dreams! How sad it seems." Now that she's living in reality, she's come to take her leave. "Sweet, there is nothing left to say/But this, that love is never lost". She adds references to nature's cycles (May's roses and winter's frost) and to the idea of ships finding safe harbor, both of which are references to life going on. The final stanza, "And there is nothing left to do/But to kiss once again, and part,/Nay, there is nothing we should rue/I have my beauty,—you your Art" invokes for me echoes of Byron's "When We Two Parted", particularly when I read the two poems together and put together the ideas of ruin and paleness and the sense of wasting that is in "My Voice". (That's just my association, by the way - there's no evidence that Wilde went there himself.)
As a final point, I want to look at the final stanza of "My Voice", where the male speaker (who I will assume is actually Wilde) observes that while he is left wasted and in ruin, the woman is free to move on with her life. The problems that have brought them to the point of parting are a dream-like sort of noise, that she can set aside and move away from. One can, after all, hear the ocean inside a shell, but one can also put the shell down and walk away from it.
But all this crowded life has been to thee No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell Of viols, or the music of the sea That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
0 Comments on Her Voice and My Voice by Oscar Wilde as of 5/19/2009 11:35:00 AM
Yesterday's post was "The First Violet" by Karl Egon Ebert, which was completely evocative of Spring. And here in the mountains of New Hampshire, Spring is just now starting to spring: the forsythia, tulips and daffodils are out, the trees are in bud, the snowmelt is racing in the stream outside my window. And so it was that I came to today's poem choice:
Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
On the surface, this is a poem about spring, and early growth of plants and leaves, when the first yellow greens appear on the trees. In the fifth line, the leaves are just leaves, but use of the word "subsides" shows a settling or falling sort of motion. And then the sixth line is the "turn," where Frost gets to his real topic. The subsidance of leaves reminds him of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Dawn is lost, but day remains. And then that last, killer line with a fatalistic ring to it, decrees that "Nothing gold can stay."
It can be taken to mean that nothing can stay gold, but I think it means that nothing can stay young. For me, the poem is about the transient nature of youth, with a hint of loss. And in my mind today, remembering this poem (I don't yet have it committed to memory, but I sure remembered the leaf references), I thought that "Nothing gold can stay" suited the brilliant-gold of the autumn leaves quite well. And so, evidently, did Robert Frost. Here are the last three lines of this poem from an earlier draft, at a time when the poem was called "Nothing Golden Stays":
In autumn she achieves A still more golden blaze But nothing golden stays.
Today's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," was first published in 1923, in The Yale Review. But Frost played around with it for several years, and several earlier versions of it exist. The earliest of these other versions was sent to a friend in 1920, and ended as you see above.
Frost's initial focus was on the evanescent quality of new growth. Buds are golden before green. Leaves appear to be flowers before they unfold and "subside" to be leaves. Trees burst forth in color again in the fall, then the leaves subside once and for all to earth. In later revisions, he decided to universalize the poem more. By introducing the idea of Eden, Frost injects a human element into the poem without spelling it out. The sinking of Eden is a reference to the "fall of man," but it echoes the idea of transience: Eden was short-lived, but the rest of man's time on earth has been much longer. Dawn, usually the time when the sun rises, is describes in falling terms as well, but dawn "goes down" to the bright light of day. Is that really a decline, or an improvement? Again, dawn is transient and over quickly, but day lasts far longer. Perhaps, then, Eden was transient, and the longer time spent after the fall is to be preferred? Is our preference for "gold" really such a good thing? Is not the long day better than the short dawn? Is not the summer longer and more durable than the budding spring? Is it not worth our while to recognize that youth's a stuff will not endure* and to appreciate our adulthood?
The poem concludes strongly, for a number of reasons:
"Nothing gold can stay."
Why does that line pack such a wallop?
Well, first, looking at metre, it is different than all the rest. The first seven lines are essentially iambic (a two-syllable poetic foot in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable, ta-TUM), although the first line has an oddball because "nature" is usually read NAture, not naTURE. The first seven lines each have six syllables to them. That last line has only five. And it's trochaic, with a truncated ending. (Don't panic - it means that it has two-syllable feet that are trochees, in which a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable, TUM-ta, but that the last foot only has one syllable, which is accented, so the line reads TUM-ta TUM ta TUM.)
It's written in rhymed couplets. Not just any rhymed couplets, either: but end-stopped rhymed couplets (which is to say that each line logically pauses at the end, where the commas and periods and semicolon can be found). This could easily become sing-songy in the wrong hands, yet Frost manages his images well enough that I find myself not truly noticing the rhyminess of it on a conscious level. Particularly if I read it aloud (as one should), where the pause after a comma is not as long as that created by a semicolon or a period. Especially since the lines "So Eden sank to grief,/So dawn goes down to day" form a single sentence, and don't rhyme with one another. Instead, they create a break before that last line, which stands alone.
Second, looking at word choice, the line begins with a negative: "Nothing." While there have been hints at loss and falling and evanescence throughout the poem, creating a vaguely melancholy tone, this word is aggressively negative. Also, as written that last line can be read as a command, rather than as a commentary on loss. It is a far broader statement than any that comes before it, generalized as it is to all things (in the negative). Gold cannot stay.
A possible stretch: While folks don't usually interpret the poem this way, one could stretch so far as to say that gold in that last line might not refer to the "just-Spring" qualities in the poem (with a nod to e.e. cummings), but could refer as well to money, which one cannot, after all, take with them.
For some other commentaries on the poem, check out these essays over at Modern American Poetry. The second one, analyzing it from a linguistic point of view, is fascinating to me, although I'm sure most people don't have the patience for it.
I should note that this poem is well-known to a lot of readers of the S.E. Hinton novel, The Outsiders, which both M and S read in middle school.
"That's a sad poem," said S. "It was used in The Outsiders. Have you ever read that book?"
The answer is that I haven't. In the time and town where I grew up, once you were done with children's books, you moved on to grown-up titles. S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, first published in 1967 (when I was three), was clearly around when I was a teen, but I never heard of it until S read it in middle school. But the poem plays a key role in the book in the relationship between the characters Ponyboy and Johnny. Johnny says that the poem's about the importance of appreciating the things you loved in youth, and about staying "golden", or young. And because S so strongly associates the poem with the characters in the book, she finds it sad. And really, it is sad, or at least fatalistic.
What think you?
* The quote "Youth's a stuff will not endure" is the closing line of "O Mistress Mine" by William Shakespeare. It was a song sung by the character Feste in Twelfth Night.
1 Comments on Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost, last added: 5/18/2009
Where can one go from Sara Teasdale's poem, "The Look", with its mention of so many men by name? Well, I chose to focus on the last two lines of Teasdale's poem:
But the kiss in Colin's eyes Haunts me night and day.
Where to focus - on the kiss, or on the eyes? No need to choose when you go with Ben Jonson's lovely "Song: To Celia", a poem later set to music by an unknown composer:
Song: To Celia by Ben Jonson
Drink to me, only, with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst, that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine: But might I of Jove's Nectar sup, I would not change for thine.
I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee, As giving it a hope, that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon did'st only breath, And sent'st it back to me: Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of it self, but thee.
Analysis of the poem: The poem is written in two eight-line stanzas, each rhymed ABCBABCB DEFEDEFE, with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM) and iambic trimeter (three iambic feet, taDUM taDUM taDUM). It's easy to hear how all the short lines of each stanza rhyme with one another; the cross-rhyming of the longer lines is more subtle, but adds an extra coherence to the poem without feeling quite as formulaic as it might have had he used an ABABCBCB rhyme or something similar.
History:
The poem was written by Ben Jonson, who lived from 1572 to 1637. Jonson was a well-educated man who wrote poetry and plays beginning in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, rather like one of the young actors in his 1598 play Every Man in His Humour: William Shakespeare, the author of yesterday's bonus poem. See how well everything is tying together for my National Poetry Month festival?
Jonson led a rather dramatic life. He was a soldier with Francis Verre in the Netherlands for a while, then a (bad) actor and (good) playwright. He married a woman whom he described as "a shrew, but honest". After cowriting a play called The Isle of Dogs with Thomas Nashe, Jonson was put in prison for "lewd and mutinous behavior" (the Elizabethan spellings are more fun: "leude and mutynous"). A year later he was back in jail for having killed an actor in a duel. He pleaded guilty, but was later released under "benefit of clergy", for which he gave up all his goods and chattels, was branded on his left thumb and had to recite a short Bible verse in Latin. All of this was before he began to achieve success with Every Man in His Humour. Jonson became more successful still under James I.
A recording of this song: When I first posted this poem in February of this year, I included a video of a young voice major. Today, I offer you a recording of Richard Tauber. Although the audio is a little scratchy, the tempo and feel is much more what I like in a performance of this song, which is why it's here for you today:
1 Comments on Song: To Celia by Ben Jonson, last added: 4/27/2009
Richard Tauber was already seriously ill with lung cancer when this broadcast was recorded for transmission the following day. Three weeks later, he gave his heroic final performance as Don Ottavio at Covent Garden, and a few days after that his left lung was removed in Guy's Hospital. He died on 8th January 1948. Dan O'Hara
In honor of Earth Day, a "bonus" poem for this month's ongoing celebration of National Poetry Month, and one that many folks I know can recite in whole or in part from memory, particularly the first two lines:
Trees by Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
Analysis of the poem: The poem is written in iambic tetrameter (four iambic feet per line, taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM) in rhymed couplets. Its apparent simplicity has led to quite a number of parodies over the year, including one by Ogden Nash bemoaning the abundance of billboards along the road. Despite its simple form and somewhat sentimental nature, I cannot help but love this poem, so here it is.
About Joyce Kilmer: He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1886. He taught Latin for a while, then worked for Funk and Wagnalls defining words for their dictionary (5 cents per word defined). He published his first book of verse in 1911, and in 1913, his poem "Trees" appeared in Poetry Magazine, leading to nearly immediate popularity as a poet. In 1917, Kilmer enlisted in the military and headed off to war. He died in 1918 on a scouting mission to locate a German machine gun. He's buried in France, with a memorial and a Turnpike rest area dedicated to him in New Jersey, along with a number of schools in New Jersey and elsewhere, a park in the Bronx, and a forest in North Carolina.
0 Comments on Trees by Joyce Kilmer as of 4/22/2009 10:59:00 PM
Yesterday's poem was the most famous rondeau of the English language, In Flanders Fields by John McCrae. Today's poem was selected because of its title:
Rondeau by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.
The official title of the poem is "Rondeau", although it is often called "Jenny Kissed Me" as well. Unlike an actual rondeau, this poem is a single stanza of eight lines, with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCD. It is written using trochaic feet (DUMta DUMta DUMta) in a form of hymn meter, with the following syllable counts: 7-8-7-8-7-8-7-4. What it shares with yesterday's rondeau (in addition to calling itself by that form's name) is the use of the first three words (or first four syllables, if you prefer) as its "refrain", with the poem beginning and ending with those same three words.
The poem is semi-autobiographical. Leigh Hunt had been seriously ill with influenza; upon visiting his friends Thomas Carlyle and his wife, Jane Welsh Carlyle (nicknamed "Jenny"), she jumped up and kissed him. Leigh Hunt wrote the poem as a tribute.
Although I think this poem reads like something from the first half of the 20th century, it was in fact written nearly a century earlier, during early Victorian times. James Henry Leigh Hunt was born in England in 1784, and lived until 1859. He was a good friend of both Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats, and introduced Keats to Italian poetry as well as personally introducing Keats to Shelley. Leigh Hunt was also an essayist and newspaper writer. He was also the person on whom Charles Dickens based the character of Skimpole in Bleak House.
0 Comments on Rondeau by James Henry Leigh Hunt as of 4/22/2009 10:59:00 PM
Hello, Kelly,
I just discovered your blog today. Thank you for your interesting discussion of Sonnet 55. Thanks also for the link to your comments on "Ozymandias." There is a verse from Byron's "Don Juan" that has a similar theme (it's from Canto One, CCXIX), and, I suppose, it is a sort of antithesis to your Shakespeare entry from today:
What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging,
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.
Mike