FIRST UPa little bit of catch up from

FIRST UP---a little bit of catch up from last week, and something interesting I found!

Yeats’ “The Second Coming” • This poem relies heavily on Christian imagery. • Many poems in English rely on Christian imagery or other Western Judeo-Christian mythic imagery. • If you aren’t familiar with these references, a quick Google can be very enlightening. • The dominant idea/reference in this poem is of the second coming of Christ, a time that is supposed to usher in the end of the world and a new era of peace for the faithful in heaven. • This poem, however, radically upsets those expectations. • Any guesses as to what historical event might have influenced the bleak outlook of this poem?

References in Literature and Pop Culture to Yeats “The Second Coming” • Chinua Achebe's watershed English-language novel Things Fall Apart takes its title from the poem. The fourth album by hip • • • • hop band, The Roots, Things Fall Apart is inspired by the Chinua Achebe novel. [4] DC Comics' series Batman: The Widening Gyre, written by Kevin Smith, and illustrated by Walter Flanagan, was titled after the opening line of this poem and draws heavily on Yeats' themes and symbolism. Joan Didion's non-fiction collection Slouching Toward Bethlehem takes its title from this poem. This adaptation of a line in the poem has become an idiom, using the phrase "Slouching Toward. . . " to indicate lumbering movement towards an end, such as the title Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork Clive Barker's novel Weaveworld quotes the poem and features imagery from it. Stephen King's novel The Stand quotes the poem and heavily references the poem throughout the book. Many plot points parallel lines from the poem. Woody Allen's 2008 collection of comedy writings "Mere Anarchy" takes its title from the poem. Ethan James' album What Rough Beast and its title track are based on Yeats's poem. Night Ride Home, Joni Mitchell's 1991 album, contains a song based on the poem – "Slouching towards Bethlehem". The Bright Eyes titular track, Four Winds, draws inspiration from Yeats's poem. This is most obviously seen in the appropriation of the poem's closing in the following refrain: "And it's the Sum of Man slouching towards Bethlehem. " Several episodes of the TV series Andromeda, depicting a universe in chaos following a great war, are named after phrases from this poem ("Its Hour Come Round at Last", "In the Widening Gyre", and "Pitiless as the Sun"). Season 6, episode 21 of The West Wing is titled "Things Fall Apart" Season 4/Episode 4 of Angel, is titled "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" In the HBO TV series The Sopranos, the episode "The Second Coming" is titled after the poem and features it prominently. Also, in the episode "Cold Cuts, " Dr. Melfi quotes the poem to Tony Soprano in a therapy session. Furthermore, the poem is quoted in the series finale "Made in America". Season 3, episode 5 of Sons of Anarchy is titled "Turning and Turning" and episode 7 is titled "Widening Gyre". In Season 2, episode 2 Revelations (Babylon 5), Gkar recites part of The Second Coming during the closing segment. Season 3, episode 1 of Heroes is titled "The Second Coming". The storyline has some parallels to the poem, which is also quoted in its entirety as a voiceover during the last minutes of the episode. Sludge metal band The Body used the opening lines of the poem as part of the lyrics to their song Even the Saints Knew their Hour of Failure and Loss. [5]

Love in Literature Examples from Poetry

Love as a Theme in Literature Not always about “happy” love Sometimes tragic, sometimes about the LOSS of love Sometimes about sex rather than love Sometimes about admiration, flirtation, or regret Sometimes more about the IDEA of love than love itself Sometimes about the complexities of love, and therefore can be difficult to interpret • Often contain lots of imagery, and often nature imagery • • •

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote “How Do I Love Thee” in 1850, and it remains on of the most well-known and often quoted love poems in English. • She and her husband, poet Robert Browning, had what seems to be a bit of a reallife love story. • She was a fragile and sick woman who was forced to live at home with an extremely controlling father, but wrote beautiful poetry. • He was the famous poet who fell in love with her poems and wrote passionate, scandalous letters to her, eventually convincing her to run away with him. • They married and spent the rest of their lives travelling in Europe and writing poetry. They had their ups and downs, but by all accounts a very happy and successful relationship.

“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (p. 693) and “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” p. (699) • Both of these poems are pastoral poems. This means that they idealize and romanticize life in the country as pure, carefree, and idyllic (peaceful). • “The Nymph’s Reply” was written in direct response to the first poem. Poets who were familiar with each others’ work would often respond to one another in this way.

Pastoral Paintings

Questions for “Passionate Shepherd” and “The Nymph’s Reply” “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” • How does the shepherd depict the life that he is offering his beloved? • What does he do to try to convince her to come be with him? • Does this romanticized view of nature detract from the poem as a "love poem, " or add to it? “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” • How does the nymph answer the shepherd's offer? Why? • How does the speaker in this poem put "her" own twist on the ideas in "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"? • Do you see any similarities between this poem and "Shall I Compare Thee“ or any other poems you read for homework?

Shakespeare’s Sonnets • What is a Sonnet, anyway? • A sonnet has 14 lines. • A sonnet must be written in iambic pentameter • A sonnet must follow a specific rhyme scheme, depending on the type of sonnet. • A sonnet can be about any subject, though they are often about love or nature. • A sonnet introduces a problem or question in the beginning, and a resolution is offered after the turn.

Iambic Pentameter • A line of Iambic Pentameter is a line with ten beats. • An “Iamb” is two beats, or one “foot. ” • A “foot” is made of an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable (in that order). • “Penta” is five (line has five “feet”). • “Meter” is the rhythm of the poem.

• Quite simply, iambic pentameter sounds like this: dee DUM, dee DUM. It consists of a line of five iambic feet, ten syllables with five unstressed and five stressed syllables. It is the first and last sound we ever hear, it is the rhythm of the human heart beat. 12 The Heartbeat of Shakespeare

English Sonnet • The rhyme scheme is • An English Sonnet is often the specific type of • A sonnet Shakespeare • B was writing. • A • It includes three • B quatrains (groups of • C four lines) and a • D • C couplet (two lines). • D • The “turn” is either • E after eight lines or ten • F lines. • E • F • G

Shakespeare’s Sonnets • “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” • Also known as Sonnet 116 • Shakespeare did not give titles to his sonnets, so all of his sonnets have been “named” after either the first line of the sonnet or after their “number” in the order they were published. Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a) Admit impediments. Love is not love (b) Which alters when it alteration finds, (a) Or bends with the remover to remove: (b) O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, (c) That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d) It is the star to every wandering bark, (c) Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. (d) Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e) Within his bending sickle's compass come; (f) Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e) But bears it out even to the edge of doom. (f) If this be error and upon me proved, (g) I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)

What does it mean? – Let me not declare any reasons why two True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances or person, Or bends when someone tries to remove it: Oh no! it is a target that never moves That sees storms but it never shaken; Love is the guiding north-star to every lost ship, Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured. Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty Comes within the compass (range) of his sickle. Love does not alter with hours and weeks, But, rather, it endures until the last day of life. If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love Then I never wrote anything of value, and no man has ever [truly] loved. 15 a contemporary English Translation

“Tonight I Can Write" p. 695 By Pablo Neruda We move forward in history several hundred years here, but many of themes, if not the treatment of those themes, remain the same. • What differences/similarities between this poem and the other do you notice? • How does the attitude toward love in this poem compare to the others we read for today? • Look at specific lines in them poems as you make your comparisons. • See also “What My Lips Have Kissed” p. 638 by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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