Meaning and Idea What does this mean Little

Meaning and Idea: What does this mean? Little Jack Horner Sat in a corner Eating a Christmas pie. He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said, “What a good boy am I? ”

What’s the Difference? Prose Meaning • The idea that is contained within the poem: – Reduces the poem to a simple idea – Pulling the plum out of the pie Total Meaning • The experience that communicates the idea within it. – Recognizing the meaning that comes from the entire poem, not just the idea behind it. – Eating the whole pie

Example 1: A. E. Housman Pro Me se ani ng LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. The pretty cherry tree is blooming, but covered in snow before Easter Now, of my threescore years and ten, I am 20, so out of the 70 Twenty will not come again, years of my life, I will only And take from seventy springs a score, see 50 more springs. It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow 50 springs is not enough time, so I will go out of my way to look at these snow covered cherry trees.

Example 2: Robert Frost The guy who owns these woods lives in town, so he won’t see me stopping to watch the snow. There is no sound but the Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening horse’s bells and the wind. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, My horse must be confused about stopping at night in the cold on the Winter Solstice And miles to go before I sleep. It would be nice to stay, but I have to keep going before I rest because I made promises.

But Are Those the Total Meanings? • Diction – Connotation/denotation Stopping… Loveliest… The cherry trees are images The woods are images of of the beauty of spring, that natural beauty, that the speaker recognizes as • Comparisons speaker has little time to important to enjoy—but their snow covered blooms also admire (shown in repetition of – Metaphors, similes, personification, apostrophe symbolize time and the last line)—but also symbolize impermanence of the larger life conflict we all • Allusion seasons/ages---Implying that face---desire for rest, and the one had better enjoy it when precedence of our responsibilities—embodied in it comes because there is no • Symbols the horse’s confusion. second coming —alluded to in “Eastertide”. • Images • Ironies – Paradox, hyperbole, understatement, dramatics

Your Task 1. Read your poem—and write a prose meaning – i. e. Paraphrase each stanza 2. Then, analyze the poem’s use of • • • Diction Images Comparisons Allusion Symbols Ironies 3. How does this add to the total meaning of the piece?

PRESENTING OUR POEMS

Tone incredulous ecstatic • The writer or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the reader, or herself/himself. – despairing (connotation of the entire phrase, paragraph, stanza, or poem) “I am going to get married today” resigned Much harder in text to identify tone correctly.

What is the Tone of this? Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Easier with Comparison For a Lamb Richard Ebyrhart I saw on the slant hill a putrid lamb, Propped with daisies. The sleep looked deep The face nudged in the green pillow But the guts were out for crows to eat. Where’s the lamb? whose tender plaint Said all for the mute breezes. Say he’s in the wind somewhere, Say, there’s a lamb in the daisies. #76 Emily Dickenson APPARENTLY with no surprise To any happy Flower, The Frost beheads it at its play— In accidental power— The blond Assassin passes on— The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God.

Group Analysis 1. Read your poem 2. Determine its prose meaning 3. Determine its Tone— – Write a short paragraph describing the tone & how it is achieved 4. Explain how that helps with the Total Meaning

Poetry Analysis Essay Released Item 2003

1. Walk around the room, and look at the released items 2. Determine what score you got, and write me an argument about why you deserve that score. DO NOW:

Reading for Style/Language

Musical Devices Back to words…. . Selecting words for their SOUND, in addition to their meaning

Word Music is created by Repetition & Variation: The Turtle The turtle lives ‘twixt plated decks Because he lives between two decks, Which practically conceal its sex It’s hard to tell a turtle’s gender. The turtle is a clever beast I think it clever of the turtle In such a plight to be so fertile. In such a fix to be so furtile So why use musical devices?

Repetition of letters Alliteration Assonance Consonance • Repetition of the first letter in a series of words • Repetition of vowel sounds within a series of words • Repetition of consonant sounds at the end of a series of words • Sally sells shells by the sea shore • Mad as a hatter • Eat every elephant • Time out of mind • First and last • Odds and ends

Rhyme Genders • Masculine: involves only one syllable • Decks & sex • Feminine: two or more syllables: • Fertile & turtle Placement Approximate • Internal rhyme: • Slant Rhyme: rhyming words that are within a line: close to in sound, but – Let’s fight tonight! don’t rhyme perfectly – It’ll be alright! • End Rhyme: rhyming words at the end of the lines – Yellow & willow – Lightly & frightful

Refrain • • Repeating whole words, phrases, lines, or groups of lines in a fixed pattern. • Read “The Waking” by Roethke (822)

Things to Remember 1. Repetitions are entirely a matter of sound: spelling is irrelevant – (e. g. bear & pair NOT through & rough) 2. Letter repetitions and masculine rhyme occur on the stressed syllables. – (not which, or its—unimportant words) 3. Words must be close enough together that the ear remembers the sound.

Your Task • Read your poem, and determine if it contains: – Letter repetitions – Rhyme – Refrain • How does the musical element support or enhance the meaning of the poem?

PRESENTING OUR POEMS

Scansion The Rules of Poetic Rhythm and Meter

Rhythm: Any wavelike recurrence of motion or speech Stress • Syllable – to. DAY, – to. MORrow, – YESterday Pause • Punctuation – Comma, period, semicolon, dash • Line endings – End stopped line • Rhetorical stress I don’t believe you. • Line ends in a natural speech pause – Enjambement • The sense of the line moves on without pause to next line – Caesuras • Pauses within a line

Types of Poetry • Prose Poems Harryette Mullen’s “Dim Lady” – Claims to be poetry by its attention to figurative language and other poetic elements – Adheres to the rules of paragraph punctuation and rhetorical stress. My honeybunch’s peepers are nothing like neon. Today’s special at Red Lobster is redder than her kisser. If Liquid Paper is white, her racks are institutional beige. If her mop were Slinkys, dishwater Slinkys would grow on her noggin. I have seen tablecloths in Shakey’s Pizza Parlors, red and white, but no such picnic colors do I see in her mug. And in some minty-fresh mouthwashes there is more sweetness than in the garlic breeze my main squeeze wheezes. I love to hear her rap, yet I’m aware that Muzak has a hipper beat. I don’t know any Marilyn Monroes. My ball and chain is plain from head to toe. And yet, by gosh, my scrumptious Twinkie has as much sex appeal for me as any lanky model or platinum movie idol who’s hyped beyond belief.

Types of Poetry • Free Verse – No prescribed meter – Line as a rhythmic unit is essential Sorrow is my own yard where the new grass flames as it has flamed often before but not with the cold fire that closes round me this year.

Types of Poetry • Metrical Verse – Syllable regularity – Rhythmic language with a clear stress measures (called Meter) Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow

Metrical Feet 1 2 3 4 Whose woods│these are │I think │I know His house │is in │the vil │lage though He will │not see │me stop │ping here To watch │his woods │fill up │with snow

Metrical Feet • • One Foot Two Feet Three Feet Four Feet Five Feet Six Feet Seven Feet Eight Feet = Monometer = Dimeter = Trimeter = Tetrameter = Pentameter = Hexameter = Heptameter = Octameter

Foot Patterns – Stresses u / u / u / Whose woods│these are │I think │I know u / u / u / His house │is in │the vil │lage though u / u / He will │not see │me stop │ping here u / u / To watch │his woods │fill up │with snow

Iambic and Trochaic Both have two syllables per foot • Iambic • • • unstress (away) The fall / ing out / of faith / ful friends Trochaic • • stress unstress (coming) Double / double / toil and / trouble

Iambic and Trochaic Practice Identify each as iambic or trochaic 1. Sunday 8. birthday 2. correct 9. simple 3. believe 10. because 4. dispute 11. sister 5. convey 12. laughter 6. gather 13. music 7. relief 14. attack 15. Create two examples of Iamb. 16. Create two examples of Trochee.

Anapestic and Dactylic • • Both have three syllables per foot Anapestic – u u / (cannonade) – I am mon / arch of all / I survey • Dactylic – / u u (victory) – Take her up / tenderly

Anapestic and Dactylic Practice Identify each as anapestic or dactylic 1. fugitive 8. rhapsody 2. beautiful 9. lemonade 3. contradict 10. syllable 4. alkaline 11. arrogant 5. satisfy 12. indigo 6. understand 13. masquerade 7. disappear 14. interject 15. Create two examples of Anapest. 16. Create two examples of Dactyl.

Spondee and Pyrrhic • Rarely used • Spondee – / / • Pyrrhic – u u / / u u / / And the white breast of the dim sea

Metrical Feet 1. Once upon a midnight dreary 2. Leaf again, life again 3. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me 4. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 5. I am called to the front of the room

Metrical Feet 1. Once upon a midnight dreary – trochaic tetrameter 2. Leaf again, life again – dactylic dimeter 3. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me – iambic heptameter

Metrical Feet 4. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways – iambic pentameter 5. I am called to the front of the room – anapestic trimeter

Other Metrical Terms Ø Amphibrach – Ø A foot with unstressed, unstressed syllables ( U / U ) e. g. Chicago Anàcrusis – – Ø An extra unaccented syllable at the beginning of a line before its regular meter begins Mine / by the right / of the white / election Amphimacer Ø Ø A foot with stressed, unstressed, stressed syllables ( / U / ) e. g. attitude Blank Verse Ø Ø A metered type of poem that uses Iambic pentameter, but does not rhyme. Catalexis – – An extra, usually unaccented syllable at the ending of a line after its regular meter ends I’ll tell / you how / the sun / rose

Your Task 1. Working in groups of three, complete the scansion practice sheet. 2. Be prepared to report out 3. For homework, pick one poem from pages 851 -860, and analyze its rhythm and meter

Before lunch SCANSION QUIZ!

Evaluating Poetry 1 Sentimental, Rhetorical, Didactic Verse

How to Judge Poetry 1. What is its central purpose? 2. How fully has this purpose been accomplished? 3. How important is this purpose?

Failures (according to Perrine’s) • Sentimentality – aiming to stimulate the emotions directly rather than communicating experience in a new way Though my heart is broken I still have to say that we lived a whole life in that year and a day The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long Your singing has stopped but the song still goes on The mercy of time will let others forget But I will remember the day that we met

Failures (according to Perrine’s) • Rhetorical poetry – uses language in a more glittery way than the substance warrants Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, In general synod take away her power; Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, As low as to the fiends!

Failures (according to Perrine’s) • Didactic Poetry – Preaches without subtlety Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise

Your Task • Seven Groups—Which is better & why? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. “God’s Will” & “Pied Beauty” (905 -6) “A Poison Tree” & “The Most Vital Thing” (906 -7) “Lower New York” & “Composed” (907 -8) “Pitcher” & “The Old-Fashioned Pitcher (908 -9) “Piano” & “The Days Gone By” (909 -10) “The Engine” & “I like to see” (910 -11) “When I have fears” & “O Solitude” (912)