The School Children

I found myself drawn to this poem because of its interesting spin on the commonly covered topic of first sending a child off to school. As I have never personally gone through the experience of seeing a child off to school for the first time, I found it intriguing to look at this experience through the eyes of a worried mother. In this poem, she cannot help but to visualize her worst nightmares of life at school "on the other shore" where her child is put in the care of a stanger. She see's the teachers as gods, sitting behind their "great desks" and waiting to receive the "offerings" she has "labored" to provide all morning. Her dark tone continues as she describes in the third stanza how the children will all hang their brightly colored overcoats on the "orderly nails." There is a sense that through this act the children are somehow committing an act of submission to their new rulers and beginning the first stage of throwing away their bright youth in exchange for a more orderly, structured future. In the end the mother realizes that she can try to fight this new-found presence, but it will ultimately be a fruitless effort. It is a dark poem indeed, but it is also interesting for its odd, new views on an old topic.

"Tichborne's Elegy

I should start off by saying that I know absolutely nothing about Chidiock Tichborne. I don't know how old he was when he was executed or why he was being executed. This poem is so personal however, that I definately feel that I know something about him. The most powerful line in the poem to me is the one that is repeated in all three stanzas: "And now I live, and now my life is done." The lines that come before it in the stanza each tell something personal about Tichborne. He cannot be happy because he is full of pain, he should be full of growth yet is stunted, and the one sentiment that is repeated in each stanza a different way: he is full of life and yet his life is done. I have no idea what this means, but its interesting to note that the first three lines of the first two stanzas start with "My" and the first three lines of the last stanza start with "I." In addition to feeling the pain of a man sentenced to die, this poem makes mans mortality very real and present. Despite its darkness, I really like this poem.

"Those Winter Sundays" Reflection

The poem "Those Winter Sundays" is written of Hayden looking back at his childhood in the present time. The first stanza Hayden uses both "blueblack cold" which depicts the cold and dark setting, until later in the stanza when his father "made banked fires blaze," which contrasts the blueblack cold. This highlights the main purpose of the poem, to appreciate his fathers love for him as his father got up early in the morning and "[drove] out the cold." The most powerful part of the poem comes at the end, where he asks "what did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices." The repetition of "what did I know" makes the emphasis on him not understanding his fathers love as a youth as he was in fear of the "chronic angers of that house." The use of the phrase "love's austere and lonely offices" is very interesting because it observes love (the subject) as bitter and lonely unlike most other depictions of love that are happy and have a positive tone. He looks at the other side of love, the selfless love of a parent that receives no appreciation or recognition until their child becomes old enough (or have a child themselves) to understand their parents sacrifice. I also like how the poet mentions "the chronic angers of that house" because it means that not all was perfect and this was not the perfect father. There were problems, like all houses, yet he develops a great deal of respect for his father and his "cracked hands" from tough manual labor to provide for his family.

Plath's poem, Morning Song

Lilly said...
I thought Sylvia Plath’s Morning Song was an appropriate poem after reading about traditional genres of poetry because Plath’s poem conveys a mother and the birth of her child. The “gold watch” symbolizes the starting of a baby’s life which becomes definite when the baby cries; therefore, joining the “elements” and the natural order of life. I think this poem is very interesting because it embodies three perspectives; the mother, the child, and the witnesses to the birth. The mother’s tone is wistful because she is “no more” the mother. After all, the mother did carry the child for nine months and now this piecet of her has become its own “element.” No longer is the baby within her, but rather the newborn has undergone the transition from being engulfed in a cocoon like womb to blossoming into a “moth.” I think the mother speaks as if she suffers from post-partem depression. The poem also takes the perspective of the child and the phenomena of growing life and learning. For example, the baby learns throughout the poem and in the last line speaks “clear vowels.” Lastly, Plath subtly reveals the tone of the viewers of the birth through the baby’s “nakedness.” The viewers off the birth are relieved to be clothed unlike the newborn. Also, the viewers are “standing round blankly as walls” because they are uncomfortable and dumbstruck by the concept of birth.
January 27, 2008 7:23 PM

Study Notes for "To His Coy Mistress"

Well, that's fairly self-explanatory, isn't it? These notes are intended to help you "find your way into" the poems and novels we'll be reading this semester. Unless otherwise specified, you're not required to respond to them in a formal manner, but you're most welcome to discuss them here.

Link

Response to Dove Poem

Upon reviewing Rite Dove's poem I found the stanza spacing at the end of the poem particularly interesting. The last two stanzas both take place in Dove's home but each expresses the pressures her father places on her differently. The second to last stanza aptly describes the imposing nature of her father and his desire for her to learn math through the flashcards. His laid back but firm attitude sharply contrasts the image of Dove after she retreats to her room. A bedroom is usually seen as a place of rest and reprieve. Instead for Dove it is a place of conflicting hopes; that of pleasing her father and that of pursuing what she wants. Dove tries to find peace in sleeping but instead finds herself anxious over the route memorization her father asks of her versus the beautiful simplicity of the images she wishes to express. Dove's choice of ending the second to last stanza and starting the last one as she does helps to emphasize this conflict.

Extra Thought on "They Flee from Me"

After we discussed the poem in class, it reminded of Yeat's "The Wild Swans at Coole". If I remember correctly, the idea of using an animal in place of the actual lover was also employed in Yeat's piece.

In Yeat's poem, he is walking around a lake where there are swans, and he has been there before, when he was deeply in love with a woman (who I believe eventually went to marry another man). Yet now, when Yeats sees these swans, after his beloved has left him, he sees how they are in pairs, how they are lovers, and he is without one.

The poem is on page 171 of the anthology, but here is one passage that I think shows what I am trying to say.

"Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still."

I hope someone else has read this poem and can give me some feedback on my thoughts.

Robert Hayden reading "Those Winter Sundays"

Here's an mp3 of Hayden reading his poem.

On Wyatt's "They flee from me"

From the Poets.org site:

... Wyatt became acquainted with Anne Boleyn, the king's mistress and soon-to-be wife. Scholars have pointed to suggestions in his poems (particularly "Whoso List to Hunt") and other anecdotal evidence to posit that he was Boleyn's lover. It is difficult, however, to firmly establish their relationship. In 1536 Wyatt was arrested shortly after five men alleged to have been Boleyn's lovers were imprisoned. Boleyn herself was imprisoned and executed for adultery. Wyatt spent only one month in the Tower and shortly thereafter regained Henry's favor. He would serve Henry VIII in various offices in England and abroad for the remainder of his life, and by all accounts was an accomplished diplomat.

It has also been suggested that the "she" referred to in Wyatt's "They flee from me" is in fact Boleyn as well. The collective "they" referred to in the first stanza are both the speaker's beloved and the tame deer that were raised by the court of Henry VIII, set free in order to become "wild" again, and eventually hunted by the upper class to which Wyatt belonged.

Link

Welcome

Welcome to the course blog for Eng120p. This is the place for you to post your comments or questions about assigned readings, subjects mentioned in class, or just about anything at all having to do with the close reading of literature.

I'll start by mentioning a useful website, Poets.org, by the Academy of American Poets (there's also a link to it on the main course page). By all means check it out: in addition to a selection of poems from a wide range of poets, it features biographical information, links to criticism, and in many cases, audio files of the poets reading their poems. Here, for example, is their entry on Rita Dove, the author of "Flash Cards," which we shall discuss tomorrow.

Do you have any suggestions about how to make this blog a more useful resource? If so, please do let me know!