ELIT 48CClass # 21

Alumna?

Alumnae?

Alumnus?

Alumn

i?

crises

crisis

criteriaCriterion

phenomena

phenomenon

Just so you know

alumna/alumnae; alumnus/alumni: literally “foster daughter” and “foster son,” these words refer in American usage to graduates of an educational institution. Most universities tend to use the masculine forms only.

crisis/crises: singular crisis (krahy-sis). Latin plural crises (krahy-seez). You can have one crisis and several crises

criterion/criteria: One judges the worth of a book according to a set of criteria. One criterion might be style. Another criterion might be accuracy.

phenomenon/phenomena A tornado is a phenomenon of Nature. Other phenomena are earthquakes, thunderstorms, and floods.

Chair Poet?

'Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.'

Robert Frost

AGENDA

Lyric Poetry “The Snow Man” 1923 “The Emperor of Ice

Cream” 1923 Author Introduction:

William Faulkner

Lyric Poetry

Lyric poetry has a long history. Its most basic definition is poetry that has a rhythmic quality that makes it able to be sung. Originally, it was accompanied by a lyre.

Lyric poetry is likewise identified by its expression of intense, personal emotion. It is quite powerful because it draws readers into personal worlds. It is often, but not always, written in the present tense.

Lyric Modernists?

Modernist poetry is generally a turning away from inherited models of poetry.

With the imagist movement, poets distanced themselves from the reliance on musicality and the richness of sound, focusing instead on the complexities of image, the precision of words, and the directness of language.

T.S. Eliot says, in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” that “poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion.” Yet, lyric poetry seems to be about emotion.

How is it Possible?

Wallace Stevens says in “The Figure of the Youth as Virile Poet,” that “It is the mundo of the imagination in which the imaginative man delights and not the gaunt world of reason. The pleasure is the pleasure of powers that create a truth that cannot be arrived at by the reason alone, a truth that the poet recognizes by sensation.”

Wallace Stevens’ lyrical poetry is modern in that it is a continued and methodical experiment with new ways of using language, another focus of the moderns.

THE POETRY OF WALLACE STEVENS

Discussion

The Snow Man By Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winterTo regard the frost and the boughsOf the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long timeTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to thinkOf any misery in the sound of the wind,In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the landFull of the same windThat is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,And, nothing himself, beholdsNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Paraphrase?

QHQ: “The Snow Man”

1. Q: What is he trying to say here?1. “For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholdsNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”

2. Q: Was Stevens alluding to those that do not think outside the box as mere Snow Men, lifeless creatures who will soon melt and die?

3. Q: Does winter represent the poor? 4. Q: Could [Stevens’s] poem be describing a

relationship possibly coming to an end? 5. Could “The Snow Man” be used to explain why

lesbian and gay critical theories are grouped together when they have very varying qualities?

The Emperor Of Ice-CreamBy Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,The muscular one, and bid him whipIn kitchen cups concupiscent curds.Let the wenches dawdle in such dressAs they are used to wear, and let the boysBring flowers in last month's newspapers.Let be be finale of seem.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal.Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheetOn which she embroidered fantails onceAnd spread it so as to cover her face.If her horny feet protrude, they comeTo show how cold she is, and dumb.Let the lamp affix its beam.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Paraphrase?

QHQ: “The Emperor of Ice Cream”

1. Q: Did Stevens regard this poem as positive, and life-affirming, or depressing in its nihilism?

2. Q: Steven Wallace uses a peculiar choice of words within his poem “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” Why use the word “horny” to describe feet?

3. Q: Is Stevens writing about Jack the Ripper (a killer of prostitutes) in “The Emperor of Ice-Cream?”

4. Q: Why would Wallace Stevens choose an “Emperor” and “Ice Cream”?

William FaulknerAUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

William Faulkner, shown here in 1954, believed it was a writer's duty to write about the compassion and endurance of people

Novelist William Faulkner knew the South well. He spent most of his life there, and wrote with compassion about family, community, and the people he knew. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897, Faulkner created the legendary Yoknapatawpha County. Its fictitious population includes Southern white aristocrats, merchants, farmers, poor whites, and persecuted blacks. Faulkner told how the South is still affected by its past. "The past is never dead," he wrote. "It's not even past." http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/progress/

jb_progress_faulkner_1.html

HOMEWORK

Read: “Barn Burning” 800-12Post #21 QHQ

“Barn Burning”

Exam #1