Poetry

Write an essay in which you analyze the speaker’s reasons as to why death should not be proud by discussing the figures of speech present within the poem. How do personification, alliteration, and apostrophe contribute to the poem’s tone?Death, be not proudDeath, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie 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 passed, we wake eternally.And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.Source: John Donne, “Death, be not proud,” Perrine’s Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed., eds. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006), 892.

In an essay of 3-5 pages, make explicit the meaning of one of the poems we have read in class, or one listed on the extended assignment description.  Your aim in the explication is to research and respond to the scholarship on the poem, discuss the literary techniques the author employs, and your ultimate understanding of the poem.  Minimum three sources required. MLA documentation required.

I uploaded the files and a video link to complete the assignment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0 Here are the questions: 1. Explore Section 52 of Whitman’s Song of Myself. Note at least two specific lines/images in which Whitman expresses that he is beyond the body-mind. Explain! 2. You’ll find strong use of anaphora in Maya Angelou’s poem, Still I Rise. The refrain is “I’ll rise” or “I rise.” What is this “I” she speaks of, meaning how does Angelou identify her true self? Compare/contrast her ideas of self to those of Whitman.

First read the poem Waste Land. But remember that we are reading Waste Land with an eye towards comprehending not the whole of the poem’s meaning but only one of its ideas or themes: the “idea” or “theme” of “woman in the twentieth century.” Therefore, vitally important is that you first read my Module 12 Lecture and the Cowan article before reading the poem.  Next I’d like you to scan the poem for of its 5 major women characters: Marie  Madame Sostrostis  The Typist The Women (talking) at the Bar Philomel (or Philomela) It has been said that all great literature — i.e., all “classics” of “imperishable fame” — work not by “blatant and obvious explication or explanation” but rather by “subtle and nuanced implication” and “allusion,” and in the case of T.S. Eliot’s poetry, “allusion” is almost always an “allusion” BACK to a so-called dead (but not so dead) literary past. Why does Eliot rely on allusions to the past?  Because, for Eliot, a civilization’s abilities for mindfully (versus mindlessly) moving forward into the future depends first on its abilities for understanding the virtues and vices of its own dead (but not-so-dead) past.  Arguably the most important allusion in Waste Land comes in the second section with the allusion to the ancient Greek myth of Philomela or “Philomel.” Please refresh your memories with the myth before, after or during your engagement with this section of the poem, because one cannot understand the meaning (s) of Eliot’s entire poem without first at least having some sense of the myth of Philomela– which is an account one woman’s violation but also her path to regeneration: metamorphosis.   Finally, in approximately 300 words, tell me what impression to you personally believe that Eliot intends to impress upon us with the images of his five central woman characters? (Note that Madame Sostrostis is pseudo-prophetess, a fortune teller of the future.) You can focus on one or a few or all of the characters at once, since, as Eliot reminds, in Waste Land, “all women are one woman.”  Please check those link, are the course material you have to read before you write: http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/44321817?seq=1

After reading my Week 11 Lecture Script — in which I talk about “mythical symbols” as “the products of the imagination” of the Hellenic Mind — perform the following activity: give attention to the following mythical symbols which you will find in the short excerpt (the “Chorus”) for this module’s reading:   a. snake b. Heaven c. Hellas d. Peneus  e. Tempes  f. Cyclades g. Argo h. Orpheus i. Ulysses j. Calypso     Now pick at least 3 symbols from the list of symbols above– all taken from our Module 11 excerpt, Shelley’s “Chorus,” and then tell me    –  how do the symbols that you picked function to either “express,” or “realize,” or “compliment” or “prove” the utopian intention of Shelley’s first line.. “The world’s great age begins anew / The golden years return.”  Shelley, in other words, is relying on symbolic language to prove the thesis of his first line. This is just a lesson in trying to read “symbolic” (versus ordinary) language.  * you might need to do a small bit of web research (Googling) to discover what each symbolic image/ allusion basically means.

Write an essay in which you analyze the speaker’s reasons as to why death should not be proud by discussing the figures of speech present within the poem. How do personification, alliteration, and apostrophe contribute to the poem’s tone?Death, be not proudDeath, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie 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 passed, we wake eternally.And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.Source: John Donne, “Death, be not proud,” Perrine’s Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed., eds. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006), 892.

Write an essay in which you analyze the speaker’s reasons as to why death should not be proud by discussing the figures of speech present within the poem. How do personification, alliteration, and apostrophe contribute to the poem’s tone?Death, be not proudDeath, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie 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 passed, we wake eternally.And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.Source: John Donne, “Death, be not proud,” Perrine’s Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed., eds. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006), 892.