First essay assignment

I'm handing this out in class tomorrow, but I thought I'd post it here in case anyone looks at the class blog today. If you do happen to see this before class, please leave a comment so I can properly reward your perspicacity with a gold star or something suitable.

Choose any poem that we have previously discussed in class (except “Incident” since I am giving you a sample essay on that poem) and write a paper on the following topic. No matter which poem you write on, you will be trying to demonstrate your familiarity with the basics of poetry. Think about the way that what a poem means is expressed in both its content and form. Also remember that poetry is always in some sense about language; both the literal and figurative levels of language are important to any discussion of poetry.

Topic:

A common structuring device used by poets, and other writers, is to build their texts around a series of contrasts, conflicts or oppositions. All the poems we've read and discussed in class can be thought of as embodying some form of "conflict" or “opposition.” In some cases the poem is directly about a conflict, in other cases contrasting imagery is used, or an opposition between form and content is apparent. In some way then, all the poems contain one or more conflicts, or a series of contrasts. Pick one poem and discuss how language, imagery and metaphor are used in the poem to express the conflict(s) or opposition(s) you want to discuss. Does the poem suggest a possible resolution of the conflict?

Here are some quick examples to start you thinking. Larkin's poem takes up conflicts between parents and children as well as conflicts between the sentimental image of families and their reality. In Gavin Ewart’s poem, the speaker’s “dream” is set in sharp contrast to his inability to bring it about, as is the triviality and ridiculousness of the existing world compared to what the speaker implies “the real” should be. In Jones’s poem the mental and emotional state of a father is contrasted with that of his child and in Stafford's, the contradiction of mutually exclusive emotions and choices are some of the oppositions which that poem addresses. Of course, there are many other ways to think about “conflict” or “opposition” as an element of each of these poems, so don’t feel limited by the suggestions here.

The poems we have discussed in class are:

“This Be the Verse,” Philip Larkin
“Traveling Through the Dark,” William Stafford
“Black Cat,” Rainer Maria Rilke
“Dream of a Slave,” Gavin Ewart
“One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop
“Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note,” Leroi Jones
“Morning Song,” Sylvia Plath

You may also write on Philip Larkin’s “An Arundel Tomb” (found below) if you feel up to working on a poem not previously discussed in class.

Due: Wednesday, February 29
Length: 3 pages typed, double-spaced, and stapled.

Don’t forget to title your essay. A title is one of the elements which distinguishes a piece of formal writing from an informal series of notes. Your title should reflect something pertinent to your discussion. "Paper One," "Essay," "Poetry Paper," and the like are not adequate essay titles. Neither is the title of the poem you are writing about.

Titles of poems are put within quotation marks ("Black Cat"), and the author is referred to by their complete name in the first citation, thereafter use only the last. Do not use constructions like "Mr. Larkin," or "Sylvia."

How to quote from poems:

Always cite the line number in parentheses after the quotation and depending on the length of the material being quoted, follow one of three formats. Here are examples of differing length quotations from the same section of a poem. (NB: examples 1) and 2) would be double-spaced if they were appearing in your paper. I single-spaced them here because of the short margins of this blog format. Example 3) preserves the correct double-spacing, since the quotation is single-spaced, but lacks the proper indentation of the quote since this blog format is quite frustratingly not allowing me to do that. If this is unclear, refer to the handout of this information from class, where you will see the forms better realized visually.)

The original section of (much longer) poem by Rainer Maria Rilke entitled, “Fourth Elegy:”

Who shows a child as he really is? Who sets him
In his constellation and puts the measuring-rod
Of distance in his hand? Who makes his death
Out of gray bread, which hardens—or leaves it there
Inside his round mouth, jagged as the core
Of a sweet apple? Murderers are easy
To understand. But this: that one can contain
Death, the whole of death, even before
Life has begun, can hold it to one’s heart
Gently, and not refuse to go on living,
Is inexpressible.

1) To quote a single line simply place your quote between quotation marks and run it into your sentence:

In Rilke’s “Fourth Elegy,” he poses the question, “Who shows a child as he really is?”(52) For Rilke, this question is the fundamental one for all art, since art is always trying to express the inexpressible.

2) For a quotation of only a few lines, follow the same format, but indicate where line breaks originally fell by using a slash:

In Rilke’s “Fourth Elegy” he poses the questions, “Who shows a child as he really is? Who sets him/ In his constellation and puts the measure-rod/ Of distance in his hand?” (52-54)

3) If you are quoting a larger chunk of a poem, you follow a different format. Here you indent, single-space your quotation, and do not use quotation marks:

The last stanza of Rilke’s “Fourth Elegy” sums up the philosophical and

aesthetic questions posed in the whole poem. Rilke expresses

astonishment at the paradoxes of life, primarily the concept that an

individual’s life already contains his death within it, in the very final

lines:

…But this: that one can contain
Death, the whole of death, even before
Life has begun, can hold it to one’s heart
Gently, and not refuse to go on living,
Is inexpressible. (59-62)


Remember to use ellipses (...) when you need to leave out part of a line. In the example above, line 59 originally ran:

To understand. But this: that one can contain

I picked the line up half-way through; I only needed to quote the last "sentence," so I started my quotation with ellipses to indicate that I had consciously left part of that line out.

(btw, NB = nota bene and means "note well." In other words, pay attention to this.)

Richard and Eleanor

Noah asked the identity of the two figures on the tomb Philip Larkin writes about in the poem below. They are Richard Fitzalan Earl of Arundel, and his second wife Eleanor. Their tomb is in Chichester Cathedral.

I fixed the photograph of the tomb in the post below so now when you click on it, it enlarges for greater detail.

Another Philip Larkin poem with illustration...

An Arundel Tomb

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Oft quoted:

The logo of "Larkin' Out Records"/Richie Edwards and Philip Larkin/a cartoon about "The Be The Verse"

Friday morning and...

it looks like only four students have jumped in the pool?

I sent out new invites last night and also did resends (though I double-checked and my initial ones seemed correct. If you aren't "getting" an invite, you might have deleted it. Let me know).