approaches to literature week ten

Book Discussion

Roman Fever

written by Edith Wharton

analysis:

The style of the story in its serenity, its quiet setting, and its almost total lack of action well matches the calm control exhibited by Grace Ansley, who turns out to be the victor in the contest initiated by Alida Slade. Although the reader is told that Alida is the dominant, vivid personality, and she clearly takes charge of both the activities (or lack thereof) and the conversation, her attacks on Grace are quietly rebuffed, and she is finally the loser as they mutually reveal information about their past activities.

The story is carefully wrought, so that the shift in sympathy to the timid Grace occurs fairly early, and it comes as a surprise to learn that she was so unconventional in her behavior as to undertake an assignation with another woman’s fiancé. Then the final surprise, which is so quietly, and characteristically, announced to the arrogant Alida, serves to end the story with a dramatic flourish that has even more impact because it is so subdued.

Poetic meter

metre is a system of describing what we can measure about the audible features of a poem. The systems that have been used in history to structure metres are: the number of syllables (syllabic); the duration of syllables (quantitative); the number of stressed syllables, or accents (accentual); and combinations of the above. English is not a language that works easily in quantitative metre (although this has not stopped people trying), and it has developed an accentual-syllabic metre for its formal verse. This means that, in a formal poem, the poet will be counting the syllables, the stresses, and keeping them to a pattern.

To describe the pattern, the stressed and unstressed syllables are gathered into groups known as feet, and the number of feet to a line gives a name thus:

1 foot: monometer

2 feet: dimeter

3 feet: trimeter

4 feet: tetrameter

5 feet: pentameter

6 feet: hexameter

7 feet: heptameter

8 feet: octameter 

Vocabulary

mori: death

morgue

meaning: a place where the bodies of dead people are kept until they are buried or cremated

Example: Andrew went to the to morgue view Wyrazik's body

fra: broken

fragility

meaning: physical weakness : the quality or state of being frail

Example: He saw in her tender fragility.

oct: eight

octopus

meaning: a sea animal that has a soft body and eight long arms

Example: Have you ever tasted octopus?

tri: three

meaning:

Example:

dic: to say, to tell

diction

meaning: the clearness of a person's speech

Example: Clear diction is important.

predict

meaning: to say that (something) will or might happen in the future

Example: The test can accurately predict what a bigger explosion would do.

dictator

meaning: a person who rules a country with total authority and often in a cruel or brutal way

Example: They believe that the country needs a benevolent dictator.

bow: relate to water

rainbow

meaning: a curved line of different colors that sometimes appears in the sky when the sun shines through rain

Example: The moon was casting a rainbow through the spray from the waterfall.

soli: lonely

solitude

meaning: a state or situation in which you are alone usually because you want to be

Example: She longed for peace and solitude.

scri: write

scrivener

meaning: a professional or public copyist or writer

Example: He was a simple - looking lawyer's clerk, elevated to the extraordinary dignity of a provincial scrivener.

hyperbole

it is the use of the exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech, it is used in poems to create emphasis on a situation. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong expression, but it is not mean to be taken literally.

--ambiguity

it is an attribute of any concept, idea, statement or claim whose meaning, intention or interpretation cannot be definitely resolved according to a rule or progress consisting of a finite number of steps.

personification

is a figure of speech where human qualities are given to animals, objects or ideas.

In the arts, personification means representing a non-human thing as if it were human. Personification gives human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires, sensations, gestures and speech, often by way of a metaphor.

figures of speech

is figurative language in the form of a single word or phrase. It can be a special repetition, arrangement or omission of words with literal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words. There are mainly five figures of speech: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification and synecdoche. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation.

sonnet

which means “a little sound or song," the sonnet is a popular classical form that has compelled poets for centuries. Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, which employ one of several rhyme schemes and adhere to a tightly structured thematic organization. Two sonnet forms provide the models from which all other sonnets are formed: the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean.

Petrarchan Sonnet

The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. the Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines). The tightly woven rhyme scheme, abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd, is suited for the rhyme-rich Italian language, though there are many fine examples in English. Since the Petrarchan presents an argument, observation, question, or some other answerable charge in the octave, a turn, or volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines. This turn marks a shift in the direction of the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the sestet into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification, or whatever answer the octave demands.

Shakespearean Sonnet

The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English sonnet, follows a different set of rules. Here, three quatrains and a couplet follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end. In Sonnet 130 of William Shakespeare’s epic sonnet cycle, the first twelve lines compare the speaker’s mistress unfavorably with nature’s beauties.

allegory

an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. Allegory has been used widely throughout history in all forms of art, largely because it can readily illustrate complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners.

fable

is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as the ability to speak human language) and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind.

parable

is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters. A parable is a type of analogy.

poetic license

is a colloquial term, sometimes a euphemism, used to denote the distortion of fact, alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by an artist in the name of art.

I wander lonely as a cloud

is a lyric poem by William Wordsworth. It is Wordsworth's most famous work.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

analysis

The plot is extremely simple, depicting the poet’s wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, bored, or restless. The characterization of the sudden occurrence of a memory—the daffodils “flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude”—is psychologically acute, but the poem’s main brilliance lies in the reverse personification of its early stanzas. The speaker is metaphorically compared to a natural object, a cloud—“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high...”, and the daffodils are continually personified as human beings, dancing and “tossing their heads” in “a crowd, a host.” This technique implies an inherent unity between man and nature, making it one of Wordsworth’s most basic and effective methods for instilling in the reader the feeling the poet so often describes himself as experiencing.

A Doll’s House

Nora Helmer once secretly borrowed a large sum of money so that her husband could recuperate from a serious illness. She never told him of this loan and has been secretly paying it back in small installments by saving from her household allowance. Her husband, Torvald, thinks her careless and childlike, and often calls her his doll. When he is appointed bank director, his first act is to relieve a man who was once disgraced for having forged his signature on a document. This man, Nils Krogstad, is the person from whom Nora has borrowed her money. It is then revealed that she forged her father's signature in order to get the money. Krogstad threatens to reveal Nora's crime and thus disgrace her and her husband unless Nora can convince her husband not to fire him. Nora tries to influence her husband, but he thinks of Nora as a simple child who cannot understand the value of money or business. Thus, when Torvald discovers that Nora has forged her father's name, he is ready to disclaim his wife even though she had done it for him. Later when all is solved, Nora sees that her husband is not worth her love and she leaves him.

Herman Melville

was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period best known for Typee (1846), a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851). His work was almost forgotten during his last thirty years. His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. He developed a complex, baroque style: the vocabulary is rich and original, a strong sense of rhythm infuses the elaborate sentences, the imagery is often mystical or ironic, and the abundance of allusion extends to Scripture, myth, philosophy, literature, and the visual arts.

Bartleby, the Scrivener

is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. A Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who--after an initial bout of hard work--refuses to make copy and any other task required of him, with the words "I would prefer not to." The lawyer cannot bring himself to remove Bartleby from his premises, and decides instead to move his office, but the new proprietor removes Bartleby to prison, where he perishes.

-- on bartleby ah humanity

"Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!" Ah, Melville! Seriously, guys – what an ending! With these parting words, this small story about one strange man becomes a statement about all of humanity.

Melville concludes this odd tale with the pathetic, mystifying death of its central enigma, the character of Bartleby. After Bartleby dies, alone and imprisoned, we finally learn one little tidbit about his past: apparently, he previously worked in the Dead Letter Office (a section of the Post Office that gets rid of undeliverable mail). The narrator wonders if this horrifyingly depressing job might have affected Bartleby's sanity – and we, in turn, must wonder what makes all of us who we are.

W.H Auden

was an Anglo-American poet, best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues," Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. He came to wide public attention at the age of twenty-three, in 1930, with his first book, Poems, followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood in 1935–38 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror," focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. In 1956–61 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty and served as the basis of his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The poet calls for the clocks to be stopped, the telephone to be cut off, and the dog and pianos silenced. The coffin will be brought out to the mourners with a muffled drum and under the moan of airplanes that spell out the message, “He Is Dead.” Doves are to be decked with bows around their necks, and the traffic policemen are to wear black cotton gloves.

The poet thinks of the deceased as “my North, my South, my East and West,” his work and his rest, his noon and his midnight, his talk and his song. He incorrectly thought their love would last forever.

The stars, moon, sun, ocean, and forests, the poet writes, should be sent away; they are no longer needed, and “nothing now can ever come to any good.”

--analysis

The poem in the format readers usually see it today is a dirge, or a lament for the dead. Its tone is much more somber than early iterations, and the themes more universal, although it speaks of an individual. It has four stanzas of four lines each with lines in varying numbers of syllables but containing about four beats each. Auden plays with the form a bit in the poem, and critics debate whether or not this was a manifestation of his tendency to do just that—whether he was simply playing around or intended a larger point.

satire vs. irony vs. sarcasm

Irony describes situations that are strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected. Note the "opposite" here. If an expectation is black, then an ironic outcome would be white, not off-white or gray.

Satire means making fun of people by imitating them in ways that expose their stupidity or flaws.

sarcasm depends on the listener or reader to be in on the joke. Sarcasm is insincere speech. Your mom asks if you're excited to start cleaning the kitchen and you say, "Yeah, right," when you mean "Heck no."

Additional Supplement

tie

necktie

PS. I love you

A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.

P.S. I Love You is a 2007 American drama film directed by Richard LaGravenese.