Week 12 Literature

William Blake

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His so-called prophetic works were said by 20th century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life (except for three years spent in Felpham), he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself".

Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as "Pre-Romantic". The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary. and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors".

 *Poem By William Blake :

The Lamb

Little lamb, who made thee?

Does thou know who made thee,

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed

By the stream and o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing, woolly, bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

Little lamb, who made thee?

Does thou know who made thee?

Little lamb, I'll tell thee;

Little lamb, I'll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,

For He calls Himself a Lamb.

He is meek, and He is mild,

He became a little child.

I a child, and thou a lamb,

We are called by His name.

Little lamb, God bless thee!

Little lamb, God bless thee!

> Summary : To make this poem a little more fun, let's imagine it from the lamb's perspective. There we are, munching on some grass in a beautiful English valley, when suddenly some little rug-rat kid comes running up for a chat. He asks if we know who made us, to which our answer is, "(Munch, munch) This grass is delicious!"

He asks if we know who gave us life and made us eat this sweet, sweet grass as we roam through fields and next to streams. He asks if we know who gave us our "clothing wooly bright" (6) and our pleasant voices. 

Then he says he's going to tell us who made him. He says our creator is also called a "Lamb" because he was so "meek" and "mild" (15). Despite being a lamb, this creator also "became a little child" (16).

Finally, he blesses us twice in the name of God and runs away.

The Tyger 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night, 

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 

On what wings dare he aspire? 

What the hand, dare sieze the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 

And when thy heart began to beat, 

What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain? 

In what furnace was thy brain? 

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears, 

And water'd heaven with their tears, 

Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night, 

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

> Summary : "The Tyger" is a poem made of questions. There are no less than thirteen question marks and only one full sentence that ends with a period instead of a question mark. Addressing "The Tyger," the speaker questions it as to its creation – essentially: "Who made you Mr. Tyger?" "How were you made? Where? Why? What was the person or thing like that made you?"

The poem is often interpreted to deal with issues of inspiration, poetry, mystical knowledge, God, and the sublime (big, mysterious, powerful, and sometimes scary. Ever heard the phrase, "To love God is to fear him"? That’s talking about something sublime). But it’s not about any one thing: this is William Blake.

• The first stanza opens the central question: "What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" 

• The second stanza questions "the Tyger" about where he was created.

• The third about how the creator formed him. 

• The fourth about what tools were used. 

• The fifth stanza goes on to ask about how the creator reacted to his creation ("the Tyger") and who exactly was this creator. 

• Finally, the sixth restates the central question while raising the stakes; rather than merely question what/who could create the Tyger, the speaker wonders: who dares.

Robert Frost 

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of the twentieth century, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution." He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.

>> Personal Life : Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. In 1885 when he was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, he had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression.

Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1904, died of cholera); daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983); son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide); daughter Irma (1903–1967); daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth); and daughter Elinor Bettina (died just three days after her birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.

*Poems by Robert Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know. 

His house is in the village though; 

He will not see me stopping here 

To watch his woods fill up with snow. 

My little horse must think it queer 

To stop without a farmhouse near 

Between the woods and frozen lake 

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake 

To ask if there is some mistake. 

The only other sound’s the sweep 

Of easy wind and downy flake. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

> Summary : One evening, the speaker stops to watch the snow falling through the trees. His horse seems anxious to keep going, but the speaker stays a while longer, thinking of the beauty of the woods.

• The speaker stops his horse outside some woods that belong to a farmer he thinks he knows.

• Hearing his horse's bells jingle, the speaker imagines that the animal is worried about the cold and wants to keep going.

• In the end, the speaker moves on, but emphasizes the beauty of the woods he has passed.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

> Summary : Our speaker has come to a fork in a path in the woods. It's fall, and the leaves are turning colors. He's unsure which way to go, and wishes he could go both ways. He looks down one path as far as he can see, but then he decides to take the other. He thinks the path he decides to take is not quite as worn as the other one, but really, the paths are about the same, and the fallen leaves on both look pretty fresh.

The speaker reflects on how he plans to take the road that he didn't take another day, but suspects that he probably won't ever come back. Instead, far off in the future, he'll be talking about how his decision was final and life changing.

John Donne 

John Donne (22 January 1573 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England.

He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially compared to that of his contemporaries. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorized. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.

*Poems by John Donne

Death, Be No Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die 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 past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

> Summary : Right off the bat, the speaker starts talking smack to Death, whom he treats as a person. He tells Death not to be so proud, because he’s really not as scary or powerful as most people think. The speaker starts talking in contradictions, saying that people don’t really die when they meet Death – and neither will the speaker. Then, he really tries to burn Death’s biscuit by comparing him to "rest and sleep," two things that aren’t scary at all. Next, to paraphrase Billy Joel, the speaker claims that "only the good die young," because the best people know that death brings pleasure, not pain.

As if this isn’t enough trash-talk, the speaker kicks it up a notch, calling Death a "slave" and accusing him of hanging out with those lowlifes "poison, war, and sickness." Besides, we don’t need Death – the speaker can just take drugs, and it will have the same effect: falling asleep. So death is just a "short sleep," after which a good Christian will wake up and find himself in Eternity. Once this happens, it will seem like Death has died. 

Week 11 Literature

Figurative Language

Figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. When a writer uses literal language, he or she is simply stating the facts as they are. Figurative language, in comparison, uses exaggerations or alterations to make a particular linguistic point. Figurative language is very common in poetry, but is also used in prose and nonfiction writing as well.

There are many different types of figurative language. For example, it often includes the use of a specific type of word or word meaning:

   Metaphor: When you use a metaphor, you make a statement that doesn’t make sense literally, like “time is a thief.” It only makes sense when the similarities between the two things become apparent or someone understands the connection between the two words.

Example;

“Shall I Compare Thee to a summer’s Day”,

William Shakespeare was the best exponent of the use of metaphors. His poetical works and dramas all make wide-ranging use of metaphors.

“Sonnet 18,”also known as “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” is an extended metaphor between the love of the speaker and the fairness of the summer season. He writes that “thy eternal summer,” here taken to mean the love of the subject, “shall not fade.”

    Simile :  A simile is like a metaphor and often uses the words "like" or "as". 

Example; 

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

that floats on high o’er vales and hills.”

Taken from the poem the Daffodils.

> The poet envisions himself as a free lone cloud that floats in a blue sky above valleys and the mountains. By choosing this simile, Wordsworth describes his loneliness.

Personification : Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes. The non-human objects are portrayed in such a way that we feel they have the ability to act like human beings.

Example; 

“Pearl Button swung on the little gate in front of the House of Boxes. It was the early afternoon of a sunshiny day with little winds playing hide-and-seek in it.”

Katherine Mansfield wrote in her short story “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped”,

It personifies wind by saying that it is as playful as little children playing hide-and-seek on a shiny day.

Hyperbole : Hyperbole, derived from a Greek word meaning “over-casting” is a figure of speech, which involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis.

Example; 

“I had to wait in the station for ten days-an eternity.”

From Joseph Conrad’s novel “The Heart of Darkness”,
> The wait of ten days seemed to last forever and never end.

Symbolism : Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense. Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context they are used in.

Example; 

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

they have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,"

We find symbolic value in Shakespeare’s famous monologue in his play As you Like It

The above lines are symbolic of the fact that men and women, in course of their life perform different roles. “A stage” here symbolizes the world and “players” is a symbol for human beings.

Alliteration : Alliteration is derived from Latin’s “Latira”. It means “letters of alphabet”. It is a stylistic device in which a number of words, having the same first consonant sound, occur close together in a series.

Example; 

“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;

A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”

From William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” (prologue to Act 1)
This is an example of alliteration with the “f” and “l.” in words “forth, fatal, foes” and “loins, lovers, and life”.

Onomatopoeia : Onomatopoeia is defined as a word, which imitates the natural sounds of a thing. It creates a sound effect that mimics the thing described, making the description more expressive and interesting.

Example ; 

“Hark, hark!

Bow-wow.

The watch-dogs bark!

Bow-wow.

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticleer

Cry, ‘cock-a-diddle-dow!'”

(Ariel in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Act One, scene 2)

Blank Verse

Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse".

The first documented use of blank verse in the English language was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the Æneid (composed c. 1540; published 1554–1557). He was possibly inspired by the Latin original, as classical Latin verse (as well as Ancient Greek verse) did not use rhyme; or he may have been inspired by the Italian verse form of versi sciolti, which also contained no rhyme.

To Helen 

by - Edgar Allan Poe

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicèan barks of yore

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

The weary way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,

The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah! Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

> Summary : The poem opens with the speaker comparing Helen's beauty to some ships that transported a lonely wanderer back home. In the second stanza, the speaker again compares himself to a lonely man for whom Helen's beauty has functioned like a saving grace (this time, her hair and face remind him of ancient Greece and Rome). In the third stanza, the speaker describes Helen standing in a "window-niche" (11), looking like a statue and like a beautiful woman from Greek mythology (Psyche).

Mrs. Sarah Helen Withman

The Lake Isle of Innisfree 

by - W.B Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, 

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: 

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; 

And live alone in the bee-loud glade. 

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, 

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; 

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, 

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

 I will arise and go now, for always night and day 

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; 

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, 

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

> Summary : The speaker says he's going to go to Innisfree to build a small, simple cabin. He'll have a little bean garden and a honeybee hive. He wants to live alone in peace with nature and the slow pace of country living. Sounds like a plan, buddy.

In the last stanza, the speaker restates that he's leaving and explains it's because every night he hears the water lapping against the shore (of Innisfree). Even though he lives in a more urban place with paved roads, deep down inside he's drawn to the rural sounds of Innisfree. It's all about rustling trees, not bustling buses for this speaker.

I Wonder Lonely As a Cloud

by - William Wordsworth

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.

> Summary : The speaker was walking around through the hills and valleys, but he felt all lonely and mopey. Suddenly, as he passed a lake, he noticed a big group of yellow daffodils waving in the breeze. This wasn't just some scattered patch of daffodils. We’re talking thousands and thousands around this particular bay. And all these flowers were dancing.

Yes, the daffodils danced, and so did the waves of the lake. But the daffodils danced better. The speaker’s loneliness was replaced by joy, but he didn't even realize what a gift he has received until later. Now, whenever he’s feeling kind of blah, he just thinks of the daffodils, and his heart is happily dancing.

The Raven

by- Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore – 

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door – 

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door – 

Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore – 

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore – 

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,

"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door – 

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; – 

This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you" – here I opened wide the door; – 

Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" – 

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore – 

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; – 

'Tis the wind and nothing more!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door – 

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door – 

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore – 

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning – little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door – 

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered – 

Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before – 

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."

Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore – 

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of 'Never – nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore – 

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite – respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! – 

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted – 

On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore – 

Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!"

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil – prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore – 

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore – 

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting – 

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted – nevermore!

> Summary :  It's late at night, and late in the year (after midnight on a December evening, to be precise). A man is sitting in his room, half reading, half falling asleep, and trying to forget his lost love, Lenore. Suddenly, he hears someone (or something) knocking at the door. 

He calls out, apologizing to the "visitor" he imagines must be outside. Then he opens the door and finds…nothing. This freaks him out a little, and he reassures himself that it is just the wind against the window. So he goes and opens the window, and in flies (you guessed it) a raven.

The Raven settles in on a statue above the door, and for some reason, our speaker's first instinct is to talk to it. He asks for its name, just like you usually do with strange birds that fly into your house, right? Amazingly enough, though, the Raven answers back, with a single word: "Nevermore." 

Understandably surprised, the man asks more questions. The bird's vocabulary turns out to be pretty limited, though; all it says is "Nevermore." Our narrator catches on to this rather slowly and asks more and more questions, which get more painful and personal. The Raven, though, doesn't change his story, and the poor speaker starts to lose his sanity.

The Simpsons - Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven)

Nevermore (1897 Paul Gauguin)

Edgar Allan Poe's famous 1845 poem The Raven was a key source for the story of Gauguin's Nevermore, and as such is referenced in the title. In the poem itself, according to art historian Dario Gamboni, the continual use of the refrain"nevermore" is an expression of sadness meant to produce poetical beauty. Similar to Gauguin as an artist, Poe's works are centered on subjects of beauty, melancholy, past lovers, longing, and efforts to communicate with the dead.

Gauguin could be commemorating the actual physical death of a lover, or referencing the symbolic death of an affair. Gauguin may also be simply paying homage to Poe (though correspondence would suggest against that) or lamenting the ephemeral nature of love, erotic pleasure and beauty. With Nevermore, the encounter with the erotic and the exotic creates an entirely new context for Poe's grievous reflection on lost love.

At the time he created this work Gauguin was very stressed. In 1895 he left Europe for Tahiti for the final time. Upon his arrival he did not find any internal peace but poor health (the effects of syphilis), which stripped him of his savings. In April 1897 he learnt of the death of his daughter Aline, to whom he was deeply attached. She was only 20 and died from pneumonia on the way home from a ball. This period of despair corresponded with a prodigious creative output, for during this time he painted, sculpted and wrote a great deal, including Nevermore. Could the raven been signaling the death of his daughter Aline?

Gauguin's intent with Nevermore is to lead the viewer away from the world of reality. Gauguin was looking to coax the viewer into giving way to the artwork's sensuality in the same way one does listening to music. He wanted to portray the Tahiti and women as he saw them, not necessarily a photo-like representation, but as possessing something mysterious and penetrating.

Nevermore reflects Gauguin's constant search for answers to his spiritual needs, and represents Gauguin's reasons for being an artist. This work holds up a mirror to the all important chapter of his life in Tahiti.

Week 10 Literature

Fiction

Fiction is the classification for any story or similar work derived from imagination—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact. Fiction can be expressed in a variety of formats, including writings, live performances, films, television programs, animations,video games, and role-playing games, though the term originally and most commonly refers to the narrative forms of literature (see literary fiction), including the novel, novella, short story, and play. Fiction does not refer to a specific mode or genre, unless used in its narrowest sense to mean a "literary narrative". Fiction is traditionally regarded as the opposite of non-fiction, whose creators assume responsibility for presenting only the historical and factual truth; however, the distinction between fiction and non-fiction can be blurred, for example, in postmodern literature.

A work of fiction is an act of creative invention; its total faithfulness to reality is not typically assumed by its audience, and so it is not expected to present only characters who are actual people or descriptions that are factually accurate. Instead, the context of fiction is generally open to interpretation, due to fiction's freedom from adhering exactly to the real world.</ref>[note 1] Characters and events within a fictional work may even be openly set in their own context entirely separate from the known universe: a fictional universe.

>> Literary Fiction

Literary fiction is defined as fictional works that are deemed to be of literary merit, as distinguished from most commercial, or "genre" fiction. The distinction can be controversialamong critics and scholars.

Literary fiction often involves social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition. In general it focuses on "introspective, in-depth character studies" of "interesting, complex and developed" characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern. Usually in literary fiction the focus is on the "inner story" of the characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit "emotional involvement" in the reader. 

• The style of literary fiction is often described as "elegantly written, lyrical, and ... layered". 

• The tone of literary fiction can be darker than genre fiction, while the pacing of literary fiction may be slower than popular fiction. 

As Terrence Rafferty notes, "literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing its way".

W. H. AUDEN 

W.H. Auden was a British poet, author and playwright best known as a leading literary figure in the 20th century for his poetry.

QUOTES

“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: All of them make me laugh.”

—W.H. Auden

>> Synopsis

W.H. Auden, also known as Wystan Hugh Auden, was a poet, author and playwright born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. Auden was a leading literary influencer in the 20th century. Known for his chameleon-like ability to write poems in almost every verse form, Auden's travels in countries torn by political strife influenced his early works. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948.

Early Life

W.H. Auden was born Wystan Hugh Auden in York, England, on February 21, 1907. Raised by a physician father and a strict, Anglican mother, Auden pursued science and engineering at Oxford University before finding his calling to write and switching his major to English.

Auden pursued his love of poetry, influenced by Old English verse and the poems of Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, William Blake and Emily Dickinson. He graduated from Oxford in 1928, and that same year, his collectionPoems was privately printed.

>> Career Success

In 1930, with the help of T.S. Eliot, Auden published another collection of the same name (Poems) that featured different content. The success of this collection positioned him as one of the leading influencers in literature in the 20th century.

Auden's poems in the latter half of the 1930s reflected his journeys to politically torn countries. He wrote his acclaimed anthology, Spain, based on his first-hand accounts of the country's civil war from 1936 to 1939.

More so, Auden was lauded for his chameleon-like ability to write poems in almost every verse form. His work influenced aspiring poets, popular culture and vernacular speech. He stated in Squares and Oblongs: Essays Based on the Modern Poetry Collection at the Lockwood Memorial Library (1948), "A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language."

*Poems by W. H. Auden : 

Musee des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

W. H. Auden

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.

PERSONA

A persona is a character or figurative mask that an actor, writer, or singer takes on in order to perform. Originally a technique just for theater, the concept was popularized in literature by the poets Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Both men had a few named personae through whom they wrote famous poems. When a writer uses a persona through which to create a work of literature, it is understood that the resulting work takes on the traits of the poet him or herself and the different lens that the persona brings to the work.

The word persona was originally Latin, though there is some disagreement about the etymology of the word. The word originally referred to a real mask worn in theater. It probably either came from the Etruscan word phersu for the same concept, or from the Latin term per-sonare, which meant “sounding through.” In either case, there is a strong connection between the concept of persona and using a different character through which to experience the world.

>> Persona Example 

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”

(“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot)

> J. Alfred Prufrock is one of T. S. Eliot’s most famous personae. In this persona example, Eliot creates a dramatic interior monologue of a man who feels isolated and thwarted. While many critics at the time found it insignificant and the epiphanies therein trivial, others found the concept to be thoroughly modern. The technique of writing through a persona had been out of fashion since the Medieval ages, when it had been abandoned. Writing in the early 1900s, Eliot saw the immense possibilities available in writing through a persona. He used persona to distance himself from aspects of modern life that he disliked.

>> Ex 2 

Shades of Callimachus, Coan ghosts of Philetas
It is in your grove I would walk,
I who come first from the clear font
Bringing the Grecian orgies into Italy,
and the dance into Italy.
Who hath taught you so subtle a measure,
in what hall have you heard it;
What foot beat out your time-bar,
what water has mellowed your whistles?

(“Homage to Sextus Propertius” by Ezra Pound)

> Ezra Pound was a mentor figure to T. S. Eliot, and was the editor for “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” He, too, wanted to explore certain themes through the possibility of a lens of another character’s experiences, and so adopted some examples of persona for his works of literature. Most of the personas he used were real-life poets, such as Sextus Propertius, a Latin elegiac poet who lived during the 1st century BC. Ezra Pound used the persona of Sextus Propertius to use Propertius’s style in homage to the poet.

>> Ex 3

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff–and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky,

And from the inside, too, I’d duplicate

Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:

Uncurtaining the night, I’d let dark glass

Hang all the furniture above the grass,

And how delightful when a fall of snow

10 Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so

As to make chair and bed exactly stand

Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!

(“Canto I” from Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov)

> Vladimir Nabokov’s brilliant novel Pale Fire is about the author of a 999-line poem, John Shade. The novel itself is presented as a forward to the poem by Shade’s neighbor Charles Kinbote, and includes the poem itself. This is a meta-textual example of persona in which Nabokov has of course written every part of the novel, yet presents himself as different characters. The above excerpt is the beginning of the 999-line poem, which Nabokov wrote as though he were the character John Shade. Much of the novel deals with truth and fiction, and Nabokov’s use of persona blurs the lines between these in a fascinating way.