Approaches to Literature(week12)

Approaches to Literature(week12)

Richard Cory (by Edwin Arlington Robinson)

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in Head Tide, Maine in 1869. He was an unhappy kid; he once wrote to his poetry pal Amy Lowell that he remembered wondering, at the age of six, why he had even been born. That's pretty bummed out, for a six year old. This bleak point of view would last throughout Robinson's life, so it's no surprise we see it reflected in "Richard Cory," his most famous poem.

Not everything in Robinson's life was bleak, however. Though in his young adulthood he had trouble getting other folks to publish his poems, in 1896 he decided to self-publish his collection The Torrent and the Night Before. A year later, he revised the collection—which featured "Richard Cory"—and then a few years after that (in 1902) he published his collection Captain Craig and Other Poems. It was this volume that ended up in the hands of none other than President Theodore Roosevelt, and ol' Teddy went wild for Robinson's work. He even reviewed the book for a magazine, and hooked up Robinson with a steady job (read: steady cash flow) that allowed him to keep up his writing. Roosevelt's praise put Robinson on the poetry map, and he went on to publish tons of poems. Our dude Robinson (or E.A.R., as we like to call him) won the Pulitzer three times (count 'em!) in the 1920s. By all accounts, he had a very successful poetry career.

Despite his success, Robinson was always a bit—okay, a lot—bleak. He wrote sad poems about sad people (particularly sad New Englanders), and his poem "Richard Cory" is really his peak sad poem. "Richard Cory" is about a guy who looks perfect on the outside. He's got money and good looks, and he's the envy of his town. Guys want to be him, girls want to be with him, but no one sees the darkness this dude carries around with him. And then, in the very last lines of the poem, Richard Cory commits suicide.

Don't say we didn't warn you; we told ya Edwin Arlington Robinson was one grim dude. And really, any tale of a grim dude should probably end with that grim dude's death. So here goes: Robinson died of cancer in 1935. Cheered up yet?

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (by John Keats)

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       Alone and palely loitering?

The sedgesedge Grasslike or rushlike plant that grows in wet areas. has withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       So haggardhaggard Wild looking and so woe-begonebegone To happen, occur, transpire ?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

       And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

       With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

       Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meadsmeads Meadow ,

       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

       And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

       And made sweet moanmade sweet moan Compare "virgin-choir to make delicious moan" from Ode to Psyche (30), written between April 21 and 30, 1819. Noted by John Barnard in John Keats: The Complete Poems (Penguin, 2003).

I set her on my pacing steed,

       And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

       A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

       And honey wild, and manna-dewhoney wild, and manna-dew Echoes manna in the Bible, first described in Exodus, 16:14-21, 31. The Israelites eat the manna, a food miraculously supplied in the wilderness after the dew has lifted, in the morning: “The house of Israel called it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31, NRSV).,

And sure in language strange she said—

       ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grotElfin grot An elf’s grotto ,

       And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

       With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

       On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans MerciLa Belle Dame sans Merci This phrase—and the poem’s title—is from Alain Chartier’s courtly French ballad, “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (1424). Keats wrote the poem in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, April 21, 1819.

       Thee hathThee hath The version of this poem has “Thee hath” (see The Letters of John Keats, 1814-1821, ed. H. E. Rollins, 1958); though other versions of this poem reads “Hath thee” in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloamgloam Twilight; Keats coined the word from “gloaming”,

       With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

       On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojournsojourn To stay or visit temporarily here,

       Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

John Keats was an English poet writing in the early 19th century, towards the end of what became known as the "Romantic period." The Romantic period isn't just about love stories – it was a political and social movement as well as a literary one. The Romantics were reacting to an 18th century obsession with order, rationality, and scientific precision. Romantic writers felt that these Enlightenment-era thinkers missed the point about what it meant to be human. After all, they argued, you can't write an equation to define human nature. So the Romantic movement was partly a backlash against the rationalism of the 18th century Enlightenment.

When critics talk about the Romantic poets, they usually focus on the "big six": William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were the oldest of the six, and the younger generation included Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and our man, John Keats. Keats was the youngest of the six, but he was, alas, the first to die. He was only 25 years old when he died of tuberculosis in February 1821. Who knows what might have happened if he'd lived longer?

When Keats found out that he'd caught tuberculosis from nursing his brother, Tom, he was in despair (a diagnosis of tuberculosis in those days was like a death sentence). Keats felt that he'd just made a breakthrough in his writing, and was only beginning to write the kind of poetry that he was really capable of writing. Keats died in Italy, where the doctors thought the warmer weather might extend his life. He asked that his grave bear only the words "Here lies one whose name was writ in water," because he didn't think that he'd lived up to his potential – his life was too short to be memorable, and his poetry was like words "written in water." Boy, was he wrong – he's now celebrated as one of the most famous English poets of all time, despite his premature death.

"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" was written towards the end of his life, after his brother Tom died, but before he found out that he was dying of the same disease. Keats wrote it in 1819, but it wasn't published until 1820. The version that was published includes a lot of changes recommended by his friend and fellow poet, Leigh Hunt. Most critics, though, prefer the original version, so that's what we use in this guide. You'll know the difference right off the bat: the original version begins with the line, "O what can ail thee, knight at arms," while the edited 1820 version opens with, "Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight."

Ode on a Grecian Urn  (by John Keats)

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 

       Of deities or mortals, or of both, 

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, 

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: 

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; 

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 

And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

         For ever piping songs for ever new; 

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 

                For ever panting, and for ever young; 

All breathing human passion far above, 

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 

What little town by river or sea shore, 

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 

And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 

         When old age shall this generation waste, 

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all 

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

>>Summary

In the first stanza, the speaker stands before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the “still unravish’d bride of quietness,” the “foster-child of silence and slow time.” He also describes the urn as a “historian” that can tell a story. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and from where they come. He looks at a picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could be: “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade. In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper because his songs will be “for ever new,” and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into “breathing human passion” and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a “burning forehead, and a parching tongue.”

In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going (“To what green altar, O mysterious priest...”) and from where they have come. He imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will “for evermore” be silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return. In the final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like Eternity, “doth tease us out of thought.” He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know.

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". His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". 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". Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions. Though later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amiable relationship with the political activist Thomas Paine; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. 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".

The Tyger  (by William Blake)

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 seize 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?

"The Tyger" just might be William Blake’s most famous poem. Kids read it in elementary school because it rhymes and is about a tiger (yay!). High schoolers read it because their teachers want to give them something tougher to chew on (like a tiger!...OK, we’ll stop). Scholars debate about it because it connects to much of Blake's other work and its themes touch upon a lot of the central issues of Blake’s craft (marvelous!).

Published in a collection of poems called Songs of Experience in 1794, Blake wrote "The Tyger" during his more radical period. He wrote most of his major works during this time, often railing against oppressive institutions like the church or the monarchy, or any and all cultural traditions – sexist, racist, or classist – which stifled imagination or passion. Blake published an earlier collection of poetry called the Songs of Innocence in 1789. Once Songs of Experience came out five years later, the two were always published together.

In general, Songs of Innocence contains idyllic poems, many of which deal with childhood and innocence. Idyllic poems have pretty specific qualities: they’re usually positive, sometimes extremely happy or optimistic and innocent. They also often take place in pastoral settings (think countryside; springtime; harmless, cute wildlife; sunsets; babbling brooks; wandering bards; fair maidens) and many times praise one or more of these things as subjects.

The poems in Songs of Experience, on the other hand, wrestle with issues of what happens when that innocence is lost. "The Tyger" is often paired with the poem called "The Lamb" from Songs of Innocence. The former references the latter and reexamines the themes of "The Lamb" through the lens of experience. "The Lamb" is one of those idyllic poems which asks the Lamb who made "thee" (just like "The Tyger"), praises how soft and cute it is, then tells it that God made it and how wonderful that is. Blake's tone almost seems ironic (i.e., he actually means something very different than what he seems to be saying). Many scholars have argued just that, especially when paired next to his poems about the dangers of religious dogma.

The Lamb (by William Blake)

Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 

By the stream & o'er the mead; 

Gave thee clothing of delight, 

Softest clothing wooly bright; 

Gave thee such a tender voice, 

Making all the vales rejoice! 

         Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost 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 & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.

>>Analysis

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.

John Donne

John Donne 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.

Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes, and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children. In 1615, he became an Anglican priest, although he did not want to take Anglican orders. He did so because King James I persistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He also served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in 1614.

Conceit

In literature, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. Extended conceits in English are part of the poetic idiom of Mannerism, during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

>>Metaphysical

In English literature the term is generally associated with the 17th century metaphysical poets, an extension of contemporary usage. The metaphysical conceit differs from an extended analogy in the sense that it does not have a clear-cut relationship between the things being compared. Helen Gardner observed that "a conceit is a comparison whose ingenuity is more striking than its justness" and that "a comparison becomes a conceit when we are made to concede likeness while being strongly conscious of unlikeness." An example of the latter occurs in John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", in which a couple faced with absence from each other is likened to a compass.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

   (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

   Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

   That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

   Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

   Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

   Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

   As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

   To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

   Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

   Like th' other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

   And makes me end where I begun.

The metaphysical conceit is often imaginative, exploring specific parts of an experience. John Donne's "The Flea" is a poem seemingly about fleas in a bed. When Sir Philip Sidney begins a sonnet with the conventional idiomatic expression "My true-love hath my heart and I have his". He takes the metaphor literally and teases out a number of literal possibilities in the exchange of hearts. The result is a fully formed conceit.

Death, be not proud (by John Donne)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art 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. How do you like them apples?

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (by John Donne)

As virtuous men pass mildly away, 

   And whisper to their souls to go, 

Whilst some of their sad friends do say 

   The breath goes now, and some say, No: 

So let us melt, and make no noise, 

   No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 

'Twere profanation of our joys 

   To tell the laity our love. 

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, 

   Men reckon what it did, and meant; 

But trepidation of the spheres, 

   Though greater far, is innocent. 

Dull sublunary lovers' love 

   (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit 

Absence, because it doth remove 

   Those things which elemented it. 

But we by a love so much refined, 

   That our selves know not what it is, 

Inter-assured of the mind, 

   Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. 

Our two souls therefore, which are one, 

   Though I must go, endure not yet 

A breach, but an expansion, 

   Like gold to airy thinness beat. 

If they be two, they are two so 

   As stiff twin compasses are two; 

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show 

   To move, but doth, if the other do. 

And though it in the center sit, 

   Yet when the other far doth roam, 

It leans and hearkens after it, 

   And grows erect, as that comes home. 

Such wilt thou be to me, who must, 

   Like th' other foot, obliquely run; 

Thy firmness makes my circle just, 

   And makes me end where I begun. 

>>Summary

Donne's speaker begins with the very weird metaphor of an old man dying. Romantic, right? He says that the parting between him and his wife should be like the gentle death of an old man—you can't even tell when he's stopped breathing. You had us at 'dead guy,' John.

Then he shifts gears and compares shallow love to earthquakes that make a big scene and cause a big fuss, but don't have tremendous lasting effects. On the contrary, his love is like the unnoticed, subtle movements of the stars and planets that control the fates of every person (well, according to popular belief). That super-handsy couple can't stand to be apart because their love is based solely on physical contact, but the love he has can stretch any distance because the pair share one soul. Now he's turning on that old Donne charm.

To further prove the greatness of their love, he gives his last metaphor: a mathematical compass—because nothing says sex appeal like mathematical apparatus. But he says that he and his wife are like a compass when drawing a circle. One foot of the compass (Donne) goes way out and travels around, while the other (his wife) stays planted at home and leans after it. But those two compass feet are part of one unit and will always end up back together. And we give props to anyone that can drop the microphone with that as a closing image.

 

      



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

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I, 

When the evening is spread out against the sky 

Like a patient etherized upon a table; 

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 

The muttering retreats 

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 

Streets that follow like a tedious argument 

Of insidious intent 

To lead you to an overwhelming question ... 

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” 

Let us go and make our visit. 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, 

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, 

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, 

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 

And seeing that it was a soft October night, 

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. 

And indeed there will be time 

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, 

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 

There will be time, there will be time 

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; 

There will be time to murder and create, 

And time for all the works and days of hands 

That lift and drop a question on your plate; 

Time for you and time for me, 

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, 

And for a hundred visions and revisions, 

Before the taking of a toast and tea. 

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo. 

And indeed there will be time 

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” 

Time to turn back and descend the stair, 

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — 

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) 

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, 

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — 

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) 

Do I dare 

Disturb the universe? 

In a minute there is time 

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 

For I have known them all already, known them all: 

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; 

I know the voices dying with a dying fall 

Beneath the music from a farther room. 

               So how should I presume? 

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, 

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, 

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, 

Then how should I begin 

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 

               And how should I presume? 

And I have known the arms already, known them all— 

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare 

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) 

Is it perfume from a dress 

That makes me so digress? 

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. 

               And should I then presume? 

               And how should I begin? 

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes 

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... 

I should have been a pair of ragged claws 

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. 

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 

Smoothed by long fingers, 

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, 

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. 

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, 

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, 

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, 

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; 

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, 

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 

And in short, I was afraid. 

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.” 

And would it have been worth it, after all, 

Would it have been worth while, 

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, 

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— 

And this, and so much more?— 

It is impossible to say just what I mean! 

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 

Would it have been worth while 

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, 

And turning toward the window, should say: 

               “That is not it at all, 

               That is not what I meant, at all.” 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; 

Am an attendant lord, one that will do 

To swell a progress, start a scene or two, 

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, 

Deferential, glad to be of use, 

Politic, cautious, and meticulous; 

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; 

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— 

Almost, at times, the Fool. 

I grow old ... I grow old ... 

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. 

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach? 

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. 

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. 

I do not think that they will sing to me. 

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves 

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back 

When the wind blows the water white and black. 

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea 

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

>>Summary

Meet Prufrock. (Hi, Prufrock!). He wants you to come take a walk with him through the winding, dirty streets of a big, foggy city that looks a lot like London. He’s going to show you all the best sights, including the "one-night cheap hotels" and "sawdust restaurants." What a gentleman, he is! Also, he has a huge, life-altering question to ask you. He’ll get to that later, though.

Cut to a bunch of women entering and leaving a room. The women are talking about the famous Renaissance painter Michelangelo. We don’t know why they’re talking about Michelangelo, and we never learn. Welcome to Prufrock’s world, where no one does anything interesting. 

Did we mention that it’s foggy. Like really, really foggy. The fog has a delightful yellow color, and it acts a lot like a cat.

Yawn. What a day. We’ve accomplished so much already with Prufrock. There’s still a lot of stuff he still wants to get done before "toast and tea." People to see, decisions to make, life-altering questions to ask. But not yet…There’s still plenty of time for all that later.

Where did the women go? Oh, yes, they’re still talking about Michelangelo.

Yup. Pleeeen-ty of time for Prufrock to do all that really important stuff. Except that he doesn’t know if he should. He’s kind of nervous. You see, he was about to tell someone something really important, but then he didn’t. Too nervous. Oops! At least he’s a sharp-looking guy. Well, his clothes are sharp-looking. The rest of him is kind of not-so-sharp-looking. People say he’s bald and has thin arms.

But he still has pleeen-ty of time. And he’s accomplished so much already! For example, he has drank a lot of coffee, and he’s lived through a lot of mornings and afternoons. Those are pretty big accomplishments, right? Plus, he’s known a lot of women. Or at least he’s looked at their hairy arms, and that’s almost as good.

Prufrock says something about how he wishes he were a crab. Oh, Prufrock! Always the joker. Wait, you were serious? That’s kind of sad, my friend. Don’t you have important things to do?

Oops! It looks like he didn’t do that really important thing he meant to do. He was going to tell someone something life-altering, but he was afraid of being rejected. So he didn’t. Oh well.

Meanwhile, Prufrock keeps getting older. He doesn’t worry about that really important thing anymore. Instead, he worries about other important things, such as whether to roll his pant-legs or eat a peach.

It turns out that Prufrock really likes the ocean. He says he has heard mermaids singing – but they won’t sing to him. Boy, you sure do talk a lot about yourself, Prufrock. Finally, he brings us back into the conversation. He talks about how we lived at the bottom of the sea with him (geez, we don’t remember that one!). It turns out we were asleep in the ocean, but all of a sudden, we get woken up by "human voices." Unfortunately, as soon as we wake up, we drown in the salty ocean. Boy, what a day. We thought we were talking a walk, and now we’re dead.

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.

>>Pulitzer Prizes

• 1924 for New Hampshire: A Poem With Notes and Grace Notes
• 1931 for Collected Poems
• 1937 for A Further Range
• 1943 for A Witness Tree

>>Poet Laureate of Vermont

In June 1922 the Vermont State League of Women's Clubs elected Frost as Poet laureate of Vermont. When a New York Times editorial strongly criticised the decision of the Women's Clubs, Sarah Cleghorn and other women wrote to the newspaper defending Frost.

On July 22, 1961, Frost was named Poet laureate of Vermont by the state legislature through Joint Resolution R-59 of the Acts of 1961, which also created the position.

The Road Not Taken  (by Robert Frost)

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

The speaker stands in the woods, considering a fork in the road. Both ways are equally worn and equally overlaid with un-trodden leaves. The speaker chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another day. Yet he knows it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in the future he will recreate the scene with a slight twist: He will claim that he took the less-traveled road.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
 (by Robert Frost)

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

On the surface, this poem is simplicity itself. The speaker is stopping by some woods on a snowy evening. He or she takes in the lovely scene in near-silence, is tempted to stay longer, but acknowledges the pull of obligations and the considerable distance yet to be traveled before he or she can rest for the night.

          

Ars Poetica  (by Archibald Macleish)

A poem should be palpable and mute   

As a globed fruit, 

Dumb 

As old medallions to the thumb, 

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone 

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown— 

A poem should be wordless   

As the flight of birds. 

                         *               

A poem should be motionless in time   

As the moon climbs, 

Leaving, as the moon releases 

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees, 

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,   

Memory by memory the mind— 

A poem should be motionless in time   

As the moon climbs. 

                         *               

A poem should be equal to: 

Not true. 

For all the history of grief 

An empty doorway and a maple leaf. 

For love 

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea— 

A poem should not mean   

But be. 

>>Summary

The poem opens with the speaker comparing a poem to a "globed fruit" that's mute and silent. He then goes on to stress the idea of a poem being "wordless as a flight of birds." It should also be motionless in time, leaving all memories of the mind behind. A poem should also avoid so-called truths. It should be without the histories and grief of mankind, but also for it. In addition, it should be "for love" and "two lights above the sea." Above all, a poem should not mean but be.

Poetry (by Marianne Moore)

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
      all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
      discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
      they are
   useful; when they become so derivative as to become
      unintelligible, the
   same thing may be said for all of us—that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand. The bat,
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
      wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse
      that feels a flea, the base-
   ball fan, the statistician—case after case
      could be cited did
      one wish it; nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must
      make a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets,
      the result is not poetry,
   nor till the autocrats among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”—above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them,
      shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance
       of their opinion—
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness, and
      that which is on the other hand,
         genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

>>Analysis

Excluding the title, "Poetry" is only three lines long. Compared to other poems written around the same time, such as T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" or Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, Marianne Moore's poem is a piece of cake: it has no difficult words, obscure allusions, random foreign vocabulary, or grammatically twisted sentences. And it doesn't run on for pages and pages. When you read it, you find yourself thanking the high heavens for Moore's clarity, but you might also feel a bit tricked: Is that it? Is this really a poem?

Countless critics will tell you that this absolutely is a poem and, in fact, one of the most important poems of the 20th century. Countless critics will also tell you that if you had to pick just a handful of American poets to read, Marianne Moore should be one of them. And these aren't just the folks that produce your poetry textbooks, teach your literature classes, or write for this website – these critics include some great modernist poets themselves, such as T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, H.D., and W.H. Auden, all of whom were very public and very ardent fans of "Miss Moore."

Part of "Poetry's" fame arises from its unusual publishing history. It was first printed in 1919 in the journal Others. From that point on, Moore took to revising the poem again and again, so that four different versions of "Poetry" have circulated in print. (See Bonnie Honigsblum's essay, "Marianne Moore's Revisions of 'Poetry'" or Jeffrey D. Peterson's "Notes on the Poem(s) 'Poetry,'" both in Marianne Moore: Woman and Poet, for analyses of these varying versions.) Almost five decades after the first publication, the longest version, comprised of 29 lines, had already established itself as a canonical modernist poem when Moore took it to the cutting board again and hacked it down to three lines. Maybe even Moore thought this was a bit extreme, so she printed the revised poem with an endnote reproducing the longer version.

Now poetry students are left with the following dilemma: do we read the three-line "Poetry" on its own, or alongside the longer version? Where exactly does the poem end, if the poet attaches a longer version as an endnote? Can footnotes, endnotes, etc., be considered additional lines of a poem? In this sense, "Poetry" doesn't just give you one person's description of poetry – it makes you rethink what poetry is.

Anecdote of the Jar (by Wallace Stevens)

I placed a jar in Tennessee,   

And round it was, upon a hill.   

It made the slovenly wilderness   

Surround that hill. 

The wilderness rose up to it, 

And sprawled around, no longer wild.   

The jar was round upon the ground   

And tall and of a port in air. 

It took dominion everywhere.   

The jar was gray and bare. 

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

"Anecdote of the Jar" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. First published in 1919, it is in the public domain.

Anecdote of the Jar

 I placed a jar in Tennessee,

 And round it was, upon a hill.

 It made the slovenly wilderness

 Surround that hill.

 The wilderness rose up to it,

 And sprawled around, no longer wild.

 The jar was round upon the ground

 And tall and of a port in air.

 It took dominion everywhere.

 The jar was gray and bare.

 It did not give of bird or bush,

 Like nothing else in Tennessee.

This famous, much-anthologized poem succinctly accommodates a remarkable number of different and plausible interpretations, as Jacqueline Brogan observes in a discussion of how she teaches it to her students. It can be approached from a New Critical perspective as a poem about writing poetry and making art generally. From a poststructuralist perspective the poem is concerned with temporal and linguistic disjunction, especially in the convoluted syntax of the last two lines. A feminist perspective reveals a poem concerned with male dominance over a traditionally feminized landscape. A cultural critic might find a sense of industrial imperialism. Brogan concludes: "When the debate gets particularly intense, I introduce Roy Harvey Pearce's discovery of the Dominion canning jars (a picture of which is then passed around)."

Buttel suggests that the speaker would arrange the wild landscape into the order of a still life, and though his success is qualified, art and imagination do at least impose an idea of order on the sprawling reality.

Helen Vendler, in a reading that contradicts Brogan's and Buttel's, asserts that the poem is incomprehensible except as understood as a commentary on Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn." The poem alludes to Keats, she argues, as a way of discussing the predicament of the American artist "who cannot feel confidently the possessor, as Keats felt, of the Western cultural tradition." Shall he use language imported from Europe ("of a port in air", to "give of"), or "plain American that cats and dogs can read" (as Marianne Moore put it), like "The jar was round upon the ground"? The poem is a palinode, retracting the Keatsian conceits of "Sunday Morning" and vowing "to stop imitating Keats and seek a native American language that will not take the wild out of the wilderness."

Wallace Stevens wrote the poem in 1918 when he was in the town of Elizabethton, Tennessee.