1052 Week 12

JOHN DONNE

He was an English poet and cleric in the Church of England.

John Donne is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets.

Donne's style is characterized by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations.

TYPES OF POETRY

narrative poetry:

a poem which tells a story

Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls, and lays.

lyric poetry:

consist of a song-like quality

Lyric poetry expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.

dramatic poetry:

written with the intention of being performed

Dramatic poetry is a written work that both tells a story and connects the reader to an audience through emotions or behavior.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

It is an ode, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819 near Florence, Italy.

The poem "Ode to the West Wind" can be divided in two parts.

The first three cantos are about the qualities of the Wind and each ends with the invocation "Oh hear!". The last two cantos give a relation between the Wind and the speaker.

THE TYGER

It is a poem by the English poet William Blake published in 1794 as part of the Songs of Experience collection. 

Literary critic Alfred Kazin calls it ''the most famous of his poems'', and The Cambridge Companion to William Blake says it is ''the most anthologized poem in English.''

It is one of Blake's most reinterpreted and arranged works.

HOW A SONNET TELLS A STORY

3 quatrains + 1 couplet

first quatrain:

An exposition of the main theme and main metaphor.

second quatrain:

Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some imaginative example is given.

third quatrain:

Peripeteia (a twist or conflict), often introduced by a “but” (very often leading off the ninth line).

couplet:

Summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

It is a ballad written by the English poet John Keats.

It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them.

The original was written by Keats in 1819. He used the title of the 15th-century La Belle Dame sans Mercy by Alain Chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different.

BIRCHES

It was collected in Robert Frost's third collection of poetry Mountain Interval that was published in 1916.

Consisting of 59 lines, it is one of Robert Frost's most anthologized poems.

The poem "Birches", along with other poems that deal with rural landscape and wildlife, shows Frost as a nature poet.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

It was adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.