COURSE :Introduction To Literature

DEPARTMENT : ENGLISH

PROFESSOR : OLMSTED

Lecture4 : Poetic_Language

View the Power Point Presentation of the Lecture

Today we’re going to go to what I think of as the heart of poetry that is the use of language. You’ll find lots of terms in the sections assigned for today so it would be really good to jot them down along with an example if the book defines a term to my satisfaction I won’t include it in the list of terms that I’m posting under course documents. So just be sure you know the terms in my list as well as those in the book. First imagery. usually think of an image as something visual something that you see a picture for instance but in poetry visual imagery includes all the senses not just what you see. In poetry as in everyday conversation sometimes the hardest thing is to give someone else a strong feeling for the experience such that they can all but feel it with you. How many times in conversation have you heard someone say something like I just don’t know what words to use to explain this? By the same token, you know what a pleasure it is to talk to someone who’s a good storyteller. Likely part of the magic is the way they evoke through the senses the characters or events or feelings. In other words they know how to bring it to life. Let’s look at three examples where imagery is very sense-oriented. The first is a famous poem by Ezra Pound it’s called “In a Station of the Metro.” The apparition of these faces in the crowd; petals on a wet, black bough. The second line of this brief poem is all image we can imagine, we can see in our mind’s eye the flower’s stark contrast with the branch perhaps it has grown there perhaps it was blown there by a storm. All of these add to the ambience and meaning of the poem. You might not be familiar with that word ambience. So let me explain what it is. It’s a word used let’s see if I can even write down here a-m-b-i-e-n-c-e. It’s a word used to describe the mood that one feels from the surrounding environment so you might describe the the ambience of a restaurant as being harsh or commercial such as McDonald’s while the ambience of another restaurant like Brickyard Café is more elegant or intimate. In a poem, the ambience is the overall mood that a poem invokes and imagery is key to how this happened. The second poem is also very famous. It’s by William Carlos Williams who was a doctor as well as a widely published poet and fiction writer. It’s called “The Red Wheelbarrow” so much depends upon the red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. Except for the first stanza, this poem is nothing but image. Just that line, there’s a judgment there so much depends other than that it’s like a snapshot. Let’s see here. Williams and Pound were friends they and other influential poets of their time joined together in a movement called imagism. The imagists’ argued for the primacy of image in poetry. You’ve probably already read what the text says about the poem but let me read it to you. “The Red Wheelbarrow” here let me let’s go back to this okay there it is. “The Red Wheelbarrow” Dr. Williams’ poem reportedly contains a personal experience. He was gazing from the window of the house where one of his patients, a small girl lays suspended between life and death. Now when you read the poem and you image that there’s a girl inside who’s dying it suddenly has a different meaning. So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. So on the one hand this is a poem that rests on imagery on the other the biographical information adds another layer of meaning. Some would argue that any information about the author is irrelevant. The poem stands on its own merits separate from its creator. Now let’s look at a poem that uses lots of imagery but also includes in the poem some of the poet’s comments about it. What I’d like to do is mark the poem for some of the places where the poet uses a word that helps to make the image concrete. You should do this as well when you talk about the imagery and poems in the activity for today. You can also identify some of the figures of speech. “Root Cellar.” Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch. Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark. Shoots dangled and drooped. Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates. Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes and what a congress of stinks! Roots ripe as old bait, pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich. Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks nothing would give up life. Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. Okay some of the concrete images and words dank as let’s see I didn’t mean to do this dank as a ditch also employs simile, chinks in the dark another good strong image. Shoots tangled and drooped here we have lolling obscenely from mildewed crates. Long yellow evil necks tropical snakes ripe as old bait pulpy stems leaf-mold manure lime slippery planks. All of those are very concrete images and important to giving communicating both visually and through the sense of smell the reality of this cellar. Couple of instances of personification you have here that the shoots were lolling obscenely of course shoots don’t loll obscenely and they don’t hang down long yellow evil necks. Here you have like tropical snakes because it uses the word like it’s a simile. Down here you have again the poet’s comments appear twice here actually three times. So in between those three places you have basically a list as a poet evokes through imagery the poem. Now that we’ve read through the poem we can go back to the first line and think about it again. Why do you think he begins with nothing would sleep in that cellar? Notice that the poem consists of four sentences, the first includes a list of what the bulbs and shoots do, the second is the poet’s voice as he reacts to the image of the first five lines ending it with an exclamation mark gives a clue for how to read it. The third sentence is another list of what you would find in the cellar roots, stems, mold, manure, lime and the last sentence is the poet’s voice again commenting this time in a couplet that acts as a resolution, a kind of moral about the power of life to claim and to use everything for its own survival. Life is so powerful in this cellar that it even gives life as in the line even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. If we were to say flatly paraphrase this poem vegetation will thrive in a dark damp cellar so even things that are not alive take on living qualities. We wouldn’t have the experience of really seeing and smelling the cellar. It’s like we too as we read we bring out experience of cellars to the poem. For many of us, cellars are a scary place. You could say that there something a little frightening in this poem as well especially in the line about evil necks and tropical snakes and things lolling obscenely. So you could say that the poem celebrates life and the power of life but you can also say that the life force can be a little overwhelming and even a little creepy. This okay the second topic for today is figures of speech metaphor, simile, and personification in particular although there are many more and our textbook mentions some of them and we’ll be talking about more as we go. A figure of speech is the use of language to offer more than its literal meaning. We use figures of speech all the time and indeed our language would be dull as doornails if we didn’t. That’s a simile because it makes a comparison using like or as dead as doornails. I could eat a horse that’s an example of hyperbole it’s pronounced hyperbole not hyperbole not even though that’s what it looks like. Saying that the wind howls is personification. Saying to someone you’re in love with and think the world of yeah you’re okay that’s understatement. If you stand outside on a hillside overlooking a beautiful view you might say to no one in particular oh nature, you are so beautiful if you do that you’ve probably made sure first that no one is around to overhear you in any case addressing someone or something who isn’t really there something like nature that’s called an apostrophe it’s exactly the same word as the apostrophe used possessive but it means something different. How is how is “In a Station of the Metro” really an implied metaphor? The fact that there are two lines sets up a comparison between a crowd of people in the city and a branch with blossoms on it. He doesn’t say that the branch is a street or that people are like blossoms so it’s neither metaphor nor a simile but rather an implied metaphor. Another important element of poetry and indeed of all language is symbol. A symbol works two ways it is something itself and it also suggests something deeper. It’s crucial to distinguish a symbol from a metaphor. Metaphors are comparisons of two seemingly dissimilar things. Symbols associate two things but their meaning is both literal and figurative. A metaphor might read his life was an oak tree that had just lost its leaves. A symbol might be the oak tree itself which would evoke the cycle of death and rebirth through the loss and growth of leaves. Some symbols have widespread commonly accepted values that most readers should recognize the American flag, the eagle, apple pie these are common symbols in the United States. The hammer and sickle is a symbol of Communism and the Swastika of Nazi Germany. All of these symbols are determined by individual cultures and time. Do you think a Chinese reader would recognize that apple pie suggests innocence. We might call these public symbols or what our text calls conventional symbols. There are two other kinds of symbols I’d like to mention. The first type embodies universal suggestions of meaning. Examples are flowing water as a symbol for time or eternity or darkness as a symbol for uncertainty or death or a mirror as a symbol for self-awareness or truth because as you know mirrors don’t lie. Such symbols are widely used often unconsciously in literature and are recognized throughout different cultures. The other type of symbol comes directly from the way in which the idea is used in a specific poem. So a word that functions that functions as a poem as a excuse me as a symbol in one poem won’t have the same meaning in another poem and may not be a symbol at all in the second poem. So we might think of these as both universal and contextual literary symbols. In Yates’ poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” that you read on the first day Innisfree can be seen as a symbol for the speaker’s past youth which the speaker is unable to return to in the real or physical world. Yet emotionally and in his mind the speaker can return again and again to that tranquility of Innisfree his youth suggested by the term bee-loud glade if you’ll remember which sounds like a child’s word and comes out of memory. Not every prominent image in a poem is a symbol so be careful not to overuse the term but if you can argue that a word stands both for what it is Innisfree is a real place and what it stands for youth then you may have a symbol that is important to that poem. That’s all for now. Take care and I hope you have a real and not just a symbolically good day.