COURSE :Introduction To Literature

DEPARTMENT : ENGLISH

PROFESSOR : OLMSTED

Lecture6 : Poetry_Lines_Person_Irony

View the Power Point Presentation of the Lecture

Is it on? Hi today we’re looking at three things how to read poems out loud, how to identify the persona of a poem, and how to interpret irony. When you read a poem out loud your voice can influence meaning just as line breaks or punctuation do. Poems should be read more slowly than you’d read a newspaper article for instance with attention to pauses and emphasis. Some poets change their voices when they read maybe chanting if that’s appropriate the way William Butler Yeats does in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” or rhythmically the way Gwendolyn Brooks does in “We Real Cool.” First I want to show you an example of an Emily Dickinson poem the way she intended it to look and the way an early editor quote on quote fixed her poem for her to make it correct. You’ll need to go to course documents to see a copy of this as well as fact simile of her original manuscript for another poem which is sometimes called “Sacred Closet.” Dickinson didn’t title her poems when they were collected after she died each was given a number there were over 1700. She used dashes to indicate a pause though in her handwritten manuscripts of course they didn’t have tag writers back then or maybe they did but she didn’t use one some of her dashes were longer, some were more short, some of her dashes were even vertical as though they were approximating a musical mark. Things get really interesting when you look at “Sacred Closet” The manuscript of the poem shows the closing words running along the side and even upside down at the top of the page which means you have to turn the page to read it. Even E.E. Cummings didn’t do that. Okay now we’ll look at the poems oops. Yeah I did that right, didn’t I? On the left you see hold on a second we’ll get it placed on the left you see Higginson’s edited version and on the right the original as she intended it we’re as close as we can get to her initial her original manuscript. What differences do you notice right away? Well first of all hold on okay first of all you notice let’s see if I if I push this is that right oh where’s the little hand okay sorry about that bear with me. First you notice that in this version let’s start put it over here in this version Higginson has made four stanzas four quatrains. He standardized the punctuation so you have question marks, semicolons, commas, he’s eliminated all the dashes that Dickinson used. He’s changed words in stanzas two he’s used sated instead of vanquished. In the third stanza he’s used din where is din okay here we go din instead of ring and there are more. In your activity for today you can tell me what you think of this. Finally he’s removed all of Emily Dickinson’s special and eccentric even or individualistic uses of capitalization. All of these capitals have been removed. We might say one way to think of this as is that Higginson has tamed Emily Dickinson’s poem, made it correct and as modern readers we find that offensive. I’ll read the first half of each to suggest how punctuation can change how you read a poem and therefore its meaning. “The White Heat” dare you see a soul at the white heat? Then crouch within the door red is the fire’s common tint but when the vivid ore has sated flame’s conditions its quivering substance plays without a color, but the light of unannointed blaze. That was Higginson’s poem now we look at Dickinson’s version. Dare you see a soul at the white heat. Then crouch within the door red is the fire’s common tint but when the vivid ore has vanquished flame’s conditions its quivers from the forge without a color, but he light of unannointed blaze. I’ll leave that to you to think about the differences there. Is it just visual, has he just changed a few punctuation marks or has the experience of reading the poem changed as well. One of the most obvious examples of the change is her use of the word red which is set apart here by a dash from the previous line and a dash after, so there’s an emphasis on that word a pause before and after that’s missing over here in this one. I’d like to introduce you to two terms enjambement and end-stop. Enjambement is the breaking of a phrase, clause or sentence by the end of a line or between two verses. When the units of sense in a passage of poetry don’t coincide with the verses, such as in these lines from Langston Hughes’s poem then you have enjambement. it’s not easy to know what is true for you or me at age twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear Harlem I hear you, hear me we two you, me, talk on this page. Enjambement occurs here when the line is not finished it would sound wrong and awkward if you read it this way it’s not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. There’s a break there that you don’t want to emphasize by pausing. End-stop on the other hand occurs when a phrase, clause, or sentence is marked by the end of a line of poetry with a mark of punctuation that is conventional. Aunt Jemima’s tigers prance across a screen, because that’s exactly where you would put it in a conventional sentence. Bright topaz denizens of a world of green so end-stopping and enjambement are two key terms that you need to be aware and that impact how you read a poem. Let’s look at two poems and think about the way that enjambement and end-stops work. The first one is Edward Arlington Robinson’s “Luke Havergal” and the second is Langston Hughes’ “Theme For English B” both are in your book. While I read pay a special attention to the punctuation dashes especially and whether the sense of excuse me whether the sense of a line ends at the end of the line or if it continues onto the next line. “Luke Havergal” Go the western gate, Luke Havergal there where the lines the vines cling crimson the wall and in the twilight wait for what will come. The wind will moan, the leaves will whisper some, whisper of her and strike you as they fall. But go and if you trust her she will call. Go the western gate Luke Havergal—Luke Havergal. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies to rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes but there, where western glooms are gathering the dark will end the dark, if anything. God slays Himself with every leaf that flies and hell is more than half of paradise. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies—in eastern skies. Out of a grave as I come to tell you this, out of a grave I come to quench the kiss that flames upon your forehead with a glow that blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is bitter but one that faith can never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this—to tell you this. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal. There are the crimson leaves upon the wall. Go, for the winds are tearing them away or think to riddle the dead words they say nor any more to feel them as they fall but go and if you trust her she will call. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal-- Luke Havergal. Dickinson uses dashes to indicate pauses in emphasis why does Robinson use them? Notice they appear only four times at the end of each stanza excuse me at the end of each stanza before the repeated words as I read the function of the dash here it seems to set up an echo. You might think about that when you answer the question about this poem in the activity for today. This poem employs end-stop lines as well as a few that are enjambed. Here’s an example of enjambed lines. There is not a dawn in eastern skies to rift the fiery night. You wouldn’t read that there is not a dawn in eastern skies to rift the fiery night as if you were starting a new sentence so pay attention to the way whether it’s enjambement or whether the end of the line represents the end of a thought. Let’s see okay the next poem is Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B”. Three points I’d like to make about my reading of this poem. First, the instructor’s assignment should probably be read in a slightly more formal voice than the rest of the poem. That’s right here oh hold on. Okay alright second while most of the lines do conclude with punctuation several do not. These are examples of enjambement when you read in an enjambed line you read with a sense of the lines there is no artificial pause at the end of such a line. Finally Hughes also uses dashes. I think the dashes indicate a pause as they do in Dickinson’s poetry as well as emphasis but they also set off an interruption in the flow of thought. This is how dashes function in prose you use a dash to interrupt the sense of a sentence that you’re saying. Maybe you have some more thoughts on how the dashes work. So here especially interesting I think are these kinds of dashes here where he asks a question he says Harlem I hear you hear you hear me we too you me talk on this page. I hear New York too me who. So by using these dashes he interrupts himself and you get the sense that he’s thinking out loud as he’s struggling to write this assignment this paper that is going to explain who he is a black man to a white teacher and these are these cause him to reflect deeply about the meaning of who he is and I think the dashes help him do that. Okay in the activities for today I asked you to respond to the idea of person or persona in these poems. Persona as you read in your textbook refers to the character or voice that the poet adopts. Many poems are written from the point of view of the poet but often the poet adopts another person’s voice. Think of Gwendolyn Brooks “We Real Cool” poem for instance it’s almost certain that she herself is not one of the we “We Real Cool.” In “Luke Havergal” the same is true for Robinson whereas in Hughes’ poem not just this one but all the ones for today it’s more likely that the I in the poem is actually Hughes or a version of Hughes maybe a younger one. All of us are made up of many different selves for instance but my voice and my concerns, my sense of humor or tone or even the words I use are different when I’m being a teacher or a mother or a wife or a friend if I’m talking to people who have power over me or if I’m talking to people who maybe I have a certain amount of power over them. What’s self do you think appears in Hughes’ poem? Think about that in your response today. So far we’ve talked about how to read poems and I’ve elaborated on the text discussion of the person in the poem, now I’d like to say a few words about irony. This is a crucial element of language and communication. Jokes for instance often rely on irony. Here’s one a disgruntled postal worker sent a letter bomb to his boss but he didn’t pay enough for the postage for it to reach its destination. So it came back return to sender and you guessed it he didn’t recognize his own handwriting so he opened it and blew himself up. This sounds a little bit like poetic justice which is another kind of irony. Usually when someone gets what they deserve. Some of you may be Stephen King fans if so maybe you’ve read Survivor Type in it a doctor with no morals or conscience is shipwrecked on a deserted island. Because of his elicit activities he has a valise of heroin with him when he breaks his ankle he uses the heroin for an anesthetic then cuts his own foot off and eats it. He continues to cut off body parts to fend off starvation finally cutting off his left hand. The diary that he keeps ends there obviously he’s dead. It is poetic justice that the means and skills he used in a lifetime of harming others become the instrument of suffering and indeed death that he inflicts upon himself. That is what you call irony. There are four types of irony that our book discusses and in the second activity for today I ask you to identify what type of irony is at work in four different poems. I don’t want to spoil your fun so I’ll just summarize again what the four types are in my own words. Basically in irony there’s a contrast or a disjuncture between what’s said or what’s known.
The first kind of irony is verbal irony. This occurs when what is said is not what’s intended. Sarcasm is an example of verbal irony and sarcasm implies a biting or hurtful meaning. If my son comes downstairs wearing his dirty jeans and we’re about to go out to a fancy restaurant I might say to him nice outfit. That’s irony—verbal irony but if I say it with a sneer on my face or a mean tone then it becomes sarcasm. The second kind of irony dramatic irony also contains a contrast but this time the contrast is between what a character or a person in a poem knows and what you know as a reader or a viewer. If you know more than a character and this knowledge would help the character then it’s probably dramatic irony. There’s a contrast here between levels of knowledge and you have more. The third type of irony is ironic point of view and this occurs when a poet has a very different attitude about the subject than the persona in the poem. If I hate lying and liars and I write a poem about a liar the persona might brag about her ability to get away with lying but I would probably use words that suggest I don’t approve or that the bragging is a sign of lack of character rather than something to be proud of. The fourth type of irony is cosmic irony. This occurs when fate or the world may be just that unidentified they out there acts against the hopes and dreams of a character. You have some poor schmo who just wants to get a cheeseburger and fries for dinner and every time he approaches McDonald’s something keeps him from it. A car almost runs over him, lightening strikes, then just as the skies clear an old friend begs him to watch his little boy while he runs just a quick errand when he returns it’s dark, this poor guy stumbles into a hole, breaks his leg. Finally he crawls to McDonald’s door but just as he gets there the managers lock it and say sorry we’re closed. That’s cosmic irony. That’s it for today. Good luck with your activities let me know if you have any questions.