Poems Throughout History
Renaissance
What is distinctive about Renaissance art?
Renaissance
• Word renaissance means “rebirth”-refers to renewed interest in
Classical thinking-ancient Rome and Greece
• Humanism: worked to harmonize Bible and the classics-the goal
is to attain virtue!
• Invention of the printing press-for the first time work could be
published and read!
• Protestant Reformation: the Catholic Church was starting to lose
its absolute power
• King Henry and Elizabeth: great importance was placed on the
crown
• The Sinking of the Spanish Armada: England is at its peak.
• Pastoral Poems: focus on the idealized form of nature-the rise of
the lower classes
• Poems often followed metrical patterns and specific forms to
help build credit to the art behind the creation of works
Renaissance
Review “Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind.” How does it fit with its historical context?
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
• Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
William Shakespeare
Romanticism
What is distinctive about Romantic art?
Romanticism
• Imagination over intellect: all that matters is how we see the
world
• Industrial Revolution: move from agriculture to harsher working
conditions in factories
• Aftermath of American and French Revolution: England is
starting to lose its power
• Social Idealism: the idea that success is truly possible-optimism
• Focus on the child-like sense of wonder: seeing the world as full
of possibilities
• Emphasis on lyrical ballads: poems often read as songs
exclaiming about the wonder of the word
Romanticism
I wandered 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.
Victorian
What is unique about Victorian art?
Victorian Era
• Focused around Queen Victoria-the reform act of 1832
• The rise of the middle class: middle class was gaining
and wanted to showcase their authority
• Prim and proper: common modes of etiquette
• Literature focused on the possibility and desire for
social advancement
• Going back to classic forms-showcasing the beauty of
art
Victorian: Dover Beach by
Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Victorian: Dover Beach by
Matthew Arnold
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Modernism
What is distinctive about modernist art?
Modernism
• The Aftermath of the War: marked by
disillusionment
• The rise of Civil Rights Movements: giving
minorities a voice
• Breaking all the rules: a direct break in
previous forms of art—stream of
consciousness, lyrical sonnets, satire, etc.
• Cubism: questioning the whole by breaking it
into pieces and starting again
Modernism: Telephone
Conversation by Wole Soyinka
5
•
•
10
The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. “Madam,” I warned,
“I hate a wasted journey—I am African.”
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
“HOW DARK?” . . . I had not misheard . . . “ARE YOU LIGHT
OR VERY DARK?” Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis—
Modernism: “Telephone
Conversation” by Wole Soyinka
“ARE
20
25
•
30
35
YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?” Revelation came.
“You mean—like plain or milk chocolate?”
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wavelength adjusted,
I chose. “West African sepia”—and as an afterthought,
“Down in my passport.” Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding,
“DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” “Like brunette.”
“THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?” “Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused—
Foolishly, madam—by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black—One moment madam!”—sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears—“Madam,” I pleaded, “wouldn’t you rather
See for yourself?”