“Let us go then, you and I”
“Sorry, I'm Busy Tonight”
Reading Poetry: Theory and Practice
C.M. Bajetta
Università della Valle d’Aosta
T.S. Eliot,
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1-3
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table…
(from Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917)
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But… what does it mean?
• In itself
– (without this, all our thoughts about poetry
would be pure moonshine…)
• For us
– (without this, ‘all art is quite useless’ - Oscar
Wilde)
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Do we really need this?
• Yes, because there is no way of reading
which does not imply (whether consciously
or
unconsciously)
some
kind
of
"theoretical" approach to literature.
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What is literature?
• Plato and Aristotle
– mimesis, imitation (though with remarkable
differences)
• Sir Philip Sidney (16th cent.)
– poet = creator of a "second nature".
???
• The Romantics
– Literature: product of Imagination - thus a
means to reach the hidden Mystery which
lays "behind" reality, its inner nature.
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What is literature?
20th c.
today
• a form of communication.
(Cf. e.g. Structuralist school & Roman
Jackobson)
• modern theory - starting from the text
(do not worry, you will get more on this later on…)
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Something missing ?
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T.S. Eliot,
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1-3
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table...
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Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table...
1)"Hey, mate, fancy going out tonight? The weather's good".
2)"I think it is a most remarkable evening, just look at the clouds over
there, on the horizon, how they stretch from east to west, how
very picturesque. I would really love to go out for a short walk".
1)
2)
invitation to the local pub for a pint.
academic pointing out that the sunset is really nice this evening.
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Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against
the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table...
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When the Evening…
Forse perché della fatal quiete
tu sei l'immago a me sì cara vieni
o sera!
U. Foscolo, Alla Sera
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
The ploughman homewards plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me
Thomas Gray Elegy written in a Country Churchyard
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When the Evening…
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing
William Collins, Ode to Evening, 9-10 (1740s)
Nox erat et placidum carpebant fessa soporem /
Corpora per terras [...] At non infelici animi
Phoenissa
(Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 522-532 )
It was then night: the sound and quiet sleep / had
through the earth the wearied bodies caught [...]
not so the sprite of this Phoenician.
(Surrey's Aeneid, IV, 702-715).
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When the Evening…
‘an image is that which presents an
intellectual and emotional complex in an
instant of time’
(Ezra Pound)
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text
context
In itself
- analysis
- sources or some kind of influence
- biographical data
- history of the text
- history of literature
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table...
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Let us go then, you and I
Sorry, I’m busy tonight!
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