Poetry
Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world,
and makes familiar things be as if they were not familiar.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821
Poetry should be elbowed
out of our working world
to make room for machinery.
Sarah Ellis, 1839.
What is poetry?
• Whatever differences in subjectivity, topic, and
style, poetry can be primarily defined as
• language cast in verse,
• and frequently reveals these additional features:
• a subjective first-person persona or voice
• brevity, concentration, and reduction
• an unusual use of words and phrases
• suggestive imagery
• rhythm and metre
• repetition of sounds
• lines grouped in stanzas.
External communication of the poem
Composition
–
literary conventions
Internal communication of the poem
Lyrical I/voice
Real author
=>
You/implicit addressee
=>
Real reader
• It would be wrong to identify the explicit lyrical I,
persona (lyrisches Ich), or the implicit voice
(Stimme) with the real author because every poem
defines its persona by his/her mood (Stimmung),
tone (attitude, Haltung), questions and statements in
a fictional situation, which need not be based on
autobiographical experience. Within the text, a
persona or a voice presents his/her present feelings,
observations, and reflections to an implicit or explicit
listener or fictive addressee (Adressat).
Lyrik verwendet
- in Verse gegossene Sprache,
und trägt häufig folgende weitere Merkmale:
- einen Sprecher in der ersten Person
- relative Kürze und Dichte der Aussage
- gesteigerte Bildhaftigkeit
- harmonische Klangbeziehungen
- rhythmisierte Sprache
- ungrammatische oder unsyntaktische Wortstellung
- feste Strophenformen.
IMAGERY
image
a picture in words made up in the mind
symbol
metaphor simile
allegory
symbol = a word or set of words that refer to s.th. which is more important than the literal
meaning or concrete reference; a general and abstract idea expressed in a concrete thing.
e.g.:
tree => a symbol of life
snake => a symbol of evil
metaphor = a short phrase which describes one thing by stating another thing to which it can be
compared; e.g.: "the roses in her cheeks"
a metaphor consists of the tenor (= the subject to which the metaphoric word is applied"; here:
"cheeks") and the vehicle (= the metaphoric word itself; here: "roses")
allegory = Yeats: "Now an allegory is but an translation of abstract notions into a picturelanguage, which is itself nothing but an abstraction from objects of the senses ... a symbol ... is
characterized by a translucence of the special in the individual, or of the general in the special, or
of the universal in the general ..." Both, Goethe and Coleridge, esteem the allegory lower than the
symbol. "personifications are actually the allegoric figures"
simile <simili> = an expression making a comparison in one's imagination between two things
using the words "like or "as"
e.g.: "my love is like a red rose, red rose" (Robert Burns)
Metrum - Metre
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Jambus m, pl Jamben (u-)
jambisch
Trochäus m, pl Trochäen (-u)
trochäisch
Daktylus m, pl Daktylen (-uu)
daktylisch
Anapäst m, pl Anapästen (uu-)
anapästisch
Spondeus m, pl Spondeen (--)
spondeisch
Pyrrhichius m
(uu)
Amphibrachys m (u-u)
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iamb, iambus
iambic
trochee
trochaic
dactyl
dactylic
anapaest
anapaestic
spondee
spondaic
pýrrhic
Amphibrach
Metrum
- Jambus (iamb, metrische Einheit mit Auftakt): unbetont - betont (x /), „nanu“,
„above“
- Trochäus (trochee, auftaktlose Einheit): betont – unbetont (/ x), „fallend“, „falling“
- Daktylus (dactyl): betont – zwei unbetonte Silben (/ x x), „absteigend“, „Daktylus“
- Anapäst (anapest): zwei unbetonte Silben - eine betont (x x /), „Anapäst“, „vor dem
Haus“
- Spondäus (spondee): zwei betonte Silben (/ /), „Hilfe!“
I can connect / x x /
nothing with nothing.
/xx/x
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
x/x/x/x/x/
My people humble people who expect
x/x/x/x/x/
Nothing.
/x
Reime
- Paarreim ((rhyming) couplet): aabb
- Kreuzreim (alternate/cross rhyme): abab
- umgreifender oder verschränkter Reim (embracing/envelope rhyme): abba
- Schweifreim (tail rhyme): aabccb, abcabc.
Die Metonymie (metonymy) ersetzt einen Begriff durch einen anderen, der zu ihm in
einem engen Verhältnis steht und der deshalb nicht wie die Metapher neue Bedeutungen
erschliesst, sondern das Bekannte lediglich variiert. So kennzeichnet
- die Krone den Status und die Person des Königs
- ein abstrakter Begriff eine Person oder Institution (die Nächstenliebe in Person für Mutter
Theresa)
- der Name eines Autors sein Werk (Hast Du den letzten Grisham gelesen?)
- der Ortsname seine Bewohner (München im Fussballfieber)
- eine Ursache seine Wirkung, ein Mittel seinen Zweck oder umgekehrt (Er fährt einen
heissen Reifen; Hast Du Feuer?)
- die Kleidung das Geschlecht (eine Hosenrolle spielen; am Rockzipfel hängen), und
- das Gefäss den Inhalt („Noch ein Glas, bitte!“).
Die Synekdoche (synecdoche) ist der Metonymie eng verwandt und wird manchmal als
ihre Unterart klassifiziert. Bei der Synekdoche ersetzt
- ein Teil das Ganze oder umgekehrt (auch pars pro toto genannt: ein Dach über dem Kopf
für eine Hütte/ein Haus)
- die Einzahl die Mehrzahl oder umgekehrt (Der Mensch ist ein Gewohnheitstier), und
- das Material den Gegenstand (der Stahl den Dolch, das Leder den Ball).
Die Allegorie (allegory) setzt einen abstrakten, allgemeinen Begriff oder Vorgang
in ein konventionelles Bild, eine Person oder Geschichte um. Wenn die Justitia
als Frau mit verbundenen Augen, einer Waagschale und einem Schwert
dargestellt wird, werden genau das Urteilen ohne Ansehen der Person, das
gerechte Abwägen von Schuld und Unschuld sowie die Bestrafung
versinnbildlicht. Eine Reise kann als Allegorie für den Lebensweg dienen. In As
You Like It beschreibt Shakespeare die Welt allegorisch als Bühne, auf der die
Menschen ihre Rollen spielen: „All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and
women merely players. / They have their exits and their entrances, / And one
man in his time plays many parts“ (2.7.139-142).
Die Personifikation (personification) ist eine Unterart der Allegorie und lässt
abstrakte Konzepte oder Eigenschaften als handelnde Typen auftreten, wie z. B.
der Neid, der auf den Reichtum schielt oder die Unschuld, die von der Wollust
verführt wird. Metonymie, Synekdoche, Allegorie und Personifikation sind
Figuren, die Konzepte variieren und illustrieren und auf Grund ihrer relativ
konventionellen Formen eher überlesen als nicht verstanden werden. Allerdings
sollten auch sie auf ihren Kontext bezogen werden, um zu sehen, was sie dort
leisten. Wenn man synekdochisch einen Arbeiter als „a hand“ bezeichnet,
reduziert man den ganzen Menschen auf seine bloss körperliche Arbeit und
nimmt ihn nicht als empfindendes und denkendes Wesen wahr.
Das Symbol ist ein konkretes Phänomen, das auf eine abstrakte, oft vieldeutige
und nicht ganz auszuschöpfende Bedeutung verweist. Im alltäglichen
Sprachgebrauch bezeichnen wir ohne große Unterscheidung als symbolisch
alle möglichen Zeichen, die auf etwas anderes verweisen, wie schwarze
Kleidung auf Trauer, gelbe Blätter auf den Herbst, der Stern auf eine bekannte
Automarke, die Schere auf einen Friseur oder Schneider, ein Herz auf die
Liebe, ein rundes weißes Schild mit rotem Rand darauf, dass die Durchfahrt
von dieser Richtung verboten ist.
http://www.ils.unc.edu/~beaud/inls181/index.html
William Shakespeare
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1564 Shakespeare born in Stratford-upon-Avon
Father is a local businessman
Attends local grammar school, no university education
1582 Shakespeare Married to Anne Hathaway
1583 Birth of daughter Susanna
The Queen's Company is formed in London
1585 Birth of twins, Judith and Hamnet
1587(?)-1592 Departure from Stratford
Establishment in London as an actor/playwright
1587 Mary Queen of Scots executed
1588 Defeat of the Armada
1590 Spenser's Faerie Queen (1-3)
1591 Sidney's Astrophil and Stella
1593 Preferment sought through aristocratic connections - dedicates Venus and
Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) to Henry Wriothsley, Earl of
Southampton - possibly the youth of the Sonnets
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Begins writing the Sonnets, probably completed by c.1597 or earlier
1594-1596 The Lyrical masterpieces; Prosperity and recognition as the
leading London playwright.
1596 Hamnet Shakespeare dies at age 11
1596 Spenser's Faerie Queen (4-6)
1597-1599 Artistic Maturity Purchases New Place, Stratford with other
significant investments
1599 The Globe Theater built on Bankside from the timbers of The
Theatre. Shakespeare is a shareholder and receives about 10% of the
profits
1603 Death of Elizabeth I; successor: James the First, son of Mary of
Scotland
1607 Susanna Shakespeare married Dr. John Hall
1608 Shakespeare's mother dies
1609 Publication of the Sonnets
1612-1616 Shakespeare probably retires from London life to Stratford
Judith Shakespeare married Thomas Quiney
March 1616 Shakespeare apparently ill revises his will
April 23, 1616 Shakespeare dies and is burried at Holy trinity Church,
Stratford
„Rival“ Poets
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
William Shakespeare (1564 -1616)
John Donne (1572-1631)
Work
37 plays
154 Sonnets
(written between 1592-1598; publ. 1609)
two poems:
Venus and Adonis (1593)
The Rape of Lucrece (1594)
The Sonnet
Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet
Sonnet form: one octave (idea, thought) and one sestet (turning point = volta,
shift; solution; conclusion)
Rhyme scheme: abba abba cdc dcd or abba abba cde cde
Spenserian sonnet
Interlocking rhyming scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee
English or Shakespearean Sonnet
Sonnet form: three quatrains and a couplet
Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
Sonett/ sonnet
Italian Sonnet:
2 quatrains/ Quartett = 1 octet/ Oktett
2 tercets/ Terzett = 1 sestet/ Sextett
English/Elizabethan/ Shakespearian sonnet:
3 quatrains
1 couplet
The Structure of Shakepeare‘s Sonnet Cycle
divided into two groups
Sonnets 1-126 = "young man" sonnets
Sonnets 127-154 = "dark lady" sonnets
First group of sonnets: the "young man" sonnets
sonnets 1-17: the poet encourages the young man to marry and have children.
Sonnets 18-42: variations on traditional love poetry, some sonnets suggest that
the young man does not love the poet or that he has left him.
Sonnets 40-42: the young man has betrayed the poet with his female lover.
Sonnets 78-86: "rival poet" who is suspected to be loved by the young man
and to have stolen the poet’s literary patronage.
Sonnets 110-111: young resents the poet’s "public displays" (Shakespeare, the
plawright?).
Sonnets 112-126: reconciliation between the poet and the young man and we
learn that their friendship gradually resumes (Boyce 608).
Dedication
The printer's dedication at the start of the 1609 edition:
To the onlie begetter of
these insuing sonnets
Mr W. H. all happinesse
and that eternitie
promised
by
our ever-living Poet
wisheth
the well-wishing
adventurer in
setting
forth
T. T.
[= Thomas Thorpe]
[misprint for W.S. or William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke or Henry
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (W. H. reversed).]
Blazon
Form of representing a
woman's beauty in the
Petrarchan tradition
more general definition (up to
the 18th cent.):
description of a man or
woman in terms of a
normative taxonomy -physical beauty, fortune,
family, education, and
character
Anti-Petrarchan tradition (Sonnet 130):
MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
5
10
First group of sonnets: the "Dark Lady“ or
"Vituperative Sonnets," Sonnets 127-154
The "Dark Lady" is a woman of dark eyes, dark complexion and
doubtful morals. If she existed in real life, she might have been
Shakespeare's mistress (although married herself: "loving other
men").
She betrays the poet by loving the young man (and others).
The poet suffers from his unrequited love and preaches against the
dark lady and love in general (Boyce 608).
CXXVII.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
CXXIX.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Who was the dark lady?
Mary Fitton, Pembroke's lover (wrong complexion!)
Emilia Lanier; mistress of a court musician.
Penelope Rich (Essex's lover)
Lucy Morgan (a member of Queen Elizabeth's court)
William Davenant's mother (he claimed to be Shakespeare's
illegitimate son) (Boyce 609).
Some scholars also believe that the basis of the dark lady is the
same woman who inspired the two Rosaline's of Romeo and
Juliet and Love's Labour Lost (Halliday 609).
XVIII.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Beauty = nature?
nature destroyed by winds
legal term
anti-Petrarchan
beauty does not last
new argument:
his beauty is different
poetry will preserve beauty
reading gives him eternal
youth
Who is the “young man”?
Shakespeare refers to him as "his friend, Mr. W. H."
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (W. H. reversed).
Both men were close friends with Shakespeare and sometimes literary
patrons. There is evidence in favor of both men, but none definitive.
Other possibilities include Hamnet Shakespeare (his son), the Earl of
Essex, and Queen Elizabeth I (Boyce 609).
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (1573–1624).
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Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, was Lord Burghley's Ward of Court.
In 1591, the Clerk of Chancery, John Clapham, dedicated a Latin poem on the story of
Narcissus to Southampton, which appears to have had the same intention as these
sonnets in flattering the Earl's beauty and encouraging him to marry and have children.
Southampton eventually suffered a £5000 fine rather than go through with this
marriage.
Southampton's 17th. birthday was in October 1590, one year before Clapham dedicated
the Narcissus story to him. The gift of 17 sonnets would seem to be an apposite gift to
Southampton on his 17th. birthday, an age when youths were typically expected to be
married in Elizabethan times. Southampton was also presented at court at age 17.
Hew, is of course, an acronym of Henry Wriothesley, and Hews is an anagrammatic
acronym of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd. Earl of Southampton. His name also appears to be
being punned on in Sonnet 20's
"Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting"
wrought thee apparently being a pun on the surname Wriothesley.
Wriothesley was Shakespeare's patron to whom he dedicated Venus and Adonis (1593)
and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
Michael Draytons (GB, 1563-1631) Sonett eines
frustrierten Liebenden, der sich von seiner Geliebten
trennen möchte
Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part.
Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes.
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might’st him yet recover.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
Homosexuality
John Kerrigan writes of Elizabethan England,
„Its legal codes and religious discourses could not accommodate
the vice they abhorred. The age was, to that extent, neither
sympathetic nor antagonistic towards inversion, but prehomosexual. As a consequence, one finds a curious lacuna in
most contemporary accounts. The popular and biblical
characterisations of the condition were so extreme that few
people inclined to homoeroticism felt able to imagine that their
own emotions and actions were of the kind condemned.“
(Kerrigan, 47)
„Plato's praise of love between men was in marked contrast to
the establishment of capital punishment as the penalty for
sodomy in 1533.“ (Kay 1998: 123)
Gender Divisions
At the core of some of the anxiety such issues aroused in a
few writers was the belief-or fear-that the self was
originally anatomically feminine and that the alarming
possibility of a return to it could not be altogether
discounted.
Laura Levine argues that many antitheatrical texts "exhibit
the fear that femininity is neither constructed nor a
superficial condition susceptible to giving way to a `real'
masculinity, but rather the underlying or default position
that masculinity is always in danger of slipping into.„
(Kay 1998: 121)
Androgyny
In the words of Philip Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses
(1583), cross-dressing produces "Hermaphroditi, that is,
Monsters of both kindes, half woman, half men," because
"to weare the Apparel of another sex, is to ... adulterate the
veritie of his owne kinde," with the result that after the
plays, "every one bringes another homeward ... very
friendly, and in their secret conclaves (covertly) they play
the Sodomits, or worse. And these be the fruits of Playes
and Interluds, for the most part" (Sig. F5v, L8v: cited in
Levine, 22; here Kay 1998: 122).
Sources
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Boyce, Charles. Shakespeare A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Plays, His
Poems, His Life and Times, and More. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1990.
Cousins, A.D. Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Narrative Poems. Harlow: Longman, 2000.
(41 HI 3540 LH 9107)
Dubrow, Heather. Echoes of Desire. English Petrarchism and its Counterdiscourses.
Ithaca and London 1995.
Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company,
1952.
Kay, Dennis. William Shakespeare. Sonnets and Poems. London: Twayne Publishers,
1998. (41 HI 3540 LH 4086)
Leishman, J.B. Themes and Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets. London 1961.
Lever, J.W. The Elizabethan Love Sonnet. London 1956.
Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979. (41
HI 3540 FE 8838)
Wells, S. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986. (Robert Ellrodt, “Shakespeare the non-dramatic
Poet” pp. 35-48.)
SHAKESPEAREAN RESOURCES
SHAKSPER mailing list
Write to the editor, send a one-line e-mail message, reading "SUB SHAKSPER firstname lastname" to LISTSERV@utoronto.bitnet, or issue the command
"TELL LISTSERV@utoronto SUB SHAKSPER ", and you will receive a more detailed information file with further instructions for becoming a
SHAKSPERean. The list editor, Dr Hardy M. Cook, is an Associate Professor of English at Bowie State University in Maryland, and can be contacted
at the following addresses:
HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu or SHAKSPER@utoronto.bitnet.
Usenet newsgroup (humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare)
URLs (including more discussion lists):
First Folio: Shakespeare on the WWW
maintained by William A. Luddy (falstaff@io.com):
Home page
http://www.ludweb.com/ff/ff.html
Jump page (collection of links to other Shakespeare Web sites)
http://www.ludweb.com/ff/fflinks.html
Proper Elizabethan Accents
http://www.resort.com/~banshee/Faire/Language/language.html
Matty Farrow's The Collected Works of Shakespeare
http://www.gh.cs.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/
The Shakespeare Database Project
http://ves101.uni-muenster.de/
J.M. Massy
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Prof. J.M. Massi's Home Page for English 305.1/306.2
Home page
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~massij/shakes.html
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Frequently Asked Questions
About Shakespeare... and About This Course
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~massij/wsfaq.html
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internal discussion group (wsu.english.shakespeare)
MIT
The Tech maintained by Jeremy Hylton (jeremy@the-tech mit edu)
Marvell, Andrew
b. March 31, 1621, Winestead, Yorkshire, Eng.
d. Aug. 18, 1678, London
Support of Oliver Cromwell
Metaphysical poets with secular topics
Re-discovered in the 20th century by T.S. Eliot and
“An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland" (1650)
tutor to Cromwell's ward William Dutton (1653-1657)
assistant to John Milton as Latin secretary (1657)
"The First Anniversary" (1655)
"On the Death of O.C." (1659) for Cromwell.
In 1659 elected member of Parliament for Hull (until his death)
Andrew Marvell
To his Coy Mistressby Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
Carpe-Diem-motive
Paradise (here: distance to Hull)
Hull (Marvell‘s home town)
Last Judgement
blazon; Petrarcan catalogue of beauty
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
the long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Father Chronos
anti-Petrarcan and even denying
Shakepeare‘s belief in the eternal
power of art: So long lives this, That long
and this give life to thee.
female honour
death
blushed face = her desire
dew = redemption; here: secularized
carpe diem
Love stronger than time (not art or eternal
soul
17th-century British History
1603 James I (King James VI of Scotland) inherits the throne of
England. Population of London over 200,000
1604 James I of England restores Recussancy Acts, with more persecution and the
expulsion of priests. Pope Clement VIII requests that English Catholics refrain
from rebellion.
1605 Unsuccessful Gunpowder Plot to blow up Houses of Parliament
1607 Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America is founded.
1614 Pocahontas marries John Rolfe. [siehe Anlage]
1616 William Shakespeare dies.
1629 Edict of Restitution allows the Roman Catholic church to recover property
seized by Protestants.
1632 Locke, John (1632-1704), English philosopher, who founded the school of
empiricism is born.
1640 Charles I of England calls the Parliament again after years of not having it.
So begins the "Long Parliament"
1642 English Civil war begins.
Commonwealth/ Republic
1645 Oliver Cromwell reorganises Parliaments armies and (eventaully) captures
Charles I.
1649 Charles I (1625-49) beheaded outside the Banqueting House on Whitehall in
London
1653 Cromwell disolves Parliament and takes the title of "Lord Protector" to rule as
a dictator
1654 English chemist Robert Boyle helps found the Philosophical College (which
later became the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge).
1658 Oliver Cromwell (Lord Protector) dies
Restoration
1660 Charles II (1649 - 85) restored to the throne (the Restoration) after exile in
Europe; the king agrees to respect the Magna Carta and Petition of Rights
1665 The Great Plague in London; deaths probably reach 100,000 (official figure for
one week alone was 8,297)
1666 The Great Fire in London burns for three days; 89 churches, 13,200 houses
destroyed over an area of 400 streets
1673 The Test Act is passed, allowing only members of the Anglican Church to hold
public office. Leeuwenhoeck publishes his first article in the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London
1675 Sir Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723) begins work on the new St. Paul's
Cathedral
1679 England passes the Habeas Corpus act guaranteeing people protection from
arbitrary arrest.
1685 James II inherits the throne of England, and passes laws to grant rights to
Catholics and dissolves many anti-Irish laws.
1687 Sir Isaac Newton publishes "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica"
1688 England's "Glorious Revolution". James II flees to Ireland. William and
Mary become joint rulers of England; Lady Anne Bowesley is embraced by
Valerius of clan Ventrue
1689 The Bill of Rights is passed in England. James II leads and fails a rebellion
in Ireland. King William's War between the British and the French in North
America begins.
1694 The Bank of London founded
1695 Lapse of the Licensing Act, pre-publication censorship is discontinued
1697 King William's War ends.
1698 Whitehall Palace, in London, destroyed by fire
1701 Parliament passes the Act of Settlement stating that only an Anglican can
inherit the throne.
1702-13 Queen Anne's War between the British and the French in North
America begins. England's first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant is
founded.
1707 The Act of Union joins Scotland and England into the United Kingdom of
Great Britian.
1714 Geroge, the German Elector of Hanover becomes King George I, of Britian
The 17th Century
„History is not a narrative of events. The historian's
difficult task is to explain what happened. The years
between 1603 and 1714 were perhaps the most decisive
in English history. The dates are arbitrary, since they
relate to the deaths of queens, not to the life of the
community. Nevertheless, during the seventeenth
century modern English society and a modern state
began to take shape, and England's position in the
world was transformed.“
(from: Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution. 1603-1714. 2nd ed. London:
Routledge, 1991, p. 1. See also Hill, Christopher Hoeber. Intellectual Origins
of the English Revolution Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.)
Definition of metaphysical poetry:
pejorative term coined by John Dryden
and re-used by Samuel Johnson to
ridicule these poets
“The essence of the metaphysical lyric
is its paradox, its sharp antitheses,
its clutch at connections between
objects apparently the most
incongruous, its agonising soulquestionings and search for
salvation, its sense of the contrast
between subjective and objective,
desire and possibility.
Donne called on God:
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be
free, Nor ever chaste, except you
ravish me.
George Wither, another man who
suffered imprisonment under the
Stuarts, but who survived to fight
for Parliament, wrote:
But, oh my God! though grovelling I
appear Upon the ground (and have a
rooting here Which hales me
downwards) yet in my desire To that
which is above me I aspire.
Henry Vaughan, a native of one of the outlying
areas, like so many of the cavalier poets,
saw the same contrast: Here in dust and
dirt, oh here The lilies of his love appear
So did Marvell:
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslaved so many ways? . . .
A soul hung up, as'twere, in chains
Of nerves and arteries and veins;
Tortured, besides each other Part,
In a vain head and double heart.
•
Hill, Christopher. The Century of
Revolution. 1603-1714. 2nd ed. London:
Routledge, 1991, p. 80ff.
The term „metaphysical poetry“
Dr. Samuel Johnson, the most influential critic of the 18th cent., says
about the metaphysicals‘s choice of imagery in 1779:
... wit, abstraked from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously
and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia concors; a
combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances
in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than
enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together;
nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and
allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the
reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though
he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.
THE FLEA by John Donne
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Source: Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol
I.E. K. Chambers, ed. London: Lawrence &
Bullen, 1896. 1-2.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Stichpunkte
Tudor H VII - H VIII – E I; Elizabethan Drama (Shakespeare, Marlowe …)
Stuarts James I, Charles I (John Webster)
Since 1642 civil war: Oliver Cromwell: John Milton; Metaphysical Poetry
1660 Restoration Charles II, James II: Restoration Drama; Metaphysical Poetry
1689 “Glorious Revolution” William of Orange// philosophers like John Locke
Augustan Age (classicist poetry – John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson
…): perfectibility; age of reason, enlightenment: study of the ancients, learned
poets: imitation of the ancients = imitation of nature
Romantic Period: originality, genius of the poetic mind; poet recreates nature in
his imagination
Zeitlichen Zuordnung der besprochenen Autoren
John Dryden ( 1631-1700) gehört zu den letzten bedeutenden Dichtern des 17.
Jahrhunderts. Er ist berühmt für seine Gedichte anlässlich der Rückkehr des Königs
Charles II aus Frankreich 1660 (Astraea Redux, 1660, "on the Happy Restoration
and Return of his Sacred Majesty") und des Great Fire in London 1666 (Annus
Mirabilis). Es war poeta laureatus (Hofdichter).
Samuel Johnson (1709- 1784) verfaßte das erste umfassende Dictionary, um die
englische Sprache, wie er dachte, vor dem Verfall zu bewahren: Johnson was
deploring the foreign words that authors "by vanity or wantonness, by compliance
with fashion or lust of innovation" have introduced into English (Preface to the
Dictionary [ 1755], 4th ed. [London: W. Strahan, 1773], p. iv).
Beide Autoren, Dryden und Johnson, sind sogenannte Klassizisten, also Dichter, die
sich stark am Vorbild der Antike orientierten und glaubten, dass die "Alten" der
Natur am nächsten und daher in ihrem Kunstverständnis unübertroffen waren.
Dryden gehörte in die Zeit der Restauration, Johnson war ein sog. „Augustan“.
John Donne (nicht mit John Dryden verwechseln!!) war einer der ersten Dichter, die zu
den Metaphysicals gerechnet werden, also deutlich ins 17. Jahrhundert gehören.
Metaphysicals are rediscovered by Grierson and Eliot
T.S. Eliot: Traditional and the Individual Talent:
„A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.
When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly
amalgamating disparate experience; the ordinary man's experience is
chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. The latter falls in love, or reads Spinoza,
and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with
the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the
poet these experiences are always forming new wholes.“
Eliot believes that poets are products of their own times and what their
present has subsumed from past ages
Herbert J.C. Grierson, ed. (1886–1960). Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of
the 17th C. 1921.
Metaphysical Poetry: Religious authors
John Donne (1572-1631): religious (Holy Sonnets: „Batter My Heart“ etc.) and secular poetry („The
Flea“)
George Herbert (1593-1633): The Temple (1633)
Sundays observe; think when the bells do chime,
’T is angels’ music.
The Church Porch.
Francis Quarles (1592-1644): Argalus and Parthenia (1629); Divine Fancies (1632); Emblems
(1635)
Richard Crashaw (1613-1649): Steps to the Temple (1646); The Delights of the Muses; Carmen Deo
Nostro (1652)
Henry Vaughan (1621-1695): Silex Scintillans (1650; 1655)
Thomas Traherne (1637-1674)
See http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/
JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)
-
descended from a Catholic family
Studied at Oxford, Cambridge and Lincoln‘s
Inn, but was not allowed to take an exam
In the 1590s a womanizer and sunny boy
1596/7 takes part in a military expidition to Spain
1598 starts a carreer as secretary of Sir Thomas Egerton (later "Lord
Keeper of the Great Seal" (Lordsiegelbewahrer))
1601 elected into the Parliament
Clandestine marriage to Anne More, the niece of his patron‘s wife
destroys this carreer
John Donne from The First Anniversary:
An Anatomy of the World (1611)
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost, and th’ earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
When in the planets, and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
‘Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all relation:
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
(lines 205-18)
William Gilbert (1540-1603)
THE FLEA by John Donne
Argument: the loss of innocence does not constitute a loss of honour
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
unrequited love
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
suck – passionate love/ triangle
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
tertium comparationis = flea
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
this mingeling of the blood is no sin
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
joy before wooing (= different kind of love)
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
surrogate pregnancy
And this, alas! is more than we would do.
does not apply to the two lovers
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
being offended, she wants to kill the flea
Flea is identified with the lovers
sexual union îs only symbolical
the flea becomes a symbol of the world
use = habit of killing him
•
The woman kills the flea, casting away her innocence. She destroys the
(symbolical) world which was prepared for them (and proposed by him).
•
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Royalty, is he higher in social rank?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
tyranny
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
arbitrariness
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
false triumph
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
her fears were unjustified
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
The use of illegitimate
•
violence harms her power
Source: Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I. É. K. Chambers, ed. London:
Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 1-2.
George Herbert (1593-1633)
Born in Montgomery, Wales, on April 3, 1593, the fifth son of Richard and Magdalen
Newport Herbert.
father's death in 1596
he and his six brothers and three sisters were raised by their mother
His mother is patron to John Donne who dedicated his Holy Sonnets to her.
Herbert was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Took his degrees with distinction (B.A. in 1613 and M.A. in 1616)
elected a major fellow of Trinity, in 1618 he was appointed Reader in Rhetoric at
Cambridge and in 1620 he was elected public orator (to 1628).
From 1624 to 1625 Herbert represented Montgomery in Parliament.
Herbert's mother died in 1627; her funeral sermon was delivered by Donne.
Herbert took holy orders in the Church of England in 1630 and spent the rest of his life as
rector in Bemerton near Salisbury.
He came to be known as "Holy Mr. Herbert" around the countryside in the three years
before his death of consumption on March 1, 1633.
Herbert about his poetry: "a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed
between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my
Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom."
George Herbert (Helen Wilcox)
Are the poems closer to prayer than art, and therefore best read by Herbert's fellow
believers and not by students of literature? If approached directly as literary texts, do
the poems display worrying elements of naivety or poetical quaintness?
He worked within frameworks of idea and tradition, but was always ready to transcend
and break out from them, as at the end of the 'Easter' song when conventional modes
of thought are shown to 'miss' and are therefore briskly abandoned in favour of
an eternal and radically unframed perspective. This paradoxical poetics, in which
imaginative scope is celebrated even as it confronts the limits of the expressible.
'Sweet', for example, is one of Herbert's favourite adjectives for the experience of
redemption, and as he uses it in 'Virtue' it seems to be itself a 'box where sweets
compacted lie'. The sweetness of the new day is a kind of purity, a
virginal innocence as on the 'bridall' day, and its passing is not only 'nightfall';
it epitomizes all 'falls' into sin and morality. The terms 'art' or 'artistry' are
appropriate, for this does not come about by accident; it is an intensely skilful
aesthetic, which we might call a rhetoric of clarity.
'Invention' can so easily be taken to mean poetic ingenuity, those very 'trim' ideas
referred to in the first stanza, but the original meaning of inventio in rhetoric was
discovery; the poet's invention was not to originate but to uncover or reveal meanings.
This shifting of the centre of poetic skill from witty novelty to revelation is, of course,
… progress.
This may be invention in the familiar sense of wit or ingenuity, but it enacts the other
kind of 'invention' - the almost sacramental showing forth of the gains to be made
from a word, especially 'the Word', when it is poetically fragmented as well as
discovered whole.
Easter Wings by George Herbert
Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
a
b
a
b
a
Man‘s fallen state after Paradise
having tempted by the serpent/the devil
labouring, decay and death
spiritual impoverishment
With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
hope for redemption
spiritual rise & from the dead (final judgemt.)
lark = eschatological metaphor/ Christ
victory over devil
"fortunate fall" or felix culpa
discordia concors – contradiction which turns
out to be none
My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
childlike existence of mankind
spitritual sickness
redemption – signifier (word) forms a picture
representing the message
Thin from sin
With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
Speaker suggests to add his wings to God‘s
in order to be experience one‘s redemption
Notes
1] store: ample goods, abundance.
5] The length of the lines decreases to reflect their content, diminished man.
10] Herbert alludes to the paradox of the "fortunate fall" or felix culpa. Only by sinning with
Eve, and being cast out of the Garden of Eden into a world of labour, pain, and death, did
Adam enable the second Adam, Christ, to redeem man and show a love and forgiveness that
otherwise could never have been.
18] feel: "feel this day" in 1633. The two added words disturb the clear metrical scheme
(which has six syllables in lines 3, 8, and 13) and are not found in the manuscript of the
poem.
19] imp: Herbert suggests that if he adds his feathers to God's wings, he will fly the higher
because of God's might. Sometimes feathers were grafted or imped into a falcon's wing to
increase the power of its flight. Note that this metaphor suggests that the wing-like stanza on
one page represents Herbert's wings, and the wing-stanza on the facing page represents
God's.
Repitition
Different kinds of rhyme:
masculine:
feminine:
triple:
eye rhyme:
day – lay – away (single syllable rhyme)
heady – ready – unsteady (two-syllable rhyme)
happily – snappily (three-syllable rhyme)
cost – post (note this is a rhyme that depends its
written form)
half rhyme or slant rhyme: head – heed, shove – shave (sounds do not
match perfectly)
rime riche
son – sun (different words that sound the
same)
Different kinds of foot:
iamb
trochee
dactyl
anapaest
spondee
pyrrhic
de-DAH
DAH-de
DAH-de-de
de-de-DAH
DAH-DAH
de-de
in-deed
cra-zy
mar-vell-ous
on-my-mind
old-age
of-a
Different kinds of line:
dimeter
line containing two metrical feet
trimeter
line containing three metrical feet
tetrameter
line containing four metrical feet
pentameter
line containing five metrical feet
Rime and Metre
rime royale: rhyme scheme ababbcc on lines of ten syllables; used by Chaucer in
The Canterbury Tales as well as other works like Troilus and Criseyde and
The Parliament of Fowls.
blank verse-poetry that does not rhyme, but has a musical tune to it. This is
because it is written in iambic pentameter which is a line with 10
syllables. An unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable. This pair
of syllables is called a foot. Therefore, with 10 syllables, there would be 5
feet.
Iambic pentameter sounds like:
Dah Dum/ Dah Dum/ Dah Dum/ Dah Dum/ Dah Dum
Romeo and Juliet is written in iambic pentameter, except for Act I.
Paris: “These times/ of woe/ afford /no time/ to woo.” (Act II.iv.8)
Metaphor: transfer of meanings
Tenor
Vehicle
Edmund
pig
fat/dirty/greedy/noisy/vulgar
(Edmund the pig)
Figures and their Definition
Tropes: figures which change the typical meaning of a word or words
Metaplasmic Figures: figures which move the letters or syllables of a word from
their typical places
Figures of Omission: figures which omit something--eg. a word, words, phrases,
or clauses--from a sentence
Figures of Reptition (of words): figures which repeat one or more words
Figures of Reptition (of clauses and ideas): figures which repeat a phrase, a clause
or an idea
Figures of Unusual Word Order: figures which alter the ordinary order of words or
sentences
Figures of Thought: a miscellaneous group of figures which deal with emotional
appeals and techniques of argument
Tropes - Definition - Example
metaphor
the substitution of a word for a word whose meaning is close to the original word
Poor broken glass, I often did behold/ In thy sweet semblance my old age new
born...---The Rape of Lucrece,1758-59
metonymy
a noun is substituted for a noun in such a way that we substitute the cause of the thing
of which we are speaking for the thing itself; this might be done in several ways:
substituting the inventor for his invention, the container for the thing contained or
vice versa, an author for his work, the sign for the thing signified, the cause for the
effect or vice versa
I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself
courageous to petticoat.---As You Like It, 2.4.6
synecdoche
substitution of part for whole, genus for species, or vice versa
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,/ And burnt the topless towers of
Ilium?---Dr. Faustus, 12.80-81
irony
expressing a meaning directly contrary to that suggested by the words
He was no notorious malefactor, but he had been twice on the pillory, and
once burnt in the hand for trifling oversights.---Direccions for Speech and
Style
paradox
a seemingly self contradictory statement, which yet is shown to be true
For what the waves could never wash away/ This proper youth has wasted in a
day.---The Arte of English Poesie, 226
oxymoron
a condensed paradox at the level of a phrase
O modest wantons! wanton modesty!---The Rape of Lucrece, 401
litotes
deliberate understatement or denial of the contrary
He is no fool.---The Arte of English Poesie, 184
hyperbole
exaggerated or extravagant statement used to make a strong impression, but not
intended to be taken literally
His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear'd arm/ Crested the world, his voice was
propertied/ As all the tuned spheres...---Antony and Cleopatra, 5.2.82
Metaplasmic - Figures - Example
syncope
omission of letters from the middle of a word
Thou thy worldly task hast done,/ Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Cymberline, 4.2.258
apocope
omission of letters from the end of a word
I am Sir Oracle,/ And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!---The Merchant of
Venice, 1.1.93
Figures of Omission – Definition - Example
ellipsis
omission of a word
And he to England shall along with you.---Hamlet, 3.3.1
zeugma
an ellipsis of a verb, in which one verb is used to govern several clauses
How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.---The Rape of Lucrece, 819
Figures of Repetition (words) – Definition - Example
anaphora
repetition of a word at the beginning of a clause, line, or sentence
Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!---King John, 2.1.561
anadiplosis
repetition of the end of a line or clause at the next beginning
For I have loved long, I crave reward/ Reward me not unkindly: think on
kindness,/ Kindness becommeth those of high regard/ Regard with
clemency a poor man's blindness---Fidessa, 16
pleonasm
the needless repetition of words; a tautology on the level of a phrase
Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad,/ And to the ground his eyes were lowly
bent,/ Simple in shew, and voyde of malice bad...---The Faerie Queene, Book
1, 1.29
Figures of Repetition (clauses and ideas) – Definition - Example
tautology
needless repetition of the same idea in different words; pleonasm on the level of
a sentence or sentences
If you have a friend, keep your friend, for an old friend is to be preferred before
a new friend, this I say to you as your friend.---The Garden of Eloquence, 49
chiasmus
reversal of grammatical structures or ideas in sucessive phrases or clauses,
which do not necessarily involve a repetition of words
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er/ Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet
strongly loves.---Othello, 3.3.169 [dotes – strongly loves]
antithesis
repetition of clauses or idea by negation
A bliss in proof; and prov'd, a very woe;/ Before, a joy propos'd; behind a
dream.---Shakespeare Sonnets, 129
Figures of Thought – Definition - Example
adynaton
the impossibility of expressing oneself adequately to the topic
Words cannot convey how much your letters have delighted me.---Elementorum
rhetorices libri, 44f
aporia
true or feigned doubt or deliberation about an issue
Whether he took them from his fellows more impudently, gave them to an harlot
more lasciviously, removed them from the Roman people more wickedly or
altered them more presumptuously, I cannot well declare.---The Garden of
Eloquence, 109
From the Website of Professor Grant Williams, North Bay, Ontario, Canada
Figurative Language
eigentlichen Sprache (literal
language)
VS.
uneigentliche Sprache (figurative
language):
1)
Wortfiguren oder Tropen
(tropes),
2)
Satzfiguren (schemes)
imagery
image
a picture in words made up in the mind
symbol
metaphor simile
allegory
symbol = a word or set of words that refer to s.th. which is more important than the literal
meaning or concrete reference; a general and abstract idea expressed in a concrete thing.
e.g.:
tree => a symbol of life
snake => a symbol of evil
metaphor = a short phrase which describes one thing by stating another thing to which it can be
compared; e.g.: "the roses in her cheeks"
a metaphor consists of the tenor (= the subject to which the metaphoric word is applied"; here:
"cheeks") and the vehicle (= the metaphoric word itself; here: "roses")
allegory = Yeats: "Now an allegory is but an translation of abstract notions into a picturelanguage, which is itself nothing but an abstraction from objects of the senses ... a symbol ... is
characterized by a translucence of the special in the individual, or of the general in the special, or
of the universal in the general ..." Both, Goethe and Coleridge, esteem the allegory lower than the
symbol. "personifications are actually the allegoric figures"
simile <simili> = an expression making a comparison in one's imagination between two things
using the words "like or "as"
e.g.: "my love is like a red rose, red rose" (Robert Burns)
Metaphor
•
Der gemeinte Begriff oder Bildempfänger (tenor) wird mit einem
Bild oder Bildspender (vehicle) gleichgesetzt auf Grund einer
Ähnlichkeit (ground) oder einer dabei übertragenen Qualität
(tertium comparationis), die bei der Metapher häufig unbestimmter
als beim Vergleich ist und daher mehr Deutungen offen lässt.
•
tote Metaphern (dead metaphor) wie „das Stuhlbein“
Allegory / Allegorie
The allegory transforms a general, abstract concept into a concrete
image, person, or story. For example, the world is often conceived as a
stage, and life as a journey. Artists delineate Justice as a blindfolded
woman with scales and a sword.
Personification / Personifikation
The personification transforms things or abstract concepts into human agents.
Germans tend to be puzzled when someone says that "she broke down",
meaning the car, or when the sun is "he" and the moon "she". Without
personification, cartoons and animated movies would be half as entertaining.
The Romantic Wordsworth personifies flowers in order to convey the isolated
poet's enjoyment of nature as a substitute for alienating society:
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. [. . .]
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company [. . .]
(1807, NAEL 1: 284-85)
Symbol / symbol
The symbol evokes a concrete phenomenon which points to abstract, often more general and
ambiguous meanings.
The colour white symbolises innocence, a red rose love, black clothes mourning, a dove
peace, a flag a nation, broad white stripes on the tar a pedestrian crossing.
The American poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) expands the traditional meaning of the bird of
ill omen, "The Raven". A young man, who fell asleep while reading a strange old book
around midnight, envisions a raven, which responds with the single answer "Nevermore"
to all of his questions. The young man asks the raven whether he would relieve his
painful memory of the dead Lenore or meet her again after death but then becomes
annoyed with the obscure bird. This raven symbolises the powers of frustration,
meaninglessness, melancholy, despair, and darkness, which haunt the young man:
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
...
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!
(1845, NAAL 1: 1372)
metonymy / Metonymie
The metonymy (Metonymie) replaces a concept by one that is closely related to it. It does
not, like the metaphor, explore new meanings but rather varies the focus within the same
frame of reference. Typical examples are:
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the crown as a symbol of status and function replaces the queen
an abstract noun stands for an institution ("Faith against abortion.")
the name of a place represents its inhabitants ("Manchester welcomes the champions.")
the name of an author signifies his/her work ("Have you read Virginia Woolf?")
the cause replaces the effect or vice versa ("Have you got a light?", Ecstasy, speed)
the means are used instead of the end ("She spoke her native tongue.")
the container means the content ("Have one more glass.")
synecdoche - Synekdoche
The synecdoche replaces the part for the whole (pars pro toto) or the
whole for the part (totum pro parte) for reasons of variation or
foregrounding particular aspects or general functions:
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a part replaces the whole ("a roof over one's head") or vice versa,
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the singular is used instead of the plural ("Man is selfish and cruel.") or
vice versa,
- the material reduces the object ("the woolly kind": sheep).
Puns
The pun (Wortspiel, Paronomasie) plays with the meanings of two words that are
pronounced in the same way.
Puns are often used in jokes:
Who invented the four-day working week? Robinson: he had all his work done by
Friday.
Grandma says: "Men are like linoleum floors: Lay them right and you can walk
over them for 30 years."
CONCEIT
conceit (von ital. concetto: Begriff), ein Vergleich sehr weit
auseinanderliegende Bereiche, wie T. S. Eliot in “The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock”:
„Let us go then, you and I / when the evening is spread out against the
sky/ like a patient etherized upon a table“.
Discordia concors
emphasis (Betonung), euphemism (Beschönigung),
hyperbole (Hyperbel), litotes, Irony
Other prominent tropes include emphasis (Betonung), which is often highlighted by an
unusual position of a word in the line ("mercy" in the example below), euphemism
(Beschönigung), which embellishes a phenomenon ("the big sleep" for death),
exaggeration in hyperbole (Hyperbel) and understatement in the negation of litotes
(The dinner was not bad.). Irony means the opposite of what is said. How do you spot
irony?
'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th'angelic train.
(1773, NAAL 1: 729)
Figures of repetition
Figures of repetition insist on importance and urgency. The use of
anaphora (Anapher) repeats words at the beginning of lines, epiphora
(Epipher) at the ending of lines, as compared to the immediate
repetition (Geminatio) of words: "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In
the forests of the night, [. . .] Did he smile his work to see? / Did he
who made the Lamb make thee?" (1789-94, William Blake, GB, 17571827, NAEL 2: 54).
Schemes (Satzfiguren)
Schemes (Satzfiguren) deviate from ordinary syntax by the special arrangement of words
or phrases. The inversion of word order is a favourite means of emphasis in a
language that prefers a rather rigid word order of subject + verb + object: "A
woman's face with Nature's own hand painted / Hast thou, the master mistress of my
passion." (Sonnet 20, 1609, Shakespeare, England, 1564-1616, NAEL 1: 1031).
Parallelism, the parallel construction of phrases, is varied by chiasmus, repetition in
inverted order. John Donne (England, 1572-1631) uses chiasmus in "The Sun Rising"
in order to present love as the perfect conjunction of opposites in the chauvinist
metaphors of female states that need male rulers. In parallelism, he neatly captures
the statement that, in comparison to love, honour is just as inferior as money:
She is all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. [. . . ] (1633, NAEL 1: 1239)
Asyndeton / Unverbundenheit
Polysyndeton / Vielverbundenheit
The asyndeton joins words or phrases by commas only, the polysyndeton by conjunctions.
These forms often serve emphasis or gradation. The American poet Carl Sandburg
(1878-1967) describes the many functions of "Chicago" by asyndeton:
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders [...]
(1914/16, NAAL 2: 1139)
Matthew Arnold (GB, 1822-88) uses polysyndeton to emphasise despair about the world in
"Dover Beach" :
[. . .]
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 [. . .]
(1867, NAEL 2: 1492)
Reime
männlich (masculine), wenn nur die letzte bedeutungstragende Silbe sich gleicht (‘ran – Mann;
fan – man), weiblich (feminine), wenn der ersten eine zweite unbetonte gleichlautende Silbe
folgt (Frauen – bauen; gender – bender), dreisilbigen Reim = triple rhyme (liederlich –
widerlich, lecherous – treacherous).
„reine“ Reim (full, perfect, true rhyme) definiert sich durch die Identität des letzten betonten
Vokals und aller folgenden Laute in zwei oder mehr Wörtern.
„Unreine“ oder Halb-Reime (slant/ off/ half rhymes)
rührende Reim (rich rhyme) (know – no, eye - I) (Rhymes identical in sound (or spelling) but
semantically different. Example: "Felicity was present/ To pick up her present."
Augenreim (eye-rhyme) (move - dove).
Zu den Halbreimen zählen die Konsonanz (consonance), die teilweise oder vollkommene
Identität der Konsonanten in Worten oder Silben, deren Hauptvokale sich unterscheiden
(Kisten – Kasten, loads - lids), und die
Assonanz, die Identität der Vokale in Worten, deren Konsonanten sich unterscheiden (klein –
Beil, foam - moan).
Die Alliteration, die Identität der Anfangslaute von Wörtern (kurz und klein, cold cut).
Reim/ Rhyme
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Endreim (end rhyme)
Binnenreim (internal rhyme),
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Paarreim ((rhyming) couplet): aabb
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Kreuzreim (alternate/cross rhyme): abab
-
umgreifender oder verschränkter Reim (embracing/envelope
rhyme): abba
- Schweifreim (tail rhyme): aabccb, abcabc.
Rythm and Metre
Oral speech has a dynamic rhythm that is based on the volume of our
breath, the word accent, the word order, the syntactic pattern of phrases,
and the stress of particular words for emphasis. Metre (Metrum, Versmaß)
is a highly artificial and perfectly regular sequence of stressed and
unstressed syllables in lines of verse. A first very slow and mechanical
reading of a poem tells whether it has a metre. If you mark the stressed and
unstressed syllables of the metre, your second reading for sense will show
where you stress other syllables and deviate from the pattern of the metre.
Thus the question is less metre or rhythm but the tension between them.
Metrum - Metre
„record“ (/ x = - u) vs. „to record“ (x / = u -)
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Jambus m, pl Jamben (u-)
jambisch
Trochäus m, pl Trochäen (-u)
trochäisch
Daktylus m, pl Daktylen (-uu)
daktylisch
Anapäst m, pl Anapästen (uu-)
anapästisch
Spondeus m, pl Spondeen (--)
spondeisch
Pyrrhichius m
(uu)
Amphibrachys m (u-u)
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iamb, iambus
iambic
Trochee
trochaic
Dactyl
dactylic
Anapaest
anapaestic
Spondee
spondaic
pýrrhic
amphibrach
„nanu“, „above“
„fallend“, „falling“
„absteigend“, „Daktylus“
„Anapäst“, „vor dem Haus“
„Hilfe!“
Numbers of Feet
The most frequent numbers of feet are called:
-trimeter (Dreiheber): "That I did always love" (Emily Dickinson, US, 1830-86),
-tetrameter (Vierheber): "Goe, and catche a falling starre" (John Donne, "Song"
),
-pentameter (Fünfheber): "When I do count the clock that tells the time"
(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 12),
-hexameter (Hexameter): "Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie"
(William Wordsworth, "Upon Westminster Bridge").
Boundaries of Lines
The end-stopped line (Zeilenstil) requires a little pause at the end of the line that agrees with a
syntactic unit.
The run-on-line (Zeilensprung, Enjambement) demands that the reader pass over the end of the
line because the sentence moves on into the next verse.
A comma, colon, or full stop within a line of verse indicates a pause (caesura, Zäsur). The
rhythmic dynamics of a poem is determined by the tension between the line of verse and
the syntactical order.
William Wordsworth. 1770–1850: Daffodils
I WANDER'D 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,
5 Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Free verse (freier Vers)
Free verse (freier Vers) similar to ordinary speech or prose.
T. S. Eliot's poetry wavers between metric patterns and free verse, a form that
corresponds to his belief that a good knowledge of poetic tradition is the basis of
innovation (see "The Love Song", 2.2). The American poet Walt Whitman (181992) celebrated the ordinary man and the liberation of democratic people in a
poetic language liberated from the chains of rhyme, metre, and traditional stanza.
His form of free verse creates rhythm on top of the stress on meaningful words by
the repetition of sounds, words, and phrases in rather long lines:
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them.
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
("Song of Myself" 24, 1855/81; NAAL I: 1990)
Marvell, Andrew
b. March 31, 1621, Winestead, Yorkshire, Eng.
d. Aug. 18, 1678, London
Support of Oliver Cromwell
Metaphysical poets with secular topics
Re-discovered in the 20th century by T.S. Eliot and
“An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland" (1650)
tutor to Cromwell's ward William Dutton (1653-1657)
assistant to John Milton as Latin secretary (1657)
"The First Anniversary" (1655)
"On the Death of O.C." (1659) for Cromwell.
In 1659 elected member of Parliament for Hull (until his death)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
To his Coy [withholding] Mistress
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
rhymed couplets, stately tetrametre
extended subjunctive// hypothesis vs fact
Carpe-Diem-motive (= seize the day)
Paradise (here: distance to Hull)
Hull (Marvell‘s home town)
Hyperbolic expanses of time
Last Judgement
blazon;
Petrarcan catalogue
of beauty
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
the long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Father Chronos
anti-Petrarcan and even denying
Shakepeare‘s belief in the eternal
power of art: So long lives this, That long
and this give life to thee.
female honour
death
blushed face = her desire
dew = redemption; here: secularized
carpe diem
Love stronger than time (not art or eternal
soul
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Frost at Midnight”
(excerpt)
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings : save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams !
Ocean vs. pop-corn: stress and length the same or different
William Wordsworth. 1770–1850
Upon Westminster Bridge
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
5 Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
10Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
c
d
c
d
c
d
2 quatrains
=
1 octet
2 tercets
=
1 sestet
William Blake b. Nov. 28, 1757 - d. Aug. 12, 1827
engraver, visionary mystic
hand-illustrated lyrical and epic poems
beginning with Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), form one of the most
strikingly original and independent bodies of work in the Western cultural tradition.
early Romantic poet
ignored by his contemporaries
"The Lamb"
from Songs of Innocence
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
"The Tyger“ (Songs of Experience)
Tyger, Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye;
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, or what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger, Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
"shewing the two contrary states of the
human soul“
Innocence: Lamb; Eden, harmony, lack of
creativity, the child's imagination
completing its own growth
Experience: Tyger; fallen world, division
of body and mind, reason, limitedness,
the world of law, morality, sin,
tyrannous God of repression and reason
(Newton and Locke).
Tyger = energy, strength, lust, and cruelty
final lines: man‘s dilemma: heaven and hell
belong together, the creative energy is
also a destructive force
Unity by creative act of imagination: Glad Day
Unity by creative act of imagination: Glad Day
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
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-blanch'd 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 Aegean, 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.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
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.
[1867]
Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998)
Hawk Roosting
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -
The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
Ted Hughes
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II) Lyrik (12 pts.):
John Keats (1795-1821): "On First Looking Into Chapman>s Homer"
In this poem Keats describes the feelings he had, when he read Chapman>s translation of Homer for the first
time.
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Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands (A) have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne (B);
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies (C)
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific (D)--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
realm - a royal domain, kingdom; bard - poet; fealty - faithful service to a lord; expanse - an uninterrupted
space; demesne - possession of land, estate; serene - tranquillity, calmness; ken - knowledge, mental
perception, understanding; stout - strong; Cortez - Spanish conqueror who Keats believes was the first to have
seen the Pacific Ocean (actually it was Balboa in 1513); surmise - conjecture, guess; peak - top of a mountain;
Darien - Isthmus of, former name of the Isthmus of Panama.
1) Wie nennt man diese Gedichtform? (Bitte die vollständige Bezeichnung!) (2 Pkte)
Welches Reimschema (2 Pkte) und welche Strophenformen (2 Pkte) liegen vor?
2) Welche rhetorischen Mittel verwendet Keats im Gedicht? Streichen Sie die
zutreffenden Buchstaben und definieren Sie kurz! (3 Pkte). Finden Sie noch
zwei weitere rhetorische Mittel und benennen Sie sie! (2 Pkte)
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Metaphor/ Metapher
A B C D
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run-on-line/ Enjambement
A B C D
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simile/ Vergleich
A B C D
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3) Wofür stehen/ bedeuten "the realms of gold, states and kingdoms"? (1 pts.)
4) Warum vergleicht sich der Sprecher des Gedichtes mit dem Eroberer Cortez?
(2 pts.)
Pieter Brueghel, Kermesse (1567-8)
Oil on canvas, approximately 45 inches x 64.5
inches. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
William Carlos Williams
The Dance
“Poet speaks of Art”:
http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Paintings&Poe
ms/titlepage.html
William Carlos Williams was born on September
17, 1883 in Rutherford, NJ. He attended schools in
New Jersey, Geneva, Paris, and New York City
before entering the medical school at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1902. His medical
internship was in NYC from 1906 to 1909, and he
practiced medicine in Rutherford for the rest of his
life. During his practice, he would bring out his
typewriter to compose between appointments. He
was good friend to Ezra Pound, whom he met in
college and with whom he engaged in many
arguments about poetry. Williams was also
pediatrician to Alan Ginsberg. He died in
Rutherford on March 4, 1963.
In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thicksided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling
about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.