23.02.2013
 Dr.
Manimangai Mani
 Room : No. 4 Muzium Warisan Melayu, Blok C
Fakulti Bahasa Moden dan Komunikasi,
Universiti Putra Malaysia.
 Mobile No.: 016-5316715
 E-mail : manimanggai@hotmail.com
 Test
1 - 10%
 Test 2 - 20%
 Written Assignment - 30%
 Final Exam - 40% (Take Home -14days)
 Stopping
by the Woods on a Snowy Evening –
Robert Frost
 London – William Blake
 Holy Sonnet 14: Batter My Heart… by John
Donne
 Sonnet 130:My Mistress’ Eyes… - William
Shakespeare
 London – William Wordsworth
 My
Papa’s Waltz – Theodore Roethke
 The Pulley – George Herbert
 God’s Grandeur – Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Ozymandias – Percy Bysshe Shelley
 The Sick Rose – William Blake
 Ulysses – Lord Alfred Tennyson
 To His Coy Mistress – Andrew Marvell
 I Heard a Fly Buzz – Emily Dickinson
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
 On
Being Brought from Africa to America
 To His Excellency General Washington
 On the Death of General Wooster
 An Hymn to Humanity
 To The Right Honourable William, Earl Of
Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary
Of The State For North-America
 Greek
Play
- Oedipus by Sophocles
 Shakespearean Play
- King Lear
 Modern Play
- The Importance of Being Earnest
 The
Octoroon by Dion Boucicault
 Poetry
(from the Greek poiesis — ποίησις —
with a broad meaning of a "making", seen
also in such terms as "hemopoiesis"; more
narrowly, the making of poetry) is a form of
literary art which uses aesthetic and
rhythmic qualities of language—such as
phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and
metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or
in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.
 Aristotle
i.
ii.
iii.
describes poetry in three genres:
The Epic (Vedas, Odyssey etc)
The comic
The Tragic
 The
aestheticians identified three major
genres in poetry:
i.
Epic poetry
ii. Lyric poetry
iii. Dramatic poetry – subgenres: -comedy
- tragedy
A
branch of philosophy dealing with nature of
art, beauty and taste, with the creation and
appreciation of beauty.
 It is more scientifically defined as the study
of sensory values.
 The
earliest poems in English were written in
the period of Old English (450-1100).
 These poems reflect the influence of
Christianity.
 The most famous poem is the epic Beowulf.
 During the Middle English period (1100-1500),
poets have written on many other subjects
but religious themes remained important.
UNDERSTANDING POETRY
 The
title always carries some information.
 Example : Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
 It gives the readers an idea that the poet is
looking at options in his life.
 Example: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening
 Readers know that the poem will deal with
nature and is going to be very expressive.
 1st.
person speaker
- Talks from the inside. He is directly involved
in that action.
- Ex: Because I could Not Stop for Death (Emily
Dickinson)
 3rd. person speaker (omniscient)
- Observes and writes
- Ex: Sir Patrick Spens (Anonymous)
 To
whom the poetry is addressed to is very
important information in understanding
poetry.
 Some poems are in dialogue form, where
there is a speaker and a listener.
 The speaker-listener relationship will create
tension in the poem.
 It
is important to know the background of
the poet.
 Poets usually relate their life experiences
through their poems.
 Knowing the poet’s surroundings, the origin,
and childhood will also facilitate in
understanding the poems.
 In short, knowing the full biography of the
poet will further enhance the understanding
of his works.
 Although
all the words used in poetry are
usually clear but some poets may use
unfamiliar words which are colloquial in
nature.
 Therefore,
it is important to understand the
meaning of all the words used before you
begin to explicate the poetries.
 Some
poems have clear settings.
 Knowing
the setting gives a better
understanding of the poetry.
 Setting
also enables the readers to
understand the mood of the poet.
 Furthermore, it will help in our imagination.
 If the reader can imagine the setting, the
poem can be enjoyed to the fullest.
 This
term is applied to the attitude of the
poet towards the poem.
 It also means the mood the poet has chosen
for the poetry.
 Tone can be formal, informal, intimate,
serious, ironic, playful and etc.
 Theme
refers to the idea or ideas that the
poem explores.
 Example : The Death of the Ball Turret
Gunner (Randall Jarrell)
 The theme is the ugliness of war, the
poignancy of untimely death and how the
war forces the young people to face cruelty
and horror.
 The
poems can be personal statements or
speeches of other people.
 The poem can be laid out in a sonnet form or
may develop in couplets.
 They may contain stanzas, each unified by a
particular action or thought.
 Try to determine the form and understand in
which way the poem unfolds.
 Imagery
Poems
Imagery Poems draw the reader into poetic
experiences by touching on the images and
senses which the reader already knows.
 The use of images in this type of poetry
serves to intensify the impact of the work.
 Ballad
Poems are poems that tells a story
similar to a folk tale or legend and often has
a repeated refrain. A ballad is often about
love and often sung.
 A ballad is a story in poetic form. A collection
of 305 ballads from England and Scotland,
and their American variants, were collected
by Francis James Child in the late 19th
century.
 'Twas
Friday morn when we set sail,
And we had not got far from land,
When the Captain, he spied a lovely
mermaid,
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
Chorus
 Oh
the ocean waves may roll,
And the stormy winds may blow,
While we poor sailors go skipping aloft
And the land lubbers lay down below,
below, below
And the land lubbers lay down below.

Then up spoke the Captain of our gallant ship,
And a jolly old Captain was he;
"I have a wife in Salem town,
But tonight a widow she will be.“

Chorus
Then up spoke the Cook of our gallant ship,
And a greasy old Cook was he;
"I care more for my kettles and my pots,
Than I do for the roaring of the sea."

Chorus
Then up spoke the Cabin-boy of our gallant ship,
And a dirty little brat was he;
"I have friends in Boston town
That don't care a ha' penny for me."
Chorus
Then three times 'round went our gallant ship,
And three times 'round went she,
And the third time that she went 'round
She sank to the bottom of the sea.
Chorus
 Lyric
Poetry consists of a poem, such as a
sonnet or an ode, that expresses the
thoughts and feelings of the poet.
 The term lyric is now commonly referred to
as the words to a song. Lyric poetry does not
tell a story which portrays characters and
actions.
 The lyric poet addresses the reader directly,
portraying his or her own feeling, state of
mind, and perceptions.
 Lyric
poems have specific rhyming schemes
and often set to music or a beat.
 These poems have metres.
 English
(or Shakespearean) sonnets are lyric
poems that are 14 lines long falling into
three coordinate quatrains and a concluding
couplet.
 Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided
into two quatrains and a six-line seste.
A
Couplets is a Stanza of only two lines which
usually rhyme. Shakespearean (also called
Elizabethan and English) sonnets usually end
in a couplet and are a pair of lines that are
the same length and usually rhyme and form
a complete thought.
 William Shakespeare makes use of couplets
in more complex rhyme schemes.
 An
Elegy is a sad and thoughtful poem
lamenting the death of a person.
 An example of this type of poem is Thomas
Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard."
 Odes
are long poems which are serious in
nature and written to a set structure.

John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and
"Ode To A Nightingale" are probably the most
famous examples of this type of poem.
 Imagery
Poems draw the reader into poetic
experiences by touching on the images and
senses which the reader already knows.

The use of images in this type of poetry
serves to intensify the impact of the work.
 The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by
T. S. Eliot
 Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the
sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted
streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
 Limericks
are short sometimes bawdy,
humorous poems of consisting of five
Anapaestic lines.
 Lines 1, 2, and 5 of a Limerick have seven to
ten syllables and rhyme with one another.
Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven syllables and
also rhyme with each other.
 Edward Lear is famous for his Book of
Nonsense which included the poetry form of
Limericks.
 Trimeter
Here is an example from William
Cowper's "Verses Supposed to be Written by
Alexander Selkirk" (1782), composed in
anapaestic trimeter:
 I must finish my journey alone
 Limerick
from the Book of Nonsense
by
Edward Lear
 There was an Old Man with a gong,
Who bumped at it all day long;
But they called out, 'O law!
You're a horrid old bore!'
So they smashed that Old Man with a gong.
 An
Allegory is a narrative having a second
meaning beneath the surface one - a story
with two meanings, a literal meaning and a
symbolic meaning.
 Examples: Fairie Queen by Edmund Spenser,
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan and Young
Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
 Lo
I the man, whose Muse whilome did
maske,
As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards
weeds,
Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten
reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall
moralize my song.
 Figurative
language refers to expressions that
conform to regularized arrangements of
words and thoughts.
 These patterns are called rhetorical figures
or rhetorical devices.
 These are tools that make literary works
effective, persuasive and forceful.
 Understanding these tools will make the
explication of a poetry easier.
A
metaphor describes something as though it
were actually something else.
 Example :
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and
women merely players” – William
Shakespeare (As You Like It)
 Simile
uses similarity to carry out the
explanation.
 A simile can be distinguished from a
metaphor because it is introduced by like
with nouns and as, as if, and as though with
clauses.
 Example : The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop
(1911-1979)
- shapes like fill blown roses
stained and lost through age
 It
is a device in which a seeming
contradiction is revealed to be truthful and
non-contradictory.
 Example: Facing West from California’s
Shores by Walt Whitman.
 “I, a child, very old…”
 No one can be young and old at the same
time.
 Anaphora
is the repetition of the same word
or phrase throughout a work or section of a
work.
 These repetitions are intended to give weight
and emphasis to the poetry.
 Example : The Tyger (William Blake)
 The
interrogative word what is used five
times to emphasize the mystery of evil.
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
 It
is a turning away or redirection of
attention. In an apostrophe, the speaker
addresses a real or imagined listener who is
not present.
 It is like a public speech, with readers as
audience.
 The apostrophe enables the speaker to
develop ideas that might arise naturally on
public occasion.
 Example: “London, 1802” – by Wordsworth
 This poem addressed the long dead English
poet, Milton.
 It
endows inanimate objects, animals or
abstract ideas, with human attributes,
powers or feelings.
 Example: “To Autumn” by Keats.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless.
 Human
quality is given to the season by
describing it as a bosom friend of the sun.
 It
means taking one thing out of another.
 It is a device in which a part stands for the
whole, or a whole for a part.
 Example : All hands aboard – to signify that a
ship’s crew should return to ship.
 Example : She lent a hand – to show that she
lent her whole presence.
 Example : The request came from the White
House – means that the request came from
American administration, especially the
President.
 The
name of one thing is replaced by that of
another closely related thing, object or idea.
 Example : A pen is mightier than a sword in
place of writing is more powerful than
warfare.
 Church for Christianity
 "Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was
written in 1922 and published in 1923 in his
New Hampshire volume. Imagery and
personification are prominent in the work.
 In
a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost called
it "my best bid for remembrance".
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29,
1963) was an American poet. He is highly
regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life
and his command of American colloquial speech.
 His work frequently employed settings from rural
life in New England in the early twentieth
century, using them to examine complex social
and philosophical themes.
 One of the most popular and critically respected
American poets of his generation, Frost was
honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving
four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

 Robert
Frost was born in San Francisco,
California, to journalist William Prescott
Frost, Jr., and Isabelle Moodie. His mother
was of Scottish descent, and his father
descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton,
Devon, England, who had sailed to New
Hampshire in 1634 on the Wolfrana.
 Frost's father was a teacher and later an
editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin
(which later merged with the San Francisco
Examiner), and an unsuccessful candidate for
city tax collector.
 After
his death on May 5, 1885, the family
moved across the country to Lawrence,
Massachusetts under the patronage of
(Robert's grandfather) William Frost, Sr., who
was an overseer at a New England mill.
 Frost graduated from Lawrence High School
in 1892. Frost's mother joined the
Swedenborgian church and had him baptized
in it, but he left it as an adult.
 Stopping
By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
 The
woods here indicate the grave of a
person
 His house/family is in the village
 He will not know that the speaker stopped by
 Neither to see his grave filled with snow
 1st.
Person point of view
 Talking to the readers
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
 Winter
 Evening
 Snowing
 In
the woods (graveyard)
 The place is very quite and peaceful
 The only noise is from the wind and the
falling snow flakes
 Lyric
poetry
 The author shares his feelings with the
readers
 The
horse is given human attribution
“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake”
 Some
regard the horse as the conscience of
the poet.
 The harness bell is the conscious mind
waking the poet and he suddenly wonders
why he has actually stopped there.
 He realises that he has a lot of incomplete
chores to execute before he can actually rest
there.
 Phillis
Wheatley (1753-1784) is considered
the first prominent Black writer in the United
States to publish a book of imaginative
writing.
 She is also the first to start the AfricanAmerican literary tradition, as well as the
African-American women literary tradition.
 She was born in Africa and was taken to
Boston on a slave ship at the age of 8 in
1761. Her work, which was derivative, was
published in the collection, Poems on Various
Subjects (1773) and in various magazines.
Wheatley was brought to British-ruled Boston,
Massachusetts on July 11, 1761, on a slave ship
called The Phillis. It was owned by Timothy Fitch
and captained by Peter Gwinn.
 At the age of eight, she was sold to the wealthy
Bostonian merchant and tailor John Wheatley,
who bought the young girl as a servant for his
wife Susanna.
 John and Susanna Wheatley named the young girl
Phillis, after the ship that had brought her to
America. She was given their last name of
Wheatley, as was a common custom if any
surname was used for slaves.

 Wheatley’s
eighteen year old daughter, Mary
taught her to read and write.
 John Wheatley was known as a progressive
throughout New England; his family gave
Phillis an unprecedented education for an
enslaved person, and for a female of any
race.
 By
the age of twelve, Phillis was reading
Greek and Latin classics and difficult
passages from the Bible.
 Recognizing her literary ability, the Wheatley
family supported Phillis education and left
the household labor to their other domestic
slaves.
 In
1775, Phillis Wheatley published a poem
celebrating George Washington, entitled, “To
His Excellency, George Washington.”
 In 1776, Washington invited Wheatley to his
home as thanks for the poem, and Thomas
Paine republished the poem in the
Pennsylvania Gazette after their meeting.
 Wheatley supported the American
Revolution, but the war years saw a decline
in publishing of poetry.
 In
1778, Wheatley was legally freed from the
bonds of slavery by her master's will.
 Three months later, Phillis Wheatley married
John Peters, a free black grocer.
 They struggled with poor living conditions
and the deaths of two infant children.
 Her
husband John Peters was imprisoned for
debt in 1784, leaving an impoverished
Wheatley with a sickly infant son.
 She went to work as a scullery maid at a
boarding house to support them.
 The racism and sexism that marked the era
had forced her into a kind of domestic labor
that she had not been forced to do while her
freedom was held by her masters.
 Wheatley died on December 5, 1784, at age
31.
‘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 redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye’
“Their color is a diabolic dye.”
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refined, and join the angelic train.
Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth,
His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for
North-America, & co.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest’
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
From native Clime, when
Seeming cruel Fate
Me snatched from Afric’s fancy’d
Happy seat
…Ah ! what bitter pangs
molest
What sorrows labour’d in the
Parent Breast?
That, more than stone, ne’er
Soft compassion mov’d
Who from its Father seiz’d his
Much belov’d.
But how, presumptuous shall
We hope to find
Divine appearance with th’
Almighty mindWhile yet(O deed
Ungenerous!) they disgrace
And hold in bondage Afric’s
Blameless race?
Let virtue reign- And thou
Accord our prayers
Be victory our’s, and generous
Freedom theirs.”
 Historians
have
commented
on
her
reluctance to write about slavery.
 Perhaps it was because she had conflicting
feelings about the institution.
 In the above poem, critics have said that she
praises slavery because it brought her to
Christianity. But, in another poem, she wrote
that slavery was a cruel fate.
 WHY
DIDN’T SHE CONDEMN SLAVERY OPENLY
IN HER POEMS?
 WHEN
EXPLICATING A POETRY, YOU HAVE TO
LOOK AT IT IN MANY ANGLES!
‘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 redemption neither sought nor knew.
 Some view our sable race with scornful eye’
 “Their color is a diabolic dye.”
 Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
 May be refined, and join the angelic train.

 All
the existing poems written by Wheatley
show that she was deeply a religious person.
She has written mostly elegies to the white
folks.
 However, some of her poems express her
happiness about being brought from Africa
into the Christian society.
 The tone in most of her poems shows her
thankfulness in being brought to the
civilization and her exposure to Christianity.
 In-depth
and critical analysis will show that
all of Phillis’s poems actually carry the
theme of freedom.
 She has intelligently used this theme to
articulate her desires in a subtle manner
although on the surface, the poems are all
preaching the greatness of Christianity to the
readers and urging them to find solace
through religion.
 However,
one glance at her poems will tell
the readers how well Christianity has been
used as a tool to brainwash the slaves
brought from Africa to accept their
misfortune as slaves.
 In her poem, On Being Brought from Africa
to America, Wheatley says that it was mercy
that she was brought from the pagan land
and was introduced to Christianity.
 Due
to the exposure to Christianity, she has
grown up thinking that Blacks are a cursed
lot.
 She uses the biblical knowledge taught to her
by her master, to relate the Blacks with the
cruel son of Adam, Cain, who kills his own
brother, Abel out of jealousy.
 From that incident, Cain was cursed by the
Lord to shoulder his sins without salvation.
 This
poem conveys a deep meaning to her
race. She urges them to accept their fate as
slaves and turn to religion for salvation.
 She states that although they are viewed as a
cursed race, they can still attain freedom
through religion in their afterlife.
 Therefore,
her poems show that she accepts
her position as a slave happily without much
confrontation, however she tells the fellow
slaves that there is always hope for freedom
through salvation.
 At the same time she is also putting across
the subtle and yet cynical message to the
slave masters that all slaves will one day be
free when they leave this world.
 The
masters cannot stop the slaves from
attaining spiritual freedom. Lines 5 and 6
obviously show that she is indeed unhappy
when her race is called as a doomed race
and their colour has become an object of
ridicule.
 However, she tells them that there is always
freedom for them by being true Christians in
their life hereafter.
 Wheatley
makes political comments and
shows enormous support to the American
freedom from the British through her poems,
To His Excellency General Washington.
 Before beginning the poem, she writes a
letter addressed to General George
Washington thanking and congratulating him
on his efforts to obtain freedom for America.
 As
a slave she is certainly not forgetting her
fellow slaves of their own freedom from their
masters. Wheatley who resides in Boston was
a witness to the events leading to the
Revolution. Therefore, she is able to make
very intelligent commentary on the freedom
of America.
 The
poem above points out the greatness of
statue of liberty which represents America’s
independence.
 The irony of this poem is that it was written
by a slave. She speaks of liberating America
when she herself is not free.
 The
freedom and independence of America is
not going to do her any good. By supporting
the independence of America she is actually
hinting the enslaved community that still
exists in America.
 We can see that there is so much hope in her
poem for freedom where she states in lines
6- 12:

To His Excellency General Washington (1775)
See mother earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
 And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
 See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light
 Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!
 The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
 Olive and laurel binds her golden hair:
 Wherever shines this native of the skies,
 Unnumbered charms and recent graces rise.

 These
lines show the hidden dreams of her
freedom from slavery. She is hoping that this
goddess will bring freedom to the nation. But
no nation is made of vacuum.
 It’s the people who give life to a nation.
Thus, it’s a dream that the freedom for
America will also be the mark of liberation
for her enslaved race.
Dread the iron chain
Which wanton Tyranny with
Lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant
T’enslave the land
 In
the poem titled “To Dartmouth”, she
mentions slavery by using the phrase dread
the iron chain. Since only the Black slaves
are chained, these lines definitely refer to
her race.
 Wheatley
is a poet who demonstrates
remarkable literary maturity and a profound
Christian spirituality. Literacy gives her the
advantage that is unimaginable to her other
comrades.
 She uses them to fool her White masters into
thinking that she is hailing them when in
actual sense she is crying out to her deprived
race.
 Although
racial equality is not a theme to be
found in her poetry, she has used the theme
of freedom to voice her dissatisfaction
against slavery of the Blacks.
Much lyric poetry depends on regular meter
based either on number of syllables or on
stress. The most common meters are as
follows:
 Iambic - two syllables, with the short or
unstressed syllable followed by the long or
stressed syllable.
 Trochaic - two syllables, with the long or
stressed syllable followed by the short or
unstressed syllable. In English, this metre is
found almost entirely in lyric poetry.
 Pyrrhic
- Two unstressed syllables
 Anapestic - three syllables, with the first two
short or unstressed and the last long or
stressed.
 Dactylic - three syllables, with the first one
long or stressed and the other two short or
unstressed.
 Spondaic - two syllables, with two successive
long or stressed syllables.