Consuming and Producing: Essay Prompts for
Classic/Modern Pairings in Art and Literature
No, this wouldn’t work at all…
Pairing Art
and Literature
Oedipus Encountering
the Sphinx
Gustave Moreau - 1864
Oedipus and Jocasta
Verard - 1494
Oedipus Rex
Max Ernst - 1922
Essay Prompt
 In a formal essay, describe three elements of Max
Ernst’s painting “Oedipus Rex” that can be interpreted
as inspired from the details of the Greek tragedy
Oedipus Rex.
Starry Night
-- Vincent Van Gogh
The Starry Night
-- Robert Fagles
Long as I paint
I feel myself
less mad
the brush in my hand
a lightning rod to madness
But never ground that madness
execute it ride the lightning up
from these benighted streets and steeple up
with the cypress look its black is burning green
I am that I am it cries
it lifts me up the nightfall up
the cloudrack coiling like a dragon's flanks
a third of the stars in heaven wheeling in its wake
wheels in wheels around the moon that cradles round the sun
and if I can only trail these whirling eternal stars
with one sweep of the brush like Michael's sword if I can
cut the life out of the beast - safeguard the mother and the son
all heaven will hymn in conflagration blazing down
the night the mountain ranges down
the claustrophobic valleys of the mad
Madness
is what I have instead of heaven
God deliver me - help me now deliver
all this frenzy back into your hands
our brushstrokes burning clearer into dawn.
The Starry Night
-- Anne Sexton
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at
night to paint the stars.
--Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother
The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.
Vincent
-- Don McLean
mailto:http://www.filestube.com/3606c697dbc16cdc03ea/details.html
Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.
Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.
For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.
Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will.
Essay Prompts
 In a formal essay, describe three elements of Van Gogh’s painting
“Starry Night” that are mentioned in Robert Fagles’ poem “Starry
Night.” How does Fagles characterize Vincent Van Gogh?
 In a formal essay, describe three elements of Van Gogh’s painting
“Starry Night” that are mentioned in Anne Sexton’s poem “Starry
Night.” How does Sexton characterize Vincent Van Gogh?
 In a formal essay, describe three elements of Van Gogh’s painting
“Starry Night” that are mentioned in Don McLean’s song “Starry
Night.” How does McLean characterize Vincent Van Gogh?
Marc Chagall
Painter as
Poet
Horse with Violin
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Don’t let that horse
eat that violin
cried Chagall’s mother
But he
kept right on
painting
And became famous
And kept on painting
The Horse With Violin In Mouth
And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waiving the violin
And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across
And there were no strings
attached
Writing Prompts
 How might the physical composition and style of
Chagall’s paintings have contributed to the form of
Ferlinghetti’s poem “Horse with Violin.”
 When looking at Chagall’s painting “Horse with
Violin,” the reader might come to what conclusion
about the afterlife of the poem “Horse with Violin”?
Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
 Have students look at the painting as they write about
the poem “Oh, you gatherer.”
 Prompt: Analyze the ways that Ferlinghetti uses the
images of fire in his poem “Oh, you gatherer” which
expounds on the brilliance of poets hoping to attain the
skill of master poets, including Percy Shelley.
Shelley on the Beach at Viareggio
-- Louis Edouard Fournier - 1889
Oh, you gatherer
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Oh you gatherer
of the fine ash of poetry
ash of the too-white flame
of poetry
Consider those who have burned before you
in the so-white fire
Crucible of Keats and Campana
Bruno and Sappho
Rimbaud and Poe and Corso
And Shelley burning on the beach
at Viarreggio
And now in the night
in the general conflagration
the white light
still consuming us
small clowns
with our little tapers
held to the flame
Frankenstein’s Romantic Roots
 In a formal essay, discuss how nature is presented in
the two Romantic poems “When I Have Fears” and
“Ozymandias.”
 In a formal essay, discuss the common elements of
Romanticism found in Frankenstein and in the poems
of the English Romantic poets.
When I Have Fears
-- John Keats
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And feel that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
Ozymandias
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Oedipus Rex and Antigone Paired with Poetry
Antigone -- Maria Euprosyne Spartali
Antigone
-- Gershon Hepner
For a reverence she thought was right
she practiced her devotion,
and till the corpses both were out of sight
hung fiercely to the notion
that those who’ve died deserve as much respect
as those who carry on,
but who can blame survivors who suspect
that she, like Metatron,
would like to be the one who’s in control?
She crosses that fine border
that circumscribes the playing field whose goal
is set for law and order.
Essay Prompt
In a formal essay, discuss
the character of
Antigone as presented in
the play and in the poem
“Antigone” by Gershon
Hepner. How is Antigone
different in each work?
How is she the same?
Describe the tone of
each work.
Myth
-- Muriel Rukeyser
Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was
the Sphinx. Oedipus said, “I want to ask one question.
Why didn’t I recognize my mother?” “You gave the
wrong answer,” said the Sphinx. “But that was what
made everything possible,” said Oedipus. “No,” she said.
“When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man You didn’t say anything about woman.”
“When you say Man,” said Oedipus, “you include women
too. Everyone knows that.” She said, “That’s what
you think.”
Essay Prompts
 In a formal essay, discuss the implications of the
sphinx’s words in the poem “Myth” by Muriel
Rukeyser.
 In a formal essay, discuss how the story of Oedipus is
different in the poem “Myth” by Muriel Rukeyser from
the story in Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex.
 In a formal paragraph, describe the tone of the sphinx
in the poem “Myth” by Muriel Rukeyser.
Heart of Darkness
and Things Fall Apart
 In a formal essay, discuss the two different narrators’ points
of view in the two novels Heart of Darkness and Things Fall
Apart. How does each narrator view native African culture?
How does each narrator suffer from his view?
 In a formal essay, discuss Conrad’s and Achebe’s feelings
about English Colonialism in the novels Heart of Darkness
and Things Fall Apart. Is English Colonialism presented in
a negative light in both novels? Why or why not?
The Tempest and Brave New World
 In a formal essay, discuss how the title of Huxley’s novel Brave
New World is related to Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
 In a formal essay, discuss three elements of a utopian society that
are presented in Brave New World and The Tempest (benevolent
ruler, elimination of love and lust, elimination of power
struggles).
 In a formal paragraph, explain how there is a tempest in Huxley’s
Brave New World and a brave new world in Shakespeare’s The
Tempest.
Candide and Paradise Lost
 Voltaire and Milton have very different answers to the
Problem of Evil (If God is perfect, how can evil exist in
the world?). In a formal essay, discuss the different
answers that each author gives to this question in
Candide and Paradise Lost. Be sure to quote at least
twice from each work.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time
and
Effect of Gamma Rays on
Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
 In a formal essay, discuss how both families in Curious
Incident… and Effect of Gamma Rays… are
dysfunctional families. In what ways are they
considered dysfunctional? Who is the most “normal”
person in each work?
Julius Caesar
and
Caesar and Cleopatra
 In a formal essay, discuss the two different
characterizations of Caesar in Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar and Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra. Which
character is nobler? Which character is more human?
Which character is the one to whom most modern
women would relate? Quote at least twice from each
play.
Metamorphosis
and
Brave New World
 Identify the modern hero in Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Huxley’s Brave
New World. Discuss how each hero shows at least six characteristics of
the modern hero that we discussed in class:

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
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
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


middle class(average Joe)
suffers
does not realize fatal flaw
Unconventional type of bravery
attempt good things (compare to performs great feats)
anti-hero(enemy of the people, might not do good)
shaped by social forces/ideology and class
works for the good of themselves and few select others
not doomed from the start
does not necessarily sacrifices for other
gives up more easily
loyal to himself
modern conflicts/issues
Consider Poem/Novel Pairings
Wild Geese
– Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
The Mysteries of Udolpho
– Anne Radcliffe
Consider Classic /Modern Pairings
Consider Prose/Art Pairings
My Poem
--Brenda Coulter Robinette
Blah to thee
Blahblah glee
Blah
Blah-de-blah
De-blah Do-blah
blaaaaah
Fine Art
And because I’m
an English teacher,
my final pairing…