Sunday, November 16, 2008

Lyrical Poetry



Lyrical Poetry 


1- Lyrics : a short poem that is neither narrative nor dramatic. It may express thoughts and feelings, describe something, or reflect upon something.


For example,

Before the World Was Made

William Butler Yeats


If I make the lashes dark

And the eyes more bright

And the lips more scarlet,

Or ask if all be right

From mirror after mirror,

No vanity's displayed:

I'm looking for the face I had

Before the world was made.


What if I look upon a man

As though on my beloved,

And my blood be cold the while

And my heart unmoved?

Why should he think me cruel

Or that he is betrayed?

I'd have him love the thing that was

Before the world was made.


2- Sonnets: a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure.

For example,

Shakespearean sonnet

when what hugs stopping earth than silent is

more silent than more than much more is or

total sun oceaning than any this

tear jumping from each most least eye of star


and without was if minus and shall be

immeasurable happenless unnow

shuts more than open could that every tree

or than all his life more death begins to grow


end's ending then these dolls of joy and grief

these recent memories of future dream

these perhaps who have lost their shadows if

which did not do the losing spectres mine

until out of merely not nothing comes

only one snowflake and we speak our names.


3- Ode: It is a composition in irregular meter expressing lofty feelings usually in celebration of some special event.For example, Ode To A Nightingale - a poem by John Keats 


My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?


4- Elegy : a sadly meditative poem, pften expressing grief for the dead.

for example, Walt Whitman's elegy on Abraham Lincoln,  When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

  1

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

                    2

O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night -- O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd -- O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless -- O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

                    3

In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle -- and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.

                    4

In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush,
The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat,
Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,
If thou wast not granted to sing, thou would'st surely die.)

The Satire :
A satire may be written in prose or verse in which a person or a society is ridiculed.

The writer motive may be 
                    *
        *                        *
malicious          to provoke pure fun

The Narrative :
a poem that tells a story. e.g. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by S.T. Coleridge.  

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Poetry 4

Ballads

( a narrative poem in stanzas)

*

*                                 *

*                                                            *

Folk Ballads                                            Literary Ballads

(anonymous songs,                           (modern imitations of folk

 mostly dating fromBefore 1700,            ballads,and often  are

and transmitted orally)                        not intended to be sung)

e.g. Sir Patrick Spens                            e.g. John Keats's

Lord Randal                                La Belle dame Sans Merci


Lord Randal performed by some students at school :



Poetry 3

Epic

(a long narrative poem about the adventures of a hero)

*

*                                              *

*                                                                        *

       Traditional Epics                         Literary Epics

(ancient works from                                    (Poems that imitate

an oral tradition, recording                           traditional epics)  

 legendary history) 

e.g. the Anglo-Saxon epic                              e.g. John Milton's 

Beowulf                                                                              Paradise Lost


Beowulf Prologue said in Old English






Poetry 2

Impersonal Poetry

*

*

*                        *                                        *                      *

Epic                   Ballads                              Satire             Narrative

Poetry

Poetry

*

*                                           *

*                                                                      *

Personal sentiments                                              Impersonal Poetry

 

Friday, November 7, 2008

Crossword Exercise

1-      a round dancing place before the stage. 

2-      an error of judgment that causes the downfall of a tragic protagonist. 

3-      a lengthy speech by a single character in a play, either alone or to others.

4-      a large story written in prose (contains more than 50,000) words.

5-      a literary genre depicting serious actions that usually have a disastrous outcome for the protagonist. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


e

r

u

t

a

r

e

t

i

l