Poetry is language arranged in lines. Like otherforms of
literature, poetry attempts to re-create emotions and experiences. Poetry,
however, is usually more condensed
and suggestive than prose.
Poems often are divided into stanzas, or paragraph-like groups of
lines. The stanzas in a poem may contain the same number of lines or may vary
in length. Some poems
have definite patterns of meter and rhyme. Others rely more on the
sounds of words and less on fixed rhythms and rhyme schemes. The use of
figurative language is also common in poetry.
The form and content of a poem combine to convey meaning. The way
that a poem is arranged on the page, the impact of the images, the sounds of
the words and phrases, and all the other details that make up a poem work
together to help the reader grasp its central idea.
In the most common use of the term, a lyric is any
fairly short poem, consisting of the utterance by a single speaker, who
expresses a state of mind or a process of perception, thought, and feeling.
The chief qualities or essentials
of a good lyric are:
1.It’s
a short poem, characterised by simplicity in language and treatment.
2.It
deals with a single emotion which is generally stated in the first few
lines. Then the poet gives us the
thoughts suggested by that particular emotion.
The last and concluding part is in the nature of a summary. In other words it is the conclusions reached
by the poet. Such is the development of
a lyric in general, but often these parts are not distinctly marked. In moments of intense emotional excitement
the poet may be carried away by his emotions and the lyric may develop along
entirely different lines. A lyric is
more often than not, mood-dictated.
3.It
is musical. Verbal music is an important
element in its appeal and charm. Various
devices are used by poets to enhance the music of their lyrics.
4.It
is an expression of the moods and emotions of a poet. However, a poet may not express merely his
emotions, he may also analyse them intellectually. Such intellectual analysis of emotion is an
important characteristics of the metaphysical lyrics of the early 17th
century. Such lyrics are also more
elaborate than the ordinary lyric.
5.It
is characterised by intensity and poignancy.
The best lyrics are the expressions of intensely felt emotions. Like fire, the intensity of the poet’s
emotion burns out the non-essentials, all attention is concentrated on the
basic emotion, and the gain in poignancy is enormous. It comes directly out of the heart of the
poet, and therefore goes directly to the heart of the readers. The lyric at best is poignant, pathetic and
intense.
6.Spontaneity
is another important quality of a lyric.
The lyric poet sings in strains of unpremeditated art. He sings effortlessly due to the inner urge
for self-expression. Any conscious
effort on his part, makes the lyric look unnatural and artificial.
Write a short note on
Prothalamion by Edmund Spenser.
Prothalamion is a spousal verse,
composed on the occasion of the wedding of Lady Elizabeth and Lady Katherine
Somerset to Henry Gilford and William Peter.
Though it does not reach the poetic excellence and richness of Epithalamion
it is undeniably a fine lyric exhibiting the same mastery of rhythmical and
musical effect and marked by a more evocative refrain.
David Daiches claims for the poem
a tapestry quality, an almost heraldic tone.
It falls short of Epithalamion in personal intensity in concentration of
effect and in unity of design. The
glaring weaknesses of the poem that mar its unity, are the intrusion of the
personal reminiscences, expression of his frustration, his tribute to Leicester
and Essex, and his nostalgic love of London, his most kindly nurse.
At the linguistic level the
defects are the use of vague clichés like fair, gentle and fine, and the
tedious wordplay in the description of the whiteness of the swans in the lines
40-45. However, it is an exquisite lyric
presenting a stylised picture with sensuous and mythological imagery.
Tennyson’s famous Elegy ‘In
Memorium’ has one hundred and thirty six sections, and they form a complete
poem. Different sections were written at
different times; and also these sections were written at different places. Such fashion was popular in his times; but he
did not like them to be published in a single poem. He said, “I did not write them with any view
weaving them into a whole, or for publication until I found I had written so
many.”
‘In Memorium’ was written as an
Elegy in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, who died in 1833, the lyrics that
became sections was written over sixteen years.
The prologue to the poem was was added in 1849. The elegy commenced as an expression of
private and personal grief, but then broadened into an attempt to probe and
answer the spiritual problem of the age.
Tennyson’s great loss led him to reflect on the great problems of
religion; immortality, reality of evil and the free will. These questions were agitating every sincere
thinker of the age. The poem as a whole
is the record of his passage from a numbness of absolute despair to the larger
hope. Thus ‘In Memorium’ becomes a
lyrical and philosophical poem.
A short note
[Summary] on Epithalamion by Edmund Spenser.
According to
Mutter Epithalamion is one of the
greatest formal lyrics in English.
Legouis praises it as a great ode without a rival. It exceeds in richness and splendour all
compositions of the same kind. It is the
most gorgeous jewel in the treasure-house of the Renaissance. J.W. Mackail assigns to it the first place
not only among spenser’s lyrics but also among all English odes. It celebrates the marriage of Spenser with
Elizabeth Boyle. Audio Books
The ode adopts
the Italian Canzone. It has twenty three
stanzas of usually seventeen lines which are of unequal length and intricate
rhyme pattern, each stanza ending in a fourteen syllable line which forms a
varied refrain. The last seven lines are
tornata, an envoi, that expresses the poet’s desire to offer the poem as a gift
in lieu of the ornaments that have not reached her because of some accident. It bears the influence of Sappho,
Theocritus’s Epithalamium of Helen, Catallus’s The Wedding of Manlius and Vinia
and the epithalamia of the French Pleiade, Ronsard and Du Bellay. Its novelty lies in the narrator being the
poet who is also the bridegroom.
The poem unfolds
a canvas where mythological and Christian elements, literary reminiscence and
natural description blend harmoniously
to intensify the expression of the poet’s personal emotions. It radiates an aura of a pageant about
it. Its chief features are the invocation
of the Muse, the procession, feasting, the decoration of the bride, the praise
of her beauty, the bride’s arrival at the church, the marriage ceremony, the
preparation of the bridal chamber and prayer for their fruitful union.
Spenser’s
Platonic conception that the outward beauty is a reflection of the inner virtue
and purity, manifests itself in the description of the bride who is adorn’d
with beauty’s grace and virtue’s store.
The beauty of her body like a palace fair leads the mind with many a
stately stair to honour’s seat, to the seat of perfect virtue. Spenser’s celebration of ideal beauty, and
the Petrarchan deification of the lady
are conventional. Though the poem is
personal, it universalies the experience of love. The narration of events covering one day,
from morning to midnight imposes on the poem a unity in respect of the
subject-matter and of its emotional content.
As Mutter observes, the wealth of imagery is allied to the often
remarked musical quality of the poem to produce a total effect of strength and
controlled luxuriance which earns for it Coleridge’s praise of truly sublime.
Paraphrase/summary of the Poem
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
Stanza 1.
The poet thinks that he knows whose
woods these are. He also knows that the
owner of these woods is a man who lives in the village. The forester, therefore, will not be able to
see him stopping beside the woods to watch them being covered up in snow.
Stanza 2.
The poet/speaker believes that his
little horse must think it odd to stop in these woods without a farm house
nearby between the woods and frozen lake on the darkest evening of the
year.
Stanza 3.
The horse gives a shake to the bells
of his rein to know if the poet has stood there by some mistake. The only other sound that is heard in the
woods is that of the wind and snowfall.
Stanza 4.
The woods are beautiful, dark and
deep to look at. But the poet speaker
has to keep his word given to others and therefore he has to go many miles to
reach the destination before he retires to bed for sleep.
The Theme of the Poem “Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.
This short lyric of sixteen lines
begins with a description of the deep woods through which, the speaker is
passing on a dark, snowy evening. The
owner of the woods live away in the village, hence the owner won’t be able to
see the speaker at his property. A
reference to the snow occurs. The 2nd
and 3rd stanzas are found speculative about the little horse who is
not willing to stop beside the woods because no farm house is visible. He shakes, therefore, his harness bell to
know if the master has stopped because something has gone wrong. The 4th stanza is a beautiful sketch
about the woods but the speaker is reminded of his promise to return home. Thus he must continue his journey to cover up
the miles. Here the journey is life. Woods are deviations from the goals of life.
The Summary of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by S T Coleridge
One evening three guests were going to a marriage party, one
of them was stopped by an Ancient Mariner who insisted on telling a story which
is full of supernatural interest.
Once the ancient mariner and his companions were sailing in a
ship, they were overtaken by a storm and driven to the South Pole. The ship was surrounded by icebergs. After some time, an Albatross came up and
became friendly with the sailors. It was
a bird of good omen; the ice broke and good wind arose from the south. The ship moved and the great bird followed in
fog and snow; but then the old mariner shot the bird with the cross bow. The sailors became angry because they
believed that it would bring the curse, but then they praised the old man and
became partners in the sin.
The ship moved and they crossed the pacific and came to
equator; the days became calm and the chip could not move and stood as a
painted ship on a painted ocean. The
supply of fresh water ran out and they were all dying of thirst. They were cursed, and the carcass of the
albatross was hung around the neck of the ancient mariner.
The same went on for days, the sailors were dying of thirst;
there was salt water all around but not a single drop to drink. The sun was merciless. It became blistering hot. The slimy creatures of the sea rose to the
rotting waters. The sailors suffered,
and they accused the old mariner for their plight.
After several days of torment they saw a sail. The ancient mariner bit his arm and drank his
own blood and shouted with joy “A sail”.
It was a ghostly ship that moved on the still sea without wind or tide. The sailors on the ship were spell-bound, and
when the ghost ship came nearer, they saw a female monster named ‘Life-in-death’ who had red lips,
yellow hair and leprous skin. She was
playing a game of dice with her companion named Death-in-life. She won the
life of all sailors except the life of the ancient mariner. The old sailor was won by Death-in-life. Therefore he could not die but was left
to suffer the life of torture.
Death soon claimed his victims and the sailors were dying one
by one, and the ancient mariner was left alone to suffer the horrors and
torments of life-in-death. He was denied
the luxury of death. The slimy creatures
were alive; his companions were lying dead on the deck; he tried to pray but
the fountain of prayer was dried up and the curse of the dead sailors increased
his agony. Cold sweat dropped from the dead
bodies of the sailors, their eyes were open, and the ancient mariner had to pay
for his sin.
For seven days he remained in this wretched condition; he had
no company except that of the moon and the stars; the water snakes played
around in the water, and the moon beams shined on their bodies. Love began to gush from his heart and he
blessed those creatures. He then
realised he could pray. The load of sin
was lifted and the spell was broken. The
dead albatross dropped from his neck, and he fell into a deep sleep. When he woke up his thirst was quenched and
the wind was blowing. The dead sailors
came back to life because the troop of the angels animated the dead
bodies. The spirit of the South Pole
obeyed the angels and carried the ship, and it was filled with their music and
then they disappeared.
The old sailor again fell into sleep and heard two voices in
his dream; one was the voice of justice that demanded the punishment for
killing the albatross; the other was the voice of mercy that pleaded for the
ancient mariner and pointed out that he had suffered and done enough
penance. When the old man woke up, he
found his companions alive, the ship moving, and they came to their native
shore. It was the night-time, the
harbour was bathed in moonlight; and the light-house, as well as the church on
the hill-top were shining, he fell on his knees and prayed. The angelic spirits (Seraphs) waved their hands
and disappeared.
Then a boat from the harbour came; it contained a pilot, the
pilot’s boy and a hermit. When they
neared there was a big noise and the ancient mariner’s ship went down. But the old sailor was rescued; but his
strange appearance threw the pilot into a fit, and the hermit was shaken. They all began to pray for protection against
evil.
The ancient mariner took charge of the boat and brought it to
the shore. He begged of the hermit to
listen to his strange story and grant him absolution. The ancient mariner’s sin was not expiated
and he felt the agony that tormented his soul.
He travelled from place to place, and became a wanderer. He could find solace and relief when he told
his story to someone.
The ancient mariner finished his tale and pointed out to the
wedding-guest the lesson from his strange story; the best prayer is that which embodies the love of all creatures, great
and small, made by God, who loves us all.
Song to
Celia is from Ben Jonson’s The Forest.
John F.M.Dovaston was the first to point out in 1815 that song to Celia
was constructed from passages in the prose epistles of Philostratus. Ben Jonson is indebted to him for the
bantering tone and the ingenious conceit.
But he has so skilfully transformed the borrowing that the poem appear
original and, to use the words of George Parfit, thoroughly English in Diction,
syntax and rhythm. W.M.Evans observes
that the happy marriage of words and music is responsible for its excellence.
The first eight lines express how the
poet esteems the kiss of Celia superior to wine and Jove’s nectar. The next eight lines suggest that she can
influence and improve upon Nature; for she makes the garland fresh and lends
her fragrance to it, which is more pleasant and lasting than its own sweet
smell. This conceit smacks of the
metaphysical concept of unified sensibility.
The poem, thus extols the unique and and almost divine trait of Celia.
The poem may be divided into two
eight-lined stanzas with the rhyme scheme abcb abcb, each line consisting of
eight syllables. It is marked by
classical poise, elegance, subdued emotion and an urban tone.
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.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shape as things. Thus the objects of the world are once removed from reality. Art (literature, painting, sculpture) being the reproduction of these things, is twice removed from reality.Therefore poetry takes men away from reality rather than towards it. So poetry helps neither to mould character nor to promote the well-being of the state-- the two things by which Plato judged all human endeavour.
The poet writes because he is 'inspired' not because he has thought long over a subject. According to Plato this sudden outpouring of the soul cannot be a reliable substitute for truths based on reason. Even if there is profound truth in poetry it needs to be subjected to a further test-- the test of reason. Poetry therefore cannot take the place of philosophy.
Poetry is a product of inspiration rather than of
reason and therefore it appeals to the heart rather than to the
intellect. Poetry is concerned about the beauty of form. An individual who
is in search of truth, can never be guided by poetry. Plato illustrates
this by referring to the tragic poetry of his age, in which weeping and wailing
were indulged to the full to move the hearts of the spectators. So poetry
‘fed and watered’ the passions instead of drying them up and let them rule
instead of ruling them as they ought to be ruled with a view to the happiness
and virtue of mankind.
d) It’s Non-moral character
Finally, Plato
indicts poetry for its lack of concern with morality. In its treatment of
life it treats both virtue and vice alike, sometimes making the one and
sometimes making the other triumph indifferently, without regard for moral
considerations. It pained Plato to see virtue often coming to grief in
the literature of his time. The epics ofHomer, the narrative works of Hesiod,
the odes of Pindar and the tragedies ofAeschylus, Sophocles andEuripides. Such literature,
according to Plato, corrupted both the citizen and the state.
a.Art (poetry) is twice removed from reality.
b.Poetic inspiration
c.The emotional appeal to poetry
d.It’s Non-moral character
PLATO
E x t r a r e a d i n g
An extract from plato’s Ion
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
Socrates, Ion
Socrates: Would you or a good prophet be a better interpreter of what these two poets say about divination, not only when they agree, but when they disagree?
Ion: A prophet.
Socrates: And if you were a prophet, would you be able to interpret them when they disagree as well as when they agree?
Ion: Clearly.
Socrates: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only and not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak the same themes which all other p0ets handle? Is not war his great argument? And does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled, and of the good conversing with one another and with mankind, and about what happens in heaven and in the world below, and the generations of gods
and heroes? Are not these the themes of which Homer sings?
Ion: Very true, Socrates.
Socrates: And do not the other poets sing of the same?
Ion: Yes, Socrates; but not in the same way as Homer.
Socrates: What, in a worse way?
Ion: Yes, in a far worse.
Socrates: And Homer in a better way?
Ion: He is incomparably better.
Socrates: And yet surely, my dear friend Ion, in a discussion about arithmetic, where many people are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, there is somebody who can judge which of them is the good speaker?
Socrates: And he who judges of the good will be the same as he who judges of the bad speakers?
Ion: The same.
Socrates: And he will be the arithmetician?
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food, when many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, will he who recognizes the better speaker be a different person from him who recognizes the worse, or the same?
Ion: Clearly the same.
Socrates: And who is he, and what is his name?
Ion: The physician.
Socrates: And speaking generally, in all discussions in which the subject is the same and many men are speaking, will not he who knows the good know the bad speaker also? For if he does not know the bad, neither will he know the good when the same topic is being discussed.
Ion: True.
Socrates: Is not the same person skillful in both?
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: And you say that Homer and the other poets, such as Hesiod and Archilochus, speak of the same things; although not in the same way; but the one speaks well and the other not so well?
Ion:
Socrates: And if you knew the good speaker, you would also know the inferior speakers to be inferior?
Ion: That is true.
Socrates: Then, my dear friend, can I be mistaken in saying that Ion is equally skilled in Homer and in other poets, since he himself acknowledges that the same person will be a good judge of all those who speak of the same things; and that almost all poets do speak of the same things?
Ion: Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say?
Socrates: The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other poets; for poetry is a whole.
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: And when any one acquires any other art as a whole, the same may be said of them. Would you like me to explain my meaning, Ion?
Ion: Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would for I love to hear you wise men talk.
Socrates: 0 that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so; but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speaks the truth. For consider what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this which I have said-a thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same. Let us consider this matter; is not the art of painting a whole?
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: And there are and have been many painters good and bad.
Ion: Yes.
(The dialogue continues. Plato was highly poetic in his prose though he stood against poetry. Aristotle stood for poetry but his prose was rather dry.)
