17The Lynching - Claude Mc Kay PDF

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2550a, Survey of American Literature II, Spring 2014, Benzen...

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Claude McKay He was very much part of the communist party He is making comment using the content of a black person being hung in a tree, using a sonnet form; it uses that white European style, but it is more sinister in sty The Lynching It has an apparent gravity in its content The structure is a sonnet; 14 lines and a rhyming couplet at the end. Italian Sonnet Dante and Petrarch used the italian sonnet. 14 lines 15th century Divided into eight lines grouped together, then six. Rhyme scheme was ABBA ABBA CDE CDE Important moment of volta, in which the thyme scheme changes; in six lines, there is a completely different rhyme scheme. The structure corresponds to a psychological structure, with the first four lines bei introduction of a problem, and with the last section, the sestet would provide a “solution”. Is quite an optimistic form, as there is a lot of resolution at the end. English (Shakespearian Sonnet) Innovated by Shakespeare. 14 lines 16th century Three stanzas of four lines, with a couplet at the end. Rhyme schemes is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG The turn is much later in the poem; twelve lines are dedicated to a p and the couplet is the quick, almost superficial, band-aid style, solut the problem. The Lynching is an Italian Sonnet By taking a european form, and putting a black issue within it. The author is almost employing a sonnet against itself; it has restraints and and laws; he takes true whitest form of poetry, and writes about what it’s li be white. It uses the form almost as a satire. The resolution is usually used at the end to tie things up; McKay only uses deepen the issue. “His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven./his father, by the cruelest way of pa The use of christian symbolism is interesting. The Spirit which ascends is th person who was lynched. But the typical capitalization of “father” for God i...