Poems and exam notes - poem analyse PDF

Preview

Summary

poem analyse...

Description

The Negro's Complaint Forc'd from home and all its pleasures, Afric's coast I left forlorn; To increase a stranger's treasures, O'er the raging billows borne; Men from England bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold; But though theirs they have enroll'd me Minds are never to be sold. Still in thought as free as ever, What are England's rights, I ask, Me from my delights to sever, Me to torture, me to task? Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit nature's claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same. Why did all-creating Nature Make the plant for which we toil? Sighs must fan it, tears must water, Sweat of ours must dress the soil. Think, ye masters iron-hearted, Lolling at your jovial boards; Think, how many backs have smarted For the sweets your cane affords. Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, Is there one who reigns on high? Has he bid you buy and sell us, Speaking from his throne, the sky? Ask him, if your knotted scourges, Fetters, blood-extorting screws, Are the means that duty urges Agents of his will to use? Strewing yonder sea with wrecks, Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, Are the voice with which he speaks. He, foreseeing what vexations Afric's sons should undergo, Fix'd their tyrants' habitations Where his whirlwinds answer — No. By our blood in Afric wasted, Ere our necks receiv'd the chain; By the mis'ries which we tasted, Crossing in your barks the main; By our suff'rings since ye brought us To the man-degrading mart; All sustain'd by patience, taught us Only by a broken heart: Deem our nation brutes no longer Till some reason ye shall find Worthier of regard and stronger Than the colour of our kind. Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted pow'rs,

Prove that you have human feelings, Ere you proudly question ours. William Cowper

The bustle in a house The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.

Emily Dickinson

I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel a certain zest To bear your body's weight upon my breast: So subtly is the fume of life designed, To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, I shall remember you with love, or season My scorn wtih pity, -- let me make it plain: I find this frenzy insufficient reason For conversation when we meet again. Edna St.

Vincent Millay

Ozymandias 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, (c,c alliteration strengthens negative image) 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.'

Percy Bysshe Shelley STEPHEN WATSON (1955 – ) – The Rain That is Male It’s important to recognise that this poem is a poetic interpretation and translation of the Bleek and Lloyd Collections, whcih are, themselves, translations of !Xam narratives and myths. that means that the politics of this piece are pretty fascinating, given your course preoccupation with ‘selves and others’. Things to look out for: Form, male/female binaries. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770 – 1850) – Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Spetember 3, 1802 Things to look out for: Unusual figuration of the city/culture as feminine (and nature as masculine), extended metaphor of London as a beautiful woman, use of sonnet form, unusual Romantic extolling of the virtues of the city as pseudo-pastoral space.

PHILIP LARKIN (1922 - 1985) - Talking in Bed This is Larkin's intricately structured examination of a dying relationship. Look at RHYME STRUCTURE, IMAGERY that reflects an uneasy relationship and the ironies of the title and FORM. Remember our discussion of the significance of the breakdown in rhyme and formal structure from the 'clean' first stanza through to the increasingly messy structure breakdown that occurs further on. This is can be seen as an example of mimesis - mirroring the breakdown in the relationship. Recall the significance of the number 3 in this poem - the odd number, three's a crowd etc. Also consider expectation ("should be the easiest") versus reality ("but more and more time passes silently"). Focus on those last, paradoxical "words at once true and kind/or not untrue and not unkind." EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY (1892 - 1950) - I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed Things to look out for: Subversive use of the sonnet form, line breaks, feminist perspective. JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) - On His Blindness Milton's sonnet addressing his encroaching blindness. Although it is never good to conflate poet and speaker, in this case we can say that the speaker IS Milton himself. This is a very personal testament to his struggle with faith and purpose after failing eyesight has called into question his life choices. Look at STRUCTURE (particulars of Petrarchan sonnet and its typical association with love),

ENJAMBMENT and its effect on the sense of RHYME, IMAGERY (particularly dark/light) and PUNS/WORD PLAY. Recall the Biblical parable of the Talents. ESSOP PATEL (1943 - 2007) - In the Shadow of Signal Hill

A short, yet powerful call for violent revolution against Apartheid laws. Look at the IMAGERYand its IMPLICATIONS, as well as the TITLE and lack of PUNCTUATION/CAPITALISATION. Remember our geography quiz? District 6 is associated with forced removals, Langa is a township near the airport (where many black evicted residents might have gone) and Robben Island (where the "heroes" call from) is easily visible from Signal Hill. Signal Hill itself is famous for the noonday gun - a military symbol of the passing of time. What kind of alternate militant symbols of passing time are being called for in the poem? SIPHO SEPAMLA (1932 - 2007) - The Loneliness Beyond Do NOT get this one confused with Motshali’s Men in Chains!

Things to look out for:

Look at IMAGERY (particularly animal/human contrasts and the themes of people's lack of individuality. Ask yourself whether, in the last few lines, there might be a subtle sense of forboding. MONGANE SEROTE (1944 - ) - Alexandra Things to look out for: The speaker's inner child-voice that changes register, regression into childhood to parallel helplessness, imagery, continuous play between person/place (Alexandra as woman’s name and Alexandra as township). PERCY SHELLEY (1792-1822) - Ozymandias Look at form, as well as line breaks. Notice and comment on the 'story within a story' approach.

WOLE SOYINKA (1934 - ) - Capitol A scathing political statement against the capitalist trade of a country's (and, thus, people's) access to basic natural resources. This poem is replete with PUNS ("germ", "dough", "tender", "sad"). Look also for basic contrast in IMAGERY (happy, smiling faces to sadness, embers to ashes etc). STEPHEN WATSON (1955 - ) - The Rain That is Male It's important to recognise that this poem is a poetic interpretation and translation of the Bleek and Lloyd Collections, whcih are, themselves, translations of !Xam narratives and myths. that means that the politics of this piece are pretty fascinating, given your course preoccupation with 'selves and others'. Things to look out for: Form, male/female binaries. San Poem: The Rain that is Male The Rain that is male is an angry rain. It brings with it lightning loud like or fear. It brings with it water storming, making smoke out of dust And we, we beat our navels with our rigid fists. We, we press a hand, flat to the navel. We snap our fingers at the angry male rain. And we stand out in the open, close to its thunder, We snap our fingers and chant while it falls: ‘Rain be gone quickly! Fall but be gone! Rain, turn away! Turn back from this place! Rain, take your anger, be gone from our place!’ For we want the other rain, the rain that is female, The one that falls softly, soaking into the ground, The one we can welcome, Feeding the plains So bushes sprout green, springbok come galloping. Version translated from the /xam by Stephen Watson, Return of the Moon, Cape Town, 1991

Yes you can definitely connect the questions one to another, but for the external markers peace of mind, still delineate so that it looks like it consists of answers to those questions.

So you would end one question with an idea and then in the next question you would back refer to your previous aegument - so In the previous question, I noted that Or following on from the previous question it can be observed that.... (2013-08-20 13:17) You need to write a one to two page essay type answer for the character sketch. What I would like you to do is to discuss the character of the Chief, indicating through quotes how he reveals his bad traits. Discuss any good traits and back this with quotations. Describe him in appearance - does his appearance have any relevance to how he perceives himself, how the other characters perceive him and how the reader is made to perceive him? Remember an appearance does not necessarily just mean our outside physical appearance, but also has to do with how you live - it always forms an aspect to how people perceive your character. (2013-Is the chief a coward? Or has he come to the realisation that through his actions he has shamed himself, shamed his people and it is his behaviour which has brought the drought? My students so lack a literary background - but there is a very nasty little story called Oedipus Rex and in many ways Bessie Head is using this as a guide, along with Greek legend as a structuring device in this novel. But she is making it relevant to the African context. (2013-09-19 16:25) 09-19 16:28)

Oedipus the King unfolds as a murder mystery, a political thriller, and a psychological whodunit. Throughout this mythic story of patricide and incest, Sophocles emphasizes the irony of a man determined to track down, expose, and punish an assassin, who turns out to be himself. As the play opens, the citizens of Thebes beg their king, Oedipus, to lift the plague that threatens to destroy the city. Oedipus has already sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the oracle to learn what to do. On his return, Creon announces that the oracle instructs them to find the murderer of Laius, the king who ruled Thebes before Oedipus. The discovery and punishment of the murderer will end the plague. At once, Oedipus sets about to solve the murder. Summoned by the king, the blind prophet Tiresias at first refuses to speak, but finally accuses Oedipus himself of killing Laius. Oedipus mocks and rejects the prophet angrily, ordering him to leave, but not before Tiresias hints darkly of an incestuous marriage and a future of blindness, infamy, and wandering. Oedipus attempts to gain advice from Jocasta, the queen; she encourages him to ignore prophecies, explaining that a prophet once told her that Laius, her husband, would die at the hands of their son. According to Jocasta, the prophecy did not come true because the baby died, abandoned, and Laius himself was killed by a band of robbers at a crossroads.

Oedipus becomes distressed by Jocasta's remarks because just before he came to Thebes he killed a man who resembled Laius at a crossroads. To learn the truth, Oedipus sends for the only living witness to the murder, a shepherd. Another worry haunts Oedipus. As a young man, he learned from an oracle that he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Fear of the prophecy drove him from his home in Corinth and brought him ultimately to Thebes. Again, Jocasta advises him not to worry about prophecies. Oedipus finds out from a messenger that Polybus, king of Corinth, Oedipus' father, has died of old age. Jocasta rejoices — surely this is proof that the prophecy Oedipus heard is worthless. Still, Oedipus worries about fulfilling the prophecy with his mother, Merope, a concern Jocasta dismisses. Overhearing, the messenger offers what he believes will be cheering news. Polybus and Merope are not Oedipus' real parents. In fact, the messenger himself gave Oedipus to the royal couple when a shepherd offered him an abandoned baby from the house of Laius. Oedipus becomes determined to track down the shepherd and learn the truth of his birth. Suddenly terrified, Jocasta begs him to stop, and then runs off to the palace, wild with grief. Confident that the worst he can hear is a tale of his lowly birth, Oedipus eagerly awaits the shepherd. At first the shepherd refuses to speak, but under threat of death he tells what he knows — Oedipus is actually the son of Laius and Jocasta. And so, despite his precautions, the prophecy that Oedipus dreaded has actually come true. Realizing that he has killed his father and married his mother, Oedipus is agonized by his fate. Rushing into the palace, Oedipus finds that the queen has killed herself. Tortured, frenzied, Oedipus takes the pins from her gown and rakes out his eyes, so that he can no longer look upon the misery he has caused. Now blinded and disgraced, Oedipus begs Creon to kill him, but as the play concludes, he quietly submits to Creon's leadership, and humbly awaits the oracle that will determine whether he will stay in Thebes or be cast out forever....