tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2864857408100408452024-02-20T00:21:31.973-08:00Marlow's TideMr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-58856584904020201312011-08-29T15:59:00.000-07:002011-08-29T16:00:33.976-07:00"Blackberry Picking"Blackberry-picking - Seamus Heaney
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<br />Late August, given heavy rain and sun
<br />For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
<br />At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
<br />Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
<br />You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
<br />Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
<br />Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
<br />Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
<br />Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
<br />Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
<br />Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
<br />We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
<br />Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
<br />With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
<br />Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
<br />With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
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<br />We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
<br />But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
<br />A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
<br />The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
<br />The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
<br />I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
<br />That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
<br />Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
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<br />Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-78794255769919000802011-08-29T15:56:00.000-07:002011-08-29T15:59:05.847-07:00Seamus Heaney reading "Blackberry Picking"<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/snL0FyoHDew" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-89996054253157144432011-08-29T15:52:00.000-07:002011-08-29T15:56:33.191-07:00"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore RoethkeMy Papa's Waltz
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<br />The whiskey on your breath
<br />Could make a small boy dizzy;
<br />But I hung on like death:
<br />Such waltzing was not easy.
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<br />We romped until the pans
<br />Slid from the kitchen shelf;
<br />My mother's countenance
<br />Could not unfrown itself.
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<br />The hand that held my wrist
<br />Was battered on one knuckle;
<br />At every step you missed
<br />My right ear scraped a buckle.
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<br />You beat time on my head
<br />With a palm caked hard by dirt,
<br />Then waltzed me off to bed
<br />Still clinging to your shirt.
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<br />Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-78383017094489042222011-08-29T15:45:00.000-07:002011-08-29T15:50:15.052-07:00Syllabus for AP English LiteratureSenior AP English Literature
<br />Mr. Ortiz
<br />September 2011
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<br />Course Description: The purpose of this class is two-fold: first, it is designed to offer seniors an opportunity to read several significant works in American or English literature. Our main focus on these works will be formalist in nature, i.e., we will be exploring texts primarily in regard to their compositional excellence. This will require a working knowledge of the elements that contribute to the aesthetic quality of a literary work. Concepts such as tone, imagery, diction, plot, prosody, irony, tragedy, comedy, point of view, and voice will receive particularly close attention as we explore how formal qualities shape literary works and literary history.
<br /> We will also study the humane values that such works often express. The rich interplay between the formal literary qualities of a work and its political, religious, or philosophical insights will be at the core of class discussion. Our emphasis on narrative structure will also insure that the compelling nature of the texts we study will reach as many students as possible.
<br /> The writing assignments in this class will offer each student the opportunity to become a more fluent and insightful writer. Particular time will be given to the thesis statement, i.e., the central controlling judgment at the heart of a successful essay. In this way, the reading and writing parts of this course complement each other: close reading will facilitate compositions of depth and precision. Writing assignments not turned in on the due date (excluding illness or emergencies) will receive a failing grade with no chance of a make-up for that paper.
<br /> Students will also keep a Literary Journal that they will be required to write in three times a week. Some entries will be in-class assignments, free-writing periods, annotations of a passage or chapter, brain-storming, and other methods of exploring the composition process. This will allow students to write without some of the pressures of immediate evaluation, and foster a sense that the writing process is a fluid, dynamic activity that should be creative and supple.
<br /> Writing assignments will be organized to facilitate three goals: writing to understand a text, writing to explain a text to the reader, and writing to evaluate the text according to generic, historical, and philosophical considerations.
<br /> The seminar format of the class is extremely important to a mature study of literature. Attentive participation in the class discussion will be account for 15% of the student’s quarter grade each term. Students who fail to comport themselves with maturity in the seminar will be asked to leave.
<br /> Given the nature of our reading assignments, I hope each student in the seminar views the course as an introduction to the college-level study of literary texts that can enrich one’s life no matter what career one ultimately follows. Aesthetic beauty as found in literature is a subject that no single course can exhaustively study. The techniques of literary analysis we use this year are in fact a means to an end: the contemplation of works of verbal beauty that show forth luminously the dignity of the human person.
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<br />Texts:
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<br />Selected Short Stories by Faulkner, Hemingway, Wolff
<br />Antigone, Sophocles
<br />The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
<br />The Code of the Woosters, P.G. Wodehouse
<br />Hamlet, Shakespeare
<br />A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare
<br />Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
<br />Old School, Tobias Wolff
<br />Peace, Richard Bausch
<br />The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway
<br />The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
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<br />Weekly Assignment Schedule: There will be a typed, formal essay due approximately every Friday. Length will be 2 pages in the fall; and 4-5 pages starting in January.
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<br />Monday: Discussion of work studied in seminar setting. AP terminology handout for incorporation into student writing.
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<br />Tuesday: Timed in-class essay on topics discussed in class and on readings assigned for homework
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<br />Wednesday: Peer Evaluation of in-class essays based on controlling thesis, on tone, logical development, use of supporting detail from text, and command of the basic elements of effective composition (with direct reference to Ellsworth’s English Simplified). Evaluation of papers that demonstrate a wide-ranging, effectively used vocabulary—both critical and literary—will also be a part of this process.
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<br />Thursday: Discussion of work studied in seminar setting; rewrites due for both in class essays and formal written papers.
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<br />Friday: Reading aloud of formal written papers, and defense of those papers based on critiques in class from peers and teacher.
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<br />Our reading, writing, and discussion of each work will focus on:
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<br />1. How do details of tone, metaphor, imagery create characterization?
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<br />2. How is the story told? What is theme, and how do narratives develop them?
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<br />3. How do stylistic concerns shape the meaning of themes?
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<br />4. How do symbolism and other textual details reflect values and embody historical/literary/philosophical judgments?
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<br />5. How does diction in the work change the meaning of characters, action, and themes?
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<br />6. Does the work employ irony? How? On the level of dialog, scene, chapter, or act?
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<br />7. How does the issue of voice shape the work? Are there competing voices? Is there a main narrative voice? Is that narrator reliable? If not, how do we know he or she is not? What are the thematic implications of an unreliable narrator?
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<br />8. Does the work use allusion as a major structuring device?
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<br />9. Does the work employ flashbacks or other narrative devices? What are the implications of such devices?
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<br />10. In what way does the beginning and ending of a work change the meaning of the whole piece?
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<br />Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-75351780959499705982011-05-16T16:02:00.001-07:002011-05-16T16:02:20.595-07:00Prose passagehttp://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/repository/eng_lit_99_6924.pdfMr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-57228867373005150962011-05-16T15:00:00.000-07:002011-05-16T15:02:20.141-07:00AP Essay Prose AnalysisThe Crossing Style Analysis<br /><br /> In this passage from Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, the main character is alone in the wilderness with the body of a wolf, searching for a place to bury her. He is overcome with emotion as he looks at the creature, in awe of her power and spirit. The author relies on imagery and figurative language to convey this mindset in the lonely night.<br /> <br /> The imagery of this scene appeals to multiple senses. No sentence is wasted in this piece; all are filled with adjectives. The reader is drawn into the story, transported to the scene as an invisible observer, with the sounds of coyotes “yapping along the hills…their cries seeming to have no origin” (10-13). The coyotes are still calling just before dawn, suggesting that otherwise the night is silent and the person isolated. The narrator also describes the character’s jeans as “stiff” (5) and the wolf’s fur “bristly” (7) with blood. Finally, he uses contrasting images between dark and light. At first, the only light in the scene is from the fire, standing against the dark shape of the hills behind him. His state of mind is also dark, not knowing what to do with the wolf. He falls asleep, but upon awakening, the night has grown darker as the fire is reduced to embers. Though he rebuilds it, the light is ineffective, for it only reflects off the wolf’s staring eye. He pauses to reflect, and as his thoughts grow clearer, so does the sky lighten with the coming dawn. <br /><br /> In describing the character’s arrival at the campsite, one sentence runs ten lines long. The rush of words, deliberately strung together with “and,” is meant to be overwhelming. The character’s mind is spinning with many trains of thought, and the seemingly disorganized sentence portrays that. As he examines the wolf, the sentences become short, objective descriptions, symbolic of physical reality, then lengthen as he waxes philosophically about her spirit. However, there is no dialogue anywhere in the scene. The man in this story is communing with the wilderness, where words do not exist, and thus the author has included neither thoughts nor quotations. <br /><br /> Simile and metaphor both draw comparisons between this scene and religion. After washing the blood-soaked sheet, it hangs “steaming…like a burning scrim…where celebrants of some sacred passion have been carried off by rival sects…” (21-23). He compares this experience to a religious symbol because he is experiencing something ethereal that can only be equated with some immeasurable power. Then, instead of focusing on her stiff, lifeless form, he sees her “running in the starlight” (45-46). In other words, he sees her spirit running in heaven, a paradise where she is once more free to hunt her prey, “…all nations of the possible world ordained by God” (50-51). He attempts to explain the power that the wolf holds by defining her role in the world. Though she may only be an animal, he sees her as a symbol of freedom, of primitive instinct shared by all creatures, including man. His sorrow at the wolf’s death is evidenced when he lifts her head, as if to bring her back to life, only to realize that he is holding “which cannot be held” (62-63).<br /> <br /> In this passage, the writer most effectively uses imagery, simile and metaphor to portray the impact of the wolf’s death on the main character. The solitude of his surroundings allows the character to experience the power and beauty of the natural world as he reflects on the wolf’s life and death. In isolation, he finally defines her role in both the physical and spiritual worlds as one of mysterious sovereignty.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-86327046070373023802011-05-11T18:47:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:43:17.469-07:00"Prayer" George HerbertPrayer the church's banquet, angel's age, <br /> God's breath in man returning to his birth, <br /> The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, <br />The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth <br />Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r, <br /> Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, <br /> The six-days world transposing in an hour, <br />A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear; <br />Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, <br /> Exalted manna, gladness of the best, <br /> Heaven in ordinary, man well drest, <br />The milky way, the bird of Paradise, <br /> Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood, <br /> The land of spices; something understood.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-50311601025116217042011-05-11T18:44:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:43:17.517-07:00"Prayer"Prayer by Jorie Graham<br /><br />Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl<br />themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the<br />way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-<br />infolding,<br />entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a<br />visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by<br />minutest fractions the water's downdrafts and upswirls, the<br />dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where<br />they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into<br />itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly<br />invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing<br />motion that forces change--<br />this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets<br />what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing<br />is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by<br />each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,<br />also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something<br />at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through<br />in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is<br />what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen<br />now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only<br />something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.<br />I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.<br />It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-73922970164614020642011-05-10T16:09:00.001-07:002011-05-10T16:09:24.218-07:00<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KprhMmYbIrU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-72129403060323978942011-05-10T16:04:00.001-07:002011-05-10T16:04:35.466-07:00"Casualty" by Seamus HeaneyCasualty by Seamus Heaney<br />I<br /><br />He would drink by himself<br />And raise a weathered thumb<br />Towards the high shelf,<br />Calling another rum<br />And blackcurrant, without<br />Having to raise his voice,<br />Or order a quick stout<br />By a lifting of the eyes<br />And a discreet dumb-show<br />Of pulling off the top;<br />At closing time would go<br />In waders and peaked cap<br />Into the showery dark,<br />A dole-kept breadwinner<br />But a natural for work.<br />I loved his whole manner,<br />Sure-footed but too sly,<br />His deadpan sidling tact,<br />His fisherman's quick eye<br />And turned observant back.<br /><br />Incomprehensible<br />To him, my other life.<br />Sometimes on the high stool,<br />Too busy with his knife<br />At a tobacco plug<br />And not meeting my eye,<br />In the pause after a slug<br />He mentioned poetry.<br />We would be on our own<br />And, always politic<br />And shy of condescension,<br />I would manage by some trick<br />To switch the talk to eels<br />Or lore of the horse and cart<br />Or the Provisionals.<br /><br />But my tentative art<br />His turned back watches too:<br />He was blown to bits<br />Out drinking in a curfew<br />Others obeyed, three nights<br />After they shot dead<br />The thirteen men in Derry.<br />PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,<br />BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday<br />Everyone held<br />His breath and trembled.<br /><br />II<br /><br />It was a day of cold<br />Raw silence, wind-blown<br />Surplice and soutane:<br />Rained-on, flower-laden<br />Coffin after coffin<br />Seemed to float from the door<br />Of the packed cathedral<br />Like blossoms on slow water.<br />The common funeral<br />Unrolled its swaddling band,<br />Lapping, tightening<br />Till we were braced and bound<br />Like brothers in a ring.<br /><br />But he would not be held<br />At home by his own crowd<br />Whatever threats were phoned,<br />Whatever black flags waved.<br />I see him as he turned<br />In that bombed offending place,<br />Remorse fused with terror<br />In his still knowable face,<br />His cornered outfaced stare<br />Blinding in the flash.<br /><br />He had gone miles away<br />For he drank like a fish<br />Nightly, naturally<br />Swimming towards the lure<br />Of warm lit-up places,<br />The blurred mesh and murmur<br />Drifting among glasses<br />In the gregarious smoke.<br />How culpable was he<br />That last night when he broke<br />Our tribe's complicity?<br />'Now, you're supposed to be<br />An educated man,'<br />I hear him say. 'Puzzle me<br />The right answer to that one.'<br /><br />III<br /><br />I missed his funeral,<br />Those quiet walkers<br />And sideways talkers<br />Shoaling out of his lane<br />To the respectable<br />Purring of the hearse...<br />They move in equal pace<br />With the habitual<br />Slow consolation<br />Of a dawdling engine,<br />The line lifted, hand<br />Over fist, cold sunshine<br />On the water, the land<br />Banked under fog: that morning<br />I was taken in his boat,<br />The screw purling, turning<br />Indolent fathoms white,<br />I tasted freedom with him.<br />To get out early, haul<br />Steadily off the bottom,<br />Dispraise the catch, and smile<br />As you find a rhythm<br />Working you, slow mile by mile,<br />Into your proper haunt<br />Somewhere, well out, beyond...<br /><br />Dawn-sniffing revenant,<br />Plodder through midnight rain,<br />Question me again.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-80387535211590020482011-05-10T16:00:00.001-07:002011-05-10T16:00:38.105-07:00"From the Frontier of Writing"From The Frontier Of Writing<br /><br />Seamus Heaney<br /><br />The tightness and the nilness round that space <br />when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect <br />its make and number and, as one bends his face <br /><br />towards your window, you catch sight of more <br />on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent <br />down cradled guns that hold you under cover <br /><br />and everything is pure interrogation <br />until a rifle motions and you move <br />with guarded unconcerned acceleration— <br /><br />a little emptier, a little spent <br />as always by that quiver in the self, <br />subjugated, yes, and obedient. <br /><br />So you drive on to the frontier of writing <br />where it happens again. The guns on tripods; <br />the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating <br /><br />data about you, waiting for the squawk <br />of clearance; the marksman training down <br />out of the sun upon you like a hawk. <br /><br />And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed, <br />as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall <br />on the black current of a tarmac road <br /><br />past armor-plated vehicles, out between <br />the posted soldiers flowing and receding <br />like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-33498046638560985472011-05-10T15:58:00.000-07:002011-05-10T15:59:03.385-07:00"Bogland"Bogland by Seamus Heaney<br />for T. P. Flanagan<br /><br />We have no prairies<br />To slice a big sun at evening--<br />Everywhere the eye concedes to<br />Encrouching horizon,<br /><br />Is wooed into the cyclops' eye<br />Of a tarn. Our unfenced country<br />Is bog that keeps crusting<br />Between the sights of the sun.<br /><br />They've taken the skeleton<br />Of the Great Irish Elk<br />Out of the peat, set it up<br />An astounding crate full of air.<br /><br />Butter sunk under<br />More than a hundred years<br />Was recovered salty and white.<br />The ground itself is kind, black butter<br /><br />Melting and opening underfoot,<br />Missing its last definition<br />By millions of years.<br />They'll never dig coal here,<br /><br />Only the waterlogged trunks<br />Of great firs, soft as pulp.<br />Our pioneers keep striking<br />Inwards and downwards,<br /><br />Every layer they strip<br />Seems camped on before.<br />The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.<br />The wet centre is bottomless.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-60666508735258867012011-05-09T17:48:00.000-07:002011-05-09T17:49:08.831-07:00"The Scarlet Letter" (1850)The Scarlet Letter<br />by Nathaniel Hawthorne<br /><br />A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and gray steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-48383011929825762592011-05-09T17:43:00.000-07:002011-05-09T17:44:02.759-07:00Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934)I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot," or "That Claudius," or "Claudius the Stammerer," or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius," am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-56705373021900833192011-05-09T17:16:00.000-07:002011-05-09T17:17:04.887-07:00Famous Introductions: "Bleak House" (1853)Bleak House <br /> <br />Chapter I<br /><br />In Chancery <br /><br />London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor <br />sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As <br />much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from <br />the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a <br />Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine <br />lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, <br />making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as <br />full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for <br />the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, <br />scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, <br />jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill <br />temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of <br />thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding <br />since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits <br />to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points <br />tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. <br /><br />Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits <br />and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the <br />tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and <br />dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. <br />Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on <br />the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping <br />on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and <br />throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides <br />of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of <br />the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching <br />the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. <br />Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a <br />nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a <br />balloon and hanging in the misty clouds. <br /><br />Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much <br />as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by <br />husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours <br />before their time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard <br />and unwilling look. <br /><br />The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the <br />muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, <br />appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old <br />corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn <br />Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor <br />in his High Court of Chancery. <br /><br />Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and <br />mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition <br />which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, <br />holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-55497449242155633792011-05-08T16:45:00.000-07:002011-05-08T16:46:06.479-07:00One Crucifixion is recorded—onlyOne Crucifixion is recorded—only—<br />How many be<br />Is not affirmed of Mathematics—<br />Or History—<br /><br />One Calvary—exhibited to Stranger—<br />As many be<br />As persons—or Peninsulas—<br />Gethsemane—<br /><br />Is but a Province—in the Being's Centre—<br />Judea—<br />For Journey—or Crusade's Achieving—<br />Too near—<br /><br />Our Lord—indeed—made Compound Witness—<br />And yet—<br />There's newer—nearer Crucifixion<br />Than That— <br /><br />Emily DickinsonMr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-13580510524849332672011-05-08T16:38:00.000-07:002011-05-08T16:39:43.002-07:00"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain <br /> <br />I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,<br />And Mourners to and fro<br />Kept treading--treading--till it seemed<br />That Sense was breaking through-- <br /><br />And when they all were seated,<br />A Service, like a Drum-- <br />Kept beating--beating--till I thought<br />My Mind was going numb-- <br /><br />And then I heard them lift a Box<br />And creak across my Soul<br />With those same Boots of Lead, again,<br />Then Space--began to toll,<br /><br />As all the Heavens were a Bell,<br />And Being, but an Ear,<br />And I, and Silence, some strange Race<br />Wrecked, solitary, here--<br /><br />And then a Plank in Reason, broke,<br />And I dropped down, and down-- <br />And hit a World, at every plunge,<br />And Finished knowing--then-- <br /><br /><br />Emily DickinsonMr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-57831691595238715512011-05-05T17:15:00.001-07:002011-05-05T17:15:34.043-07:00"Design"Design <br />by Robert Frost <br /><br />I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,<br />On a white heal-all, holding up a moth<br />Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--<br />Assorted characters of death and blight<br />Mixed ready to begin the morning right,<br />Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--<br />A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,<br />And dead wings carried like a paper kite.<br /><br />What had that flower to do with being white,<br />The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?<br />What brought the kindred spider to that height,<br />Then steered the white moth thither in the night?<br />What but design of darkness to appall?--<br />If design govern in a thing so small.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-21980397073766079202011-05-04T18:56:00.001-07:002011-05-04T18:56:36.398-07:00Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004)Gift<br /><br />A day so happy.<br />Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden.<br />Hummingbirds were stopping over the honeysuckle flowers.<br />There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.<br />I knew no one worth my envying him.<br />Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.<br />To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.<br />In my body I felt no pain.<br />When straightening up, I saw blue sea and sails.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-57568411721643234432011-05-04T18:53:00.001-07:002011-05-04T18:53:12.838-07:00<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5wijhJT5GBU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-59743664508611035042011-05-04T18:48:00.001-07:002011-05-04T18:48:44.305-07:00Czeslaw MiloszLate Ripeness <br /><br />Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,<br />I felt a door opening in me and I entered<br />the clarity of early morning.<br /><br />One after another my former lives were departing,<br />like ships, together with their sorrow.<br /><br />And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas<br />assigned to my brush came closer,<br />ready now to be described better than they were before.<br /><br />I was not separated from people,<br />grief and pity joined us.<br />We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.<br /><br />For where we come from there is no division<br />into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.<br /><br />We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part<br />of the gift we received for our long journey.<br /><br />Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -<br />a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror<br />of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel<br />staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,<br />waiting for a fulfillment.<br /><br />I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,<br />as are all men and women living at the same time,<br />whether they are aware of it or not.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-21619618155004694782011-05-03T17:42:00.000-07:002011-05-03T17:43:16.679-07:00The History TeacherThe History Teacher - Billy Collins<br /><br />Trying to protect his students' innocence<br />he told them the Ice Age was really just<br />the Chilly Age, a period of a million years<br />when everyone had to wear sweaters.<br /><br />And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,<br />named after the long driveways of the time.<br /><br />The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more<br />than an outbreak of questions such as<br />"How far is it from here to Madrid?"<br />"What do you call the matador's hat?"<br /><br />The War of the Roses took place in a garden,<br />and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.<br /><br />The children would leave his classroom<br />for the playground to torment the weak<br />and the smart,<br />mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,<br /><br />while he gathered up his notes and walked home<br />past flower beds and white picket fences,<br />wondering if they would believe that soldiers<br />in the Boer War told long, rambling stories<br />designed to make the enemy nod off.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-52810231306384120842011-05-03T17:41:00.000-07:002011-05-03T17:42:06.499-07:00"A Barred Owl"A Barred Owl<br />By Richard Wilbur <br /><br />The warping night air having brought the boom<br />Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,<br />We tell the wakened child that all she heard<br />Was an odd question from a forest bird,<br />Asking of us, if rightly listened to,<br />“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”<br /><br /><br />Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,<br />Can also thus domesticate a fear,<br />And send a small child back to sleep at night<br />Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight<br />Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw<br />Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.<br /><br /><br /><br />Richard Wilbur, “A Barred Owl” from Mayflies: New Poems and Translations. Copyright © 2000 by Richard Wilbur. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-79513614900684562312011-05-01T06:47:00.000-07:002011-05-01T06:48:18.535-07:00AP ENGLISH LITERATUREFREE RESPONSE ESSAY QUESTIONS <br />(1985 - 2003)<br /><br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />1985. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this "healthy confusion." Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" experienced by the readers of the work. <br /><br />1986. Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author’s manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. <br /><br />1987. Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader’s or audience’s views. Avoid plot summary. <br /><br />1988. Choose a distinguished novel or play in which some of the most significant events are mental or psychological; for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness. In a well-organized essay, describe how the author manages to give these internal events the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external action. Do not merely summarize the plot. <br /><br />1989. In questioning the value of literary realism, Flannery O’Connor has written, "I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see." Write an essay in which you "make a good case for distortion," as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of the work you choose are "distorted" and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of the work. Avoid plot summary. <br /><br />1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary. <br /><br />1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work. <br /><br />1992. In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much "the reader’s friend as the protagonist’s." However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. Choose a confidant or confidante from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work. You may write your essay on one of the following novels or plays or on another of comparable quality. Do not write on a poem or short story. <br /><br />1993. "The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." Choose a novel, play, or long poem in which a scene or character awakens "thoughtful laughter" in the reader. Write an essay in which you show why this laughter is "thoughtful" and how it contributes to the meaning of the work. <br /><br />1994. In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel or play of literary merit and write an essay in which you show how such a character functions in the work. You may wish to discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters. Avoid plot summary. <br /><br />1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values. <br /><br />1996. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events—a marriage or a last minute rescue from death—but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole. <br /><br />1997. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of literary merit.<br /><br />1998. In his essay "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature:<br /><br />In literature it is only the wild that attracts us.<br />Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the<br />uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and The Illiad,<br />in all scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools,<br />that delights us.<br /><br />From the works that you have studied in school, choose a novel, play, or epic poem that you may initially have thought was conventional and tame but that you now value for its "uncivilized free and wild thinking." Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes its "uncivilized free and wild thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific references to the work you choose.<br /><br />1999. The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, "No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time."<br /><br />From a novel or play choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict with one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may use one of the novels or plays listed below or another novel or work of similar literary quality.<br /><br />2000. Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.<br /><br />2001. One definition of madness is "mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it." But Emily Dickinson wrote: "Much madness is divinest Sense— / to a discerning Eye—" Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a "discerning Eye." Select a novel or play in which a character’s apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Explain the significance of the "madness" to the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.<br /><br />2002 Morally ambiguous characters - characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying with them as purely good or purely evil - are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write and essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.<br /><br />2002 FORM B: Often in literature a character’s success in achieving a goal depends upon keeping a secret and divulging it only at the right moment, if at all. Choose a novel or play of literary merit that requires a character to keep a secret. In a well-organized essay, briefly explain the necessity for secrecy and how the character’s choice to reveal or keep the secret affects the plot and contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.<br /><br />2003 According to critic Northrop Frye, "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power above them, more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning." Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.<br /><br />2003 FORM B: Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures – national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character’s unique sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which a character responds to such a cultural collision. Then write a well-organized essay in which you describe the character’s response and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286485740810040845.post-39195787007738309032011-04-25T10:59:00.001-07:002011-04-25T10:59:34.777-07:00AP English Poetry TermsAP English Poetry Terms<br /><br />(Presented by Dennis Carroll of High Point University at AP Workshop)<br /><br />Listed and defined below are literary terms that you will need to know in order to discuss and write about works of poetry. You are already familiar with many of these. <br /><br />l. alliteration- the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the <br /> beginnings of words. “Gnus never know pneumonia” is an example of alliteration since, <br /> despite the spellings, all four words begin with the “n” sound. <br /><br />2. allusion- a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. When T.S. Eliot writes, "To have squeezed the universe into a ball" in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," he is alluding to the lines "Let us roll our strength and all/ Our sweetness up into one ball" in Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress." <br /><br />3. antithesis- a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in “Man proposes; God disposes.” Antithesis is a balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness. The second line of the following couplet by Alexander Pope is an example of antithesis: <br /> The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, <br /> And wretches hang that jury-men may dine. <br /><br />4. apostrophe- a figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present. Following are two examples of apostrophe: <br /> Papa Above! <br /> Regard a Mouse. <br /> -Emily Dickinson <br /><br /> Milton! Thou shouldst be living in this hour; <br /> England hath need of thee . . .. <br /> -William Wordsworth <br /><br />5. assonance- the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. “A land laid waste with all its young men slain” repeats the same “a” sound in “laid,” “waste,” and “slain.” <br /><br />6. ballad meter- a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four. <br /> O mother, mother make my bed. <br /> O make it soft and narrow. <br /> Since my love died for me today, <br /> I’ll die for him tomorrow. <br /><br />7. blank verse- unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the meter of most of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as that of Milton’s Paradise Lost. <br /><br />8. cacophony- a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet’s music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect, as Browning and Eliot often use it. See, for example, the following line from Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”: <br /><br /> Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast? <br /><br />9. caesura- a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause. For example, one would naturally pause after “human’ in the following line from Alexander Pope: <br /> To err is human, to forgive divine. <br /><br />10. conceit- an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it also may form the framework of an entire poem. A famous example of a conceit occurs in John Donne’s poem “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” in which he compares his soul and his wife’s to legs of a mathematical compass. <br /><br />11. consonance- the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. The term usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different. Consonance is found in the following pairs of words: “add” and “read,” “bill and ball,” and “born” and “burn.” <br /><br />12. couplet- a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same. <br /><br />13. devices of sound- the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. Among devices of sound are rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. The devices are used for many reasons, including to create a general effect of pleasant or of discordant sound, to imitate another sound, or to reflect a meaning. <br /><br />14. diction- the use of words in a literary work. Diction may be described as formal (the level of usage common in serious books and formal discourse), informal (the level of usage found in the relaxed but polite conversation of cultivated people), colloquial (the everyday usage of a group, possibly including terms and constructions accepted in that group but not universally acceptable), or slang (a group of newly coined words which are not acceptable for formal usage as yet). <br /><br />15. didactic poem- a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. The distinction between didactic poetry and non-didactic poetry is difficult to make and usually involves a subjective judgement of the author’s purpose on the part of the critic or the reader. Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism is a good example of didactic poetry. <br /><br />16. dramatic poem- a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends. The dramatic monologue is an example. <br /><br />17. elegy- a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or another solemn theme. Examples include Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam; and Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” <br /><br />18. end-stopped- a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines. <br /> True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, <br /> As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance. <br /><br />19. enjambment- the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next. Milton’s Paradise Lost is notable for its use of enjambment, as seen in the following lines: <br /> . . . .Or if Sion hill <br /> Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’d <br /> Fast by the oracle of God, . . . . <br /><br />20. extended metaphor- an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem. In “The Bait,” John Donne compares a beautiful woman to fish bait and men to fish who want to be caught by the woman. Since he carries these comparisons all the way through the poem, these are considered “extended metaphors.” <br /><br />21. euphony- a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite is cacophony. The following lines from John Keats’ Endymion are euphonious: <br /> A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: <br /> Its loveliness increases; it will never <br /> Pass into nothingness; but still will keep <br /> A bower quiet for us, and a sleep <br /> Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. <br /><br />22. eye rhyme- rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation. Examples include “watch” and “match,” and “love” and “move.” <br /><br />23. feminine rhyme- a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as “waken” and “forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition.” Feminine rhyme is sometimes called double rhyme. <br /><br />24. figurative language- writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, irony, and simile. Figurative language uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning. “The black bat night has flown” is figurative, with the metaphor comparing night and bat. “Night is over” says the same thing without figurative language. <br /><br />25. free verse- poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. The poetry of Walt Whitman is perhaps the best-known example of free verse. <br /><br />26. heroic couplet- two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit. See the following example from Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock: <br /> But when to mischief mortals bend their will, <br /> How soon they find fit instruments of ill! <br /><br />27. hyperbole- a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect. Macbeth is using hyperbole in the following lines: <br /> . . . .No; this my hand will rather <br /> The multitudinous seas incarnadine, <br /> Making the green one red. <br /><br />28. imagery- the images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work. Imagery has several definitions, but the two that are paramount are the visual auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the images that figurative language evokes. When an AP question asks you to discuss imagery, you should look especially carefully at the sensory details and the metaphors and similes of a passage. Some diction is also imagery, but not all diction evokes sensory responses. <br /><br />29. irony- the contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. Verbal irony is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. Irony is likely to be confused with sarcasm, but it differs from sarcasm in that it is usually lighter, less harsh in its wording though in effect probably more cutting because of its indirectness. The ability to recognize irony is one of the surer tests of intelligence and sophistication. Among the devices by which irony is achieved are hyperbole and understatement. <br /><br />30. internal rhyme- rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end. The following lines contain internal rhyme: <br /> Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, <br /> Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— <br /> While I nodded, nearly napping. . suddenly there came a tapping . . . . <br /><br />31. lyric poem- any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings. Love lyrics are common, but lyric poems have also been written on subjects as different as religion and reading. Sonnets and odes are lyric poems. <br /><br />32. masculine rhyme- rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words. Examples include “keep” and “sleep,” “glow” and “no,” and “spell” and “impel.” <br /><br />33. metaphor- a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like “as,” “like,” or “than.” A simile would say, “night is like a black bat”; a metaphor would say, “the black bat night.” <br /><br />34. meter- the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of meter is known as a foot. <br /><br />35. metonymy- a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. In this way we commonly speak of the king as the “crown,” an object closely associated with kingship. <br /><br />36. mixed metaphors- the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous. Lloyd George is reported to have said, “I smell a rat. I see it floating in the air. I shall nip it in the bud.” <br /><br />37. narrative poem- a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short. Epics and ballads are examples of narrative poems. <br /><br />38. octave- an eight-line stanza. Most commonly, octave refers to the first division of an Italian sonnet. <br /><br />39. onomatopoeia- the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples are “buzz,” “hiss,” or “honk.” <br /><br />40. oxymoron- a form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression. This combination usually serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness. Examples include “wise fool,” “sad joy,” and “eloquent silence.” <br /><br />41. paradox- a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense. The following lines from one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets include paradoxes: <br /> Take me to you, imprison me, for I <br /> Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, <br /> Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. <br /><br />42. parallelism- a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry. Parallelism is characteristic of Asian poetry, being notably present in the Psalms, and it seems to be the controlling principle of the poetry of Walt Whitman, as in the following lines: <br /> . . . .Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to <br /> connect them. <br /> Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, <br /> Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. <br /><br />43. paraphrase- a restatement of an ideas in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form. A paraphrase is often an amplification of the original for the purpose of clarity. <br /><br />44. personification- a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics. <br /><br />45. poetic foot- a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it. The most common type of feet are as follows: <br /> iambic u / <br /> trochaic / u <br /> anapestic u u / <br /> dactylic / u u <br /> pyrrhic u u <br /> spondaic / / <br /><br />The following poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge illustrates all of these feet except the pyrrhic foot: <br /> Trochee trips from long to short. <br /> From long to long in solemn sort <br /> Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able <br /> Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable. <br /> Iambics march from short to long; <br /> With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng. <br /><br />46. pun- a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings. Puns can have serious as well as humorous uses. An example is Thomas Hood’s:" They went and told the sexton and the sexton tolled the bell.” <br /><br />47. quatrain- a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes. <br /><br />48. refrain- a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza. <br /><br />49. rhyme- close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse. For a true rhyme, the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by different consonants, such as “fan” and “ran.” <br /><br />50. rhyme royal- a seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by Chaucer and other medieval poets. <br /><br />51. rhythm- the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. The presence of rhythmic patterns lends both pleasure and heightened emotional response to the listener or reader. <br /><br />52. sarcasm- a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it. Its purpose is to injure or to hurt. <br /><br />53. satire- writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. Satire is usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly. Satire is often found in the poetry of Alexander Pope. <br /><br />54. scansion- a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line. Following are the most common types of meter: <br /> monometer one foot per line <br /> dimeter two feet per line <br /> trimeter three feet per line <br /> tetrameter four feet per line <br /> pentameter five feet per line <br /> hexameter six feet per line <br /> heptameter seven feet per line <br /> octameter eight feet per line <br /><br />Using these terms, then, a line consisting of five iambic feet is called “iambic pentameter,” while a line consisting of four anapestic feet is called “anapestic tetrameter.” <br /><br />In order to determine the meter of a poem, the lines are “scanned,” or marked to indicate stressed and unstressed syllables which are then divided into feet. The following line has been scanned: <br /><br /> u / u / u / u / u / <br /> And still she slept an az ure- lid ded sleep <br /><br />55. sestet- a six-line stanza. Most commonly, sestet refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet. <br /><br />56. simile- a directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects, usually with “like,” “as,” or “than.” It is easier to recognize a simile than a metaphor because the comparison is explicit: my love is like a fever; my love is deeper than a well. (The plural of “simile” is “similes” not “similies.”) <br /><br />57. sonnet- normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg. <br /><br />58. stanza- usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme. <br /><br />59. strategy (or rhetorical strategy)- the management of language for a specific effect. The strategy or rhetorical strategy of a poem is the planned placing of elements to achieve an effect. The rhetorical strategy of most love poems is deployed to convince the loved one to return to the speaker’s love. By appealing to the loved one’s sympathy, or by flattery, or by threat, the lover attempts to persuade the loved one to love in return. <br /><br />60. structure- the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of a work to the whole; the logical divisions of a work. The most common units of structure in a poem are the line and stanza. <br /><br />61. style- the mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author. Many elements contribute to style, and if a question calls for a discussion of style or of “stylistic techniques,” you can discuss diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, selection of detail, sound effects, and tone, using the ones that are appropriate. <br /><br />62. symbol- something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else. For example, winter, darkness, and cold are real things, but in literature they are also likely to be used as symbols of death. <br /><br />63. synecdoche- a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole. For example, we refer to “foot soldiers” for infantry and “field hands” for manual laborers who work in agriculture. <br /><br />64. syntax- the ordering of words into patterns or sentences. If a poet shifts words from the usual word order, you know you are dealing with an older style of poetry or a poet who wants to shift emphasis onto a particular word. <br /><br />65. tercet- a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme. <br /><br />66. terza rima- a three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc,etc. Dante’s Divine Comedy is written in terza rima. <br /><br />67. theme- the main thought expressed by a work. In poetry, it is the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action, and image in the work. <br /><br />68. tone- the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. (Remember that the “voice” need not be that of the poet.) Tone is described by adjectives, and the possibilities are nearly endless. Often a single adjective will be enough, and tone may change from stanza to stanza or even line to line. Tone is the result of allusion, diction, figurative language, imagery, irony, symbol, syntax, and style. <br /><br />69. understatement- the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is. For example, Macbeth, having been nearly hysterical after killing Duncan, tells Lenox, “’Twas a rough night.” <br /><br />70. villanelle- a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain. The villanelle uses only two rhymes which are repeated as follows: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa. Line 1 is repeated entirely to form lines 6, 12, and 18, and line 3 is repeated entirely to form lines 9, 15, and 19; thus, eight of the nineteen lines are refrain. Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is an example of a villanelle.Mr. Ortizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18299436362491689214noreply@blogger.com0