Okay ladies, good morning from Palestine, Gaza,
the Islamic University of Gaza. We continue our
English poetry course at the Islamic University
English department. Next week is the midterms, so
let's do some kind of review, but before we do
that, I want to go again, just very quickly
preview the two poems we discussed last time.
Remember, when you approach a poem, you have to do
it strategically and systematically. You could use
whatever approach, whatever system,
whatever approach, whatever you like. But at the
end of the day, you need to give me some kind of
comprehensive reading of the poem. I personally
like to start with the little things, so I can
build a case, build a pattern out of this, the
things that the poets give us. There's always this
question of authorial intention, whether the
author intended something or not. We don't care
about this. because the poem, language, poetry,
literature, they're bigger than us. They're more
pervasive than us, than even the writers. And
there's this theory that suggests that once the
author, once somebody publishes a text, it no
longer becomes his or hers, because this person,
this author, writer, turns into a reader. So don't
try to seek what the author originally intended.
So sometimes we deal with a poem and try to see
what we get from this. And because this is
sometimes with different approaches. For example,
the reader response theories would suggest that
there are as many meanings or interpretations to a
text as there are readers. This is good. I always
encourage you to give me your opinion to see how
things are said or done. But in order to make
balance, we try to look at the text itself. And
this is the most significant thing to me. This is
how I like to do things. This is how I like to
appreciate. literature, studying the structures,
studying the forms, studying the language, the
word order, which could be called the close
reading approach where you try to see the beauty
of how words can do magic, how changing the word
order, how changing replacing one word with
another can create a fascinating metaphor or
particular sound pattern or anything like we
studied many, many, many times. That's why I know
some of you would hate it when I just say, why is
this stressed? Why isn't this stressed? Why is
there a perfect rhyme, not a perfect rhyme? In my
thinking, this is a more beautiful approach. It
helps you to appreciate language and literature.
It helps you dive deeper and deeper into language
itself. Because I believe that themes are, like
there are a handful of themes out there.
Romanticism, mainly it's about what? Anti
-authoritarian, anti-establishment, nature,
poetry. Isn't that it? Childhood, right? Right?
Innocence. Countryside. Impact of nature on us. So
if you study a hundred poems for William
Wordsworth, and at the end of the day, all you
look for is nature, nature, nature, nature, isn't
that repetitive and boring? But look at how he
does different things sometimes to get to the same
theme, the same objective. And I mentioned this
last time, if poets believe that it's all about
the theme, they could have stopped writing poetry
centuries ago. Because why would I write a new
poem since there is another love poem that exists
already? Why wouldn't I borrow the poem? And
that's it, that's fine. Everybody is different.
Everybody is amazing in his or her different way.
And I quoted somebody who told a critic, I have so
many ideas, I want to write poetry. Because we
think, we do this sometimes, wow, I'm reading
these books, you know, listening to these speeches
or talks or TEDx or whatever, and then like, you
feel that you're inspired because you have so many
ideas.
And then the man said, poetry, my friend, is made
with words, not with ideas. And I connected this
with even Coleridge's definition of poetry, that
poetry is the best of words in the best order. So
there is always this deliberate conscious attempt
to choose, doesn't mean like the best, the most
beautiful, the biggest, the most difficult, the
word that is suitable for its context. For
example, with John Donne, remember before John
Donne, during John Donne, the classical and
Augustan poets, they were speaking about the lofty
subject matter and the lofty elevated highly
sophisticated diction. This has to be balanced.
Now when John Donne wrote differently, used
different language, different conversational tone
and everything, he was accused in many books, if
you open the books you will see them describing
John Donne's language as vulgar. And I don't think
John Donne's language is vulgar. It's just that
people were not used to using this language in
this particular way. It doesn't make it, it
doesn't mean it's not poetic, doesn't mean it's
the wrong, but for them it's the wrong language
because when you talk about God, how would you
talk about God and say like what he did, for
example, batter my heart three person God, ravish
me and these phrases and giving orders to God or
death be not proud. You see, he spit in my face,
Jews, with one of the sonnets. This is vulgar for
so many, but for Jonathan, this is the most
suitable language. This is the best of words.
Unlike Trump, of course, who has the best words,
who claims to have the best words. So when you
look at this poem, we try to make sense of the
form, of the shape. We say this is a short poem of
four stanzas. We count the lines, so try to see is
he creating a perfect structure or not. And then
in poetry, we always have this. So one, two,
three, four, five, six, right? Six lines, six
lines, six lines, six lines. We examine the rhyme
scheme and we realize that stanza one, stanza two,
and stanza four have perfect rhyme schemes. The
same regular perfect rhyme scheme except for
stanza number. Number three, here we take a note
because there could be something. If there is any
imperfection or a stanza that has or a line that
has an extra syllable or two extra syllables is
usually something the poet is trying to draw our
attention to. Like he's telling us, slow down
here, I'm sending you a message. Of course, people
who don't study poetry will not pay attention to
these things. That's why it makes you special,
makes you different. That's why I always say this,
those who study English literature and English
poetry become the best translators and the best
writers and the best journalists because you
understand these tiny differences where people
never pay attention and you just Wait a minute,
some time ago a student came to me and said, I met
a student from another university and I discussed
with her, we spoke about poetry, she's studying
poetry, I'm studying poetry, and she was amazed at
how we do things and how beautifully different we
are. And I hope this is going to make a huge
impact on you. So like I remember we said the
themes of example we understand that this is a
romantic text, we understand if even if we don't
know in the final exam you will have an unseen
extract from a poem you didn't study. unless you
really read a lot of poetry and you come across.
And it's your job to try to tell whether this is
probably romantic or metaphysical or 20th century
or war poetry or Shakespeare from the sensibility,
the features, the form, you know? So if you study
this poem, this is a pure nature poem, right? Is
he saying at the end of the day, for example, and
these daffodils look like your cheeks when you eat
pizza? He's not using this whole scene just as
some kind of decoration to make a point to etc.
He's writing this for nature, inspired by nature,
to nature. And we've seen at the end how he
submitted himself totally to nature. Okay.
Now, we paid attention to little things that I
consider to be huge, like a poet could not but be
gay, and the ending line where we have a stress on
a word that normally shouldn't be stressed, and we
connected this with the theme of the poem. If you
would read it with, and dances with the daffodils.
and dances with the daffodils in this stressed
way, indicating the emphasis of this word being
the key issue in the whole, being the theme of the
poem. This is about withness melting in nature,
adopting, I don't know if adopting is the right
word, but submitting yourself to nature, allowing
yourself to be controlled and overwhelmed by
nature, not the other way, the other way around.
Now, and then I spoke a little bit about this.
Fascinating poem. Remember the first thing that we
look, it's a short poem and then we count the
lines, 14 sentences. Some of you might be
surprised because, wait a minute, didn't some of
you say the best definition for poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions
recollected in tranquility? Probably it still is.
And now, when we realize that this is a sonnet,
and then we examine it and we understand that this
is a Petrarchan Italian sonnet with a A, B, B, A,
A, B, B, A, C, D, C, D, C, D rhyme scheme. If you
count the syllables and you realize that they're
all 10 syllables, five feet each, except maybe
this one. Unless, remember we said, and all bright
and glittering in the smokeless air. If you, I'm
not sure if the original manuscript, if it just
removes the, you know, sometimes the apostrophe
instead of one syllable here, the apostrophe, the
schwa. So if you could still say, all bright and
glittering in the smokeless air, if he meant it
this way. It means that 10 syllables, five feet
each. I think this, remember the sonnet, the most
rigid form of poetry, the most highly structured.
Don't tell me people write, even Shakespeare, with
all due respect. Don't tell me Shakespeare
doesn't, you know, you just hear he's inspired, he
writes the sonnet and just, that's it. Should be
he pushes a little bit here, he removes here,
replaces here, something. And even here, look at
this for example. Remember silent, it should be
silent and bare. Intentionally removing the and.
The sun intentionally removing the. And look at
here, he is saying near, but not near here or
here. Why? Because he wants this to be. So this
goes against the spontaneity that he calls for. Is
spontaneity a myth?
Is spontaneity a myth? I mean, like even the title
here, what does the title say? It says, composed
upon Westminster Bridge. I don't think he wrote it
on the bridge. But he was inspired there. Or
maybe, I wanted to post a meme the other night.
I'll probably do it today with, you know sometimes
how on social media, when you reply to people
like, ha ha ha, or the smiley faces, but in real
life you're like, Yeah, so probably this man is at
home, even with, and my heart with the, with, with
pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils. I'm
saddened that probably he's like at home, like,
okay. But so this could be, this could apply here.
He's, he's at home asleep, hungry, thinking of
something in vacant or impulsive mood. And then he
remembered this experience on the bridge early in
the morning and then, wow. actually denies that,
because the word recollected means that it's being
studied, it's being thought of, and it's being
organized. So maybe the spontaneous overflow of
feelings is when he actually looked at it. Then he
recollected it, and studied it, and organized it.
Recollected, okay, if you take recollected as
such, possible. But recollected doesn't
necessarily, doesn't only mean this. The first
thing that comes to mind is recalled. Remembered.
He could have said, and I would be studying it.
I'm not denying this. There's no such, I know like
great poets always do this. That's why free verse
sometimes, you know, poetry, blank verse,
sometimes you could write something and you never
touch it and it's the perfect text. If you want to
write a sonnet, you sometimes take the hammer and
do some, you know, hammering here or there in
order to just make it smooth or not. to indicate
something. Okay. Let me first discuss the meaning
of poetry. Like, this word's definition was my
least favorite because I did not really believe in
all the spontaneous overflow of thoughts and
feelings. But at the same time, I remember, like,
I tried to compare this with Arabic. And I
remember in Arabic, we have something, I do not
remember the term, but like when poets used to
stand in front of each other and start, like,
mocking each other and satirizing, But many people
still do this. Yes, but they write the poetry on
the spot and it is spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings and it is very highly
structured. So I think that in Arabic it's like a
more like, I don't know, maybe because it's an
older language and it's more structured than
English. English is more of a modern language, so
I don't think that it does apply on these. That's
also possible if you are a poet. I'm sure some of
you started writing more and more poetry recently.
And that's why it's the best thing to understand
poetry is to write it. Try to write a sonnet. Give
it a try. Tell yourself, okay, next inspiration,
next revelation, I'm writing a sonnet. I'm sure
it's not going to be easy, but it's not going to
be impossible at the same time. If you write it,
you'll end up, and we're not native speakers,
we're not Shakespeare, we're not Wordsworth. There
is a possibility that he just wrote it and he did
nothing. Many people feel this, that the music is
there, there is harmony, and some people would
say, no, there is no harmony. Like when you, it's
just try to read the poem for yourself aloud. If
you look at Shakespeare's sonnets, they mostly
flow. You know? They mostly flow. Try to sing it
alone. They mostly flow. John Donne, for example,
they don't usually flow. Because with John Donne,
he, you know, plays with the meter a lot. Not just
like, for example, with, we said, shall I compare
thee to a summer's day that were more lovely and
more temperate? Rough winds do shake the darling
buds of May, and summer's lease all have too short
a date. Like, it flows. But with John Donne,
sometimes you have to slow, even with the
romantics, despite the simplicity of structure,
sometimes it doesn't flow as it used to be because
they have more freedom nowadays. They have this
intention to break the rules. So I'm not saying
that it doesn't totally, but again, it attracts
our attention. So why are you choosing, that's the
question I'm raising. Why are you using the form
of a sonnet? Could this be connected with the fact
that he is in London? You know, the sunnah being,
sorry to use this term, being repressive, in a way
it doesn't allow you to say everything, it
controls you. And London controlling everybody's
life, even the tiny little, you know, like things
you do. There are so many rules, there are so many
regulations in London, and that's why he chose
this perfect form. The sonnet to mirror this kind
of relationship between man and poetry and man and
the city and man and London. Okay? And at the same
time, you could also be surprised by the fact that
this man is praising London. The meme I posted the
other day, the last night, about this man saying,
you know, my heart with pleasure fills and dances
with the daffodils. The daffodils are everything.
I love them. They're the most perfect thing I have
ever seen. And then he is saying, the city now
does like a garment, wear the beauty of the
morning, silent, bare, aside, so touching in its
majesty. Why on earth is this man praising the
city? We said romantic literature, this is a core
feature of romanticism. It's in its essence, an
anti-city portrait.
A kind of poetry that hates the city, that
considers the city to be the source of corruption,
the source of depersonalization, the source of
fragmentation, whatever you call it. So go back,
that's why a return to nature is a major romantic
feature. Let's go back to nature, to mother
nature. And by the way, the name romantic At that
time, they didn't call themselves the romantic
poets or romanticism. Later critics did this. And
the term at that time, the term romantic was used
to refer to medieval times. To medieval times, a
time when there was less, there was basically no
industrial revolution, no factories, no steam
engine, no engines, no pollution, at least
compared to that time. Pollution, corruption,
people were basically, of course, man was never
good. But compared to these times, it was a lot
better off in the past. And this, I guess, why he
jumps over Shakespeare and picks a form that is
also as old as this, you know, the medieval times.
at times described as, I don't know, like when man
was not in control of nature like he was
destroying nature at that time. And this also
could be connected with the fact that he's using
these words, doth. If he said does, it's the same
thing. It's going to be the same thing meter-wise,
rhythm-wise. But he opts for city Dath. And then
the same thing with the river Glydiff. It's
glides, if you add this, it takes an extra
syllable here. Glydiff. So river Glydiff. He goes
back. I'm sure some of you are familiar with
William Blake's London. When he expresses his
anger that everything is chartered, everything is
in chains, in manacles. Man is controlling and
regulating everything, there's no freedom,
everything, even whatever is suffocating, being
polluted and being controlled. So he's again
jumping to the past, and that's why again the
beauty of how to understand this, and these are
the kind of questions I want to ask you in the
exam. Why is he using doth instead of does? Why
does he use the Middle English form of the word
glides? using gliders. Is that significant?
Remember we said in a way also poetry, if it is
the best of words in the best order, this is a
process of taking choices, making choices, what
word to choose, what word not to choose. If you
are a beginner, it begins as artificial. You try
to make the best impact.
But when you are a professional like Wordsworth,
things naturally flow, of course, and will be more
spontaneous compared to others. So we realize at
the end that this is a poem written in London from
a particular place, the bridge. There's a distance
between him and the people, and probably the
London Bridge here wasn't as high as We can
imagine, but still it's in a high position. And
even the timing here, at dawn, sunrise, the
beauty, even here he's saying the beauty of the
morning. Silent and bare, everything is silent and
bare. So we realize that he's not praising London
as London as such, he's actually praising London a
people-less London. No people, there's no
reference, there's no mention of people. Even when
they use the word asleep, it doesn't refer to
people. The very houses, and very here is for
emphasis. The houses themselves are asleep.
There's a personification here. How peaceful this
is.
Therefore, that's why I would take lie as a pun.
To lie, to sit, or to to sleep. He's lying. Let
sleeping dogs lie. Or not tell the truth. So this
silent, beautiful, majestic scenery is a lie.
Because in a minute, in five minutes, in ten
minutes, in thirty minutes, it's all going to be
again smoke and smog and noise and shouting and
street vendors and these things and then there's
no peace, there's no quiet, there's no calm any
longer. But what I find disturbing is the last
line Dear God, the very houses seem asleep. This
is not real because seem asleep, even asleep, it's
just a short time. And here it's a garment,
something that you wear and you can shed, you take
off, you change.
And all the might and all that mighty heart, not
sure exactly what he means by the mighty heart. Is
it the machine? The heart? The heart of England?
The city itself? The city, the idea of the city?
The factories? The heart of the beast? The
machines? Yeah, the heart of the beast. But he's
like dazzled by the fact that the heart is lying
still. Another personification. If somebody's
heart is lying still, this person is dead.
Again, if somebody's heart is still, if it doesn't
beat, this person is still, is dead. But he's not
saying, he's saying, wow, the heart is still.
People are metaphorically dead and life is good.
I'm sure he's not calling for genocide, but still
beautiful. It's very, very, very beautiful.
Because all the time we talk about, for example, a
place in Gaza saying, this is the heart of Gaza.
And then you say, it's calm, it's silent, there's
no.
I wanted to say that a thought came to my mind.
He's praising it when it's dawn, so it is asleep
because it was night. And night is not something
that people have control over. So it's in a way or
another also a part of nature.
So he's maybe praising how powerful nature is that
it even silenced the beast. London, it's subdued
London, possible also. So again, and again,
remember what I said, always try to, when you read
novels and short stories, especially short stories
and poems, you need to understand where the poet,
the speaker is at the time the poem is being
written. So understanding that this is on London,
upon London Bridge, Early in the morning gives
this a different flavor. He's not praising the
city. He's praising it when it is asleep. So it's
praising it when it's in a state of nature, when
no signs of modern life are available. So it's
perhaps calling for the city to return as it was a
couple of hundred years ago before the
manufacturing, the factories became dominant.
That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, I agree.
Is this a sonnet?
Fourteen lines, Petrarchan, the octave, the
sextet, it is a sonnet But he changed, like John
Donne, he changed. Remember we said there are,
many of you probably didn't see this. There are so
many similarities between the metaphysicals and
the romantics. John Donne changed that this is a
sonnet. The sonnet, the class, John Donne freed
the sonnet. He broke the chains around the sonnet
and everybody else started to take the sonnet the
way they liked. So thank you, John Donne.
But remember the imperfect rhyme here. This could
also be part of the fact that this is still, even
the word majesty is not majestic, it's not
perfect. It's not, you know, perfect, it's not
complete. So there's still this tension that this
imperfect rhyme creates, the tension that creates
a conflict that could tell us that this is all
just a sham. It's just temporary. It's not going
to live forever. This is not, but with nature,
it's all the time. That's why I say, for oft when
on my couch I lie, the present simple, every time
I lie. But here, it's not the same, different. So
yeah, I agree, he's not present. There's a whole
genre of poetry called city poetry. You could do
some research on this in the future. City poetry,
how poets tackle the city different ways. And the
most fascinating thing about this is when you
compare between outsiders, like Wordsworth, he
wasn't a Londoner, he was an outsider, and William
Blake, who was a Londoner, who lived in London.
In London, if I can recall, he said, I wandered
through each street or something like this. He was
in the streets, chartered streets, exactly. In the
streets, feeling and sensing the pain, the woes,
the cries, the babies, the harlots, the soldiers,
the blood, feeling it and touching it and sensing
it. But this man, he is himself. He's just up
above. He goes to London and sees beauty. Many
people will be revolted by this. Come on. At the
time London like there was a lot of pain, a lot of
suffering, hunger and diseases and people were
dying. This is one reason why the younger
generation of the romantics hated, in many ways,
to some extent, hated Wajwath, accusing him of
being an escapist, instead of coming face to face
with
The problems, the trouble, the pain, the suffering
is just running away. Some people call them tree
-huggers, just making fun of them. Tree-huggers,
they just want to hug trees and then all their
pains just go away. Are you poor? Just come see
these daffodils and you'll be fine. Do you have
exams? You want to cope with that, the stress?
Come to nature. This could help. I'm not being
condescending here. This could help. And people
who would, I would defend words worth saying that
this is a revolution in poetry. Because
politically speaking, the British government was
really shaking because there was a rebellion, a
revolution in America, a revolution in France, and
they were like, oh my God, oh my God. By the way,
you could read there are so many later
declassified reports because the English
intelligence was spying on Wordsworth and
Coleridge because they thought that those people
were planning a revolution. And they were, but not
like the revolution, the political revolution.
They were doing a revolution in poetry, in
language, in thinking and in sensibility, which is
fascinating in itself, which paved the way. And
when you compare this to Chile, Chile is a,
Cherrier, right? He was a man of actions. He
wanted to topple the government. You are many,
they are few.
Read, what's that? The Anarchy. There was a
massacre in Manchester and read the Ode to the
West Wind and even the Ozymandias. Mocking
authority. You know? Which one? Yeah, I too, but
some people, again, for this, again, the thing
that makes you love Shelley, many people say, hmm,
he's too political. I don't like poetry to be too
political. So there's always somebody who would
hate something about your writing or somebody's
writing. Yeah, yeah, right. Byron, you should, you
should read something for Byron. Byron was
deliberately attacking, openly attacking, even
naming coleridge and Wordsworth in his poetry, not
just alluding to them, calling them, making fun of
them. Okay, if you have questions here, just say
something very briefly and we'll just do the
review for the whole course. say that I think what
happens between Blake and Wordsworth is the same
thing that's happening here in Gaza like some
people show you some good pictures and some
fascinating pictures of Gaza and you look at them
you say like okay this is Paris okay so okay let
me get this straight well let's agree on this
Wordsworth is Instagram of Gaza and William Blake
is Twitter of Gaza okay so with Instagram's like
it's always beautiful it's always cheesy and you
know Really? The funny thing is that when we see
those people who give that flowery image, we call
them romantics in Arabic. Yes, exactly. We say
that they are... Don't romanticize pain, don't
romanticize occupation, don't romanticize
suffering. Right? We do this. The thing is that
both of them or these both sides or both parties
want to serve their own good. Their own? Yes,
their own good. Okay. And maybe like Wordsworth,
when he wrote his poetry, he wanted to serve his
own part of the book, the narrative palace that
they wrote. And for maybe like- Being self
-expression. He doesn't care about the society, he
just cares about himself. Exactly. That's a huge
thing to say. I'm not going to get into this
because there's a lot of things to unravel here.
Okay? So anything you want to say about
Wordsworth? Okay, so do you have questions for the
course exams anything quickly before we see last
year's midterm exam?
What do you think?
I tend usually not to take sides, so I raise
issues, raise questions for you to think and to
adopt whatever opinion you like. I don't want to
put you in a corner and tell you this is what you
need to do, although you know teachers sometimes
shouldn't be believed.
So yeah, out did the sparkling waves in Glee.
Continuous? No, it's continuous as the stars that
shine. That's the only one that has an extra
syllable, yeah?
In these cases, remember, it's either one
syllable, one vowel sound is not pronounced as we
pronounce it these days, or there is, again, a
deliberate attempt to tell us that something is
more, extra, something doesn't conform with the
rules here. So this continuous, because he's
reaching to the stars, that's a possibility.
Possible, yeah. Like with glittering here.
possible but I again I'm honest with you I could
say the same thing about each line any line okay
more questions about the course do you have
questions any poem any text any poet any idea
Okay, we have a question here from Noha. Excuse
me? Could you just please? Yeah. The question that
we raised like minutes ago when we said like about
spontaneous overthrow, I think this corresponds
with our controversial question of is a poet made
or born? Thank you very much. That's very, very
significant, important. I think of this all the
time. Are poets born or made?
Are you just born a poet? And you realize at one
point that, oh, I'm a poet. I can write poetry.
Or do you have to study to learn, to go to
university, to attend classes? Of course,
everybody is going to say both. But what is it? Is
it more of this or more of that? Yeah, please. I
think that some people are born with a talent, and
if they get more skillful with studying, their
coach will be the best. Some people can learn
writing poetry through skill, but they won't be as
good as the talent. It's more patience than having
talent. If you have the patience to read more, to
develop yourself, you'll do great things. Is it
like patience or attitude? Like, you know, I
always quote Monica Geller, you are a poet and you
know it. So this is an attitude. Like, I think I
can be a poet. I think I can be a poet. In Arabic,
in our culture, there is an Arab poet called
Nabigha. I'm not sure which one of them. There are
three Nabighas. Nabigha Al Jaadi or something. No,
I got this totally wrong. Somebody called, a man
who kept writing poetry for like 40 years and it
was all, it sucks all. and then at one point he
became a poet all of a sudden and then he said
لازال يهدي حتى
قال شعران he kept writing trash until all of a
sudden he started writing poetry so yeah practice
patience practice patience but significantly an
attitude Look at the fascinating concrete poems
you wrote, all you need is just a push, there's a
bonus mark if you write this and all of a sudden
you all turn into poets, right? So you could add
this to the list, patience, attitude, passion,
practice and marks or linen, yeah? Sorry?
Thank you very much. Good writers are originally
good readers and good readers should eventually
evolve and that's why I thank you for saying
patience because it takes patience. It takes and
sometimes all it takes is a good friend just you
know to keep poking you and pushing you giving you
feedback sometimes and that's why you have this
beautiful friendship between William Wordsworth
and Coleridge. Please. reminded me of a movie
about Mozart, the musician. I forgot the name of
the movie, but it was about how during his time,
there was another person who kept working and
producing music, making music for a very long time
and teaching in schools and he reached a high
place in court. But then all of a sudden Mozart
came and he was way younger and way more
inexperienced. And he was a genius. He was a
prodigy. I mean like to be a poet or like an
artist in any way, yes you have like if you work
hard you will become, you will become eventually
yeah okay like you will not be as great as someone
who was born with a talent and this also reminds
me like of Shakespeare, he said that he only went
to a grammar school But basically, also for this,
many hated Shakespeare. They hated him for the
fact that, because at a time, so just to make this
brief, it depends on what school answers the
question. For the romantics,
I think it's somewhere Wordsworth says, a poet is
an ordinary person endowed with or bestowed with
extraordinary and extraordinary sensibility or
comprehensive of something. So it's an ordinary
man with this inspiration, some kind of, you know.
Now for the neoclassicists, you have to learn the
rules. And you have to follow them, the rules of
decorum, you have to be well read in Latin, in
Greek, in ancient literatures, so you can, you
know what's going on and you know what to do in
your poetry. And always people who learn, who work
hard to get to become readers, writers, good
writers and good poets, they will not be happy
with naturals. And the same thing is again, if you
talk about football, Messi and Ronaldo, many
people say Messi is a natural. He's a talent. But
Ronaldo worked very, very, very, very hard to be
the world footballer he is now.
Okay, more, more questions. More questions. I want
to conclude something that both of us, if you take
this way or take this way, you will succeed at the
end. This is the point. Exactly. That's why I say
everybody is a poet. There is a poet asleep
inside. Keep feeding him or her pizza and you will
have a lot of poetry at the end of the day.
Because if you don't, again, if you think that, I
know someone who said, I will never ever be able
to drive a car. It would be tough. So this
attitude is significant. like how I believe that
some people are born really clever, and some
people work really hard at school. So we would
find the clever person would study on the exam
night, and he would get a full mark, while the
other would be studying the whole semester to get
that full mark. So some people are natural. Some
people work hard, and both deserve respect. And
another thing, speaking about rhyme schemes and
the meter, I don't know if you were the one who
said it, or I read it somewhere, but it says that
a poet has the music in his head, so he basically
doesn't even have to think of the meter. Some
poets just have the music, they write it based on
how they read the poem. Again, this is a question
I'm not interested in whether He worked to tweak
the poem for the rhyme scheme, or it just
naturally came this way. What I care about is that
we have it this way now. And you can, by the way,
if you are interested in this, you will find so
many poets writing the manuscripts. You'll find
first draft, and second draft, and third draft of
the same poem. And I know many people who are
interested, who do a lot of research on this. Like
with Tamim al-Barghouti, for example, you will
find that the poem sometimes he recites here or
there. He would add a couple of lines here. He
would change a word there. He would change
something there. So people try to compare early
editions with late editions and why the change is
taking place. And is this related to how somebody
wants to work to improve the poem you know see the
point like when you change the rhyme scheme or
something is this you improving the poem does it
change it doesn't make it better does it but again
we don't we when i never said that this is a good
poem and this is a bad poem yeah because there are
millions of poems in English literature and we're
studying only like 30 of them so naturally we pick
And that's also bad in a way because we choose the
canonical texts, the canonical writers and
sometimes other writers remain ignored. Something
else.
Something else. Something else. Please. I think
yeah.
Some people believe that modernism started with
William Blake or with the lyrical ballads or the
preface to the lyrical ballads. I do believe and I
have evidence for this that Our friend Joan Dunn
is the pioneer in modernism. It was him who
started this whole movement of changing the way,
not only just the way, everything about pottery.
The sensibility, the themes, the forms, the
structures, the rules. The man toppled everything,
brought pottery down to earth, to us, to the
masses. Pottery is for all, for the 99%, not for
the one person, the elite.
Please. Doctor, we studied the schools and jump
from schools to another school. Do the poets or
where they know each other as one school, follow?
Sometimes, yes. There is this small circle. Poets,
not every poet liked others. And many things
written about this. There's a book called,
beautiful book called Poets on Poets. What poets
said about other poets. And there's Harold Bloom,
who just passed two weeks ago, wrote this book
about the anxiety of influence. Like poets, all
poets influence each other. That's why
intertextuality is everywhere. Sometimes even when
you don't want to be influenced, you get
influenced. It creates this anxiety.
So sometimes, yes, they did know each other. They
would, like the romantics, Wordsworth and
Coleridge were best friends. Shelley, Byron, and
Keats, and what's that other guy? Shelly Byron
Keats and Shelley and even Mary Shelley, like they
were friends, they would meet regularly and even
with Frankenstein, the novel, it came as a kind of
context, a challenge, let's write something.
So yeah, more or less.
We're talking about a time when women were not
believed to be as intellectual as men were. when
women were not considered to be poets. Like, you
could write prose, you could write your own
diaries, but you can't write poetry because you're
not a man, you're not, like this was still
implanted in the mentalities of women. Her text is
really beautiful. In many ways, it's very vivid,
it's very, this entry. But John, sorry, what
erases her altogether, he kicks her out of his
poem. She's no longer there. Some people would
accuse him of being anti-feminist. Again, imagine
yourself, if it was a dead body they saw, he's not
going to go to the police and say, hey, I saw a
dead body, I was wondering. He would say, my
sister saw a dead body and I was there. Imagine
yourself finding a treasure or winning the
lottery, you and your brother scratching something
and then he goes to your mom and says, mom, I won
the lottery or mom, I found this treasure or
something. It would be, it is frustrating. Again,
some people say, sorry? Yeah, possible. It's just
selfishness. He felt that he is more superior than
her. So why bring her in the text? Why, you know?
Some people would say, because he loves nature
more. And again, I'm trying to imagine this
scenario where, again, she's complaining to her
mom, saying, Mom, he even looked, had a peek at my
own diaries, and he got inspired by this, because
we don't know what inspired him. Was it this? No,
it's nothing against you, Dorothy. It's just I
love the daffodils more. That's even worse, yeah?
That's even worse. But again, many believe that
this is just an issue of solitude that is a core
romantic issue. The issue of solitude and
imagination and individuality requires head out of
the text. If you want to study, to take this as an
anti-feminist, it's up to you. I don't, I wouldn't
say no. But if you want to trace whether he is
anti-feminist or not, you need to look at other
texts, what he does with them. Okay, one more
before we see last year's questions.
Please. Who also used that reform of the UN The
romantics and people later on. With the romantics
and the modernist movement, 20th century.
Yeah, yeah. He's a metaphysical.
Okay, last year's exam had two main questions.
Will be in a way similar to this year's exam. You
will be asked to comment, to write three or two
paragraphs to contextualize. I am not going to
give you the extract from the poem and just leave
it open to you. I want to give you the topic
sentence, the issue. Like this question with
Shakespeare, uses the rigid form of the sonnet to
control the uncontrollable. Look at this. And I'm
giving you this, focus on this. At least 80, 70%
of your answer will be focused on the text given.
This is significant to me. Okay? So you could say,
for example, this, the lines given is the couplet
of Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee to Summer's
Day. This couplet rhymes perfectly and each has
ten syllables, five fields. This reflects the
rigidity, the strict structure that The sonnet
follows. See their organization or something. Now,
in these lines, Shakespeare is saying, I'm going
to live forever. Because previously in the lines
above, he was kind of complaining that life is not
good to him or to anyone. Because every fear from
fear sometimes declines. And he wants to control
this. to control his own destiny, to take things
in his own hands by writing poetry. So life that
is being uncontrollable is being controlled in a
couple of lines by Shakespeare here. It's being
squeezed into a space of ten syllables, two lines,
perfect rhyme scheme. This could indicate
Shakespeare's attempt to seek immortality. This is
controlling his own destiny, his own life. He
determined what will happen to him, not life. That
destroys the darling buds of man. Did he succeed?
Definitely. He's bigger than life now Shakespeare.
And you can't ask Harold Bloom about that. If you
look here, though you make up to kill me lead not
to that self murder added B and sacrilege three
sins in killing three. What is a metaphysical
conceit and how does Don use it in this, in his
argument? Again, with special focus on this. A
flea is you need to define a flea. This is a tired
question. You have many definitions that you need
to know. The rhyme, the rhyme, the alliteration,
the personification, the apostrophe, the conceit,
the metaphor, the simile. What other definitions?
Concrete personification, concrete poetry, the
sonnet.
This is an extract from a poem we're not studying
this term. Look at the type of question here.
Comment on the irregularities. That's the focus.
That's your keyword. That's your topic sentence.
Irregularities in the following stanza and relate
them to the theme. Tiger, tiger burning bright in
the forests of the night. What mortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symmetry? Bright night.
Perfect. Eye symmetry.
The first three lines have seven syllables each,
but this one has an extra syllable. But look at
the irony. This is similar to harmoniously in
George Herbert. Harmoniously was the word that
broke the harmony of the poem. The same thing
here, could frame thy fearful symmetry. The word
symmetry, which means symmetry and order and
concrete. It's not symmetrical itself. Again, this
creates tension, like, oh, is this the tiger?
Whatever it stands for, whatever it symbolizes, is
this an imperfect creation? Is this about the
industrial revolution, nature? And then there were
multiple choice questions. You know the stressed,
the unstressed, stressed. So in the exam I used
this because I couldn't find this symbol. In
dance, Anne dances with the daffodils. Which of
the following meter scans emphasizes the theme of
unity with nature? The one with when it says with
Is stressed like this and unstressed Dance it's
the main verb stressed says anything you add to
the verb unstressed Articles determiners
Functional words you call them in linguistics
unstressed so The only part that emphasizes this
unity with nature is where we say with right? So
and dances with the daffodils and dances with the
daffodils Number
one is the opposite stressed unstressed stressed
unstressed stressed unstressed And number two,
which syllable is this? One, two, three, four,
stress, syllable number four. One, two, three,
four, stressed. One, two, three, four, not
stressed. One, two, three, four, stressed. One,
two, three, four, stressed. So we exclude this and
we try to make sense of this. It turns out to be
which one?
Yeah.
It's and.
The lion says and dances with the daffodil. It's
D. and done unstressed stressed says with
unstressed stressed the the unstressed stressed
who deals according to virginia wolf
Unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed,
unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed,
unstressed, stressed,
unstressed, unstressed, unstressed, unstressed,
unstressed,
unstressed, unstressed, unstressed, unstressed,
unstressed, Empowers women, presents women as
dependent on men, perplexes the minds of women,
presents women as silent, meek and submissive The
fact that the sick rose could have various
interpretations indicates Blake's belief in
The individual over the collective, the collective
over the individual, anti-romantic philosophy that
states duty to control public thought.
It is. In a poet could not but be gay, words were
shifts from I to a poet because he was referring
to his sister Dorothy trying to avoid naming his
semester three
afraid
people will say he is gay he doesn't want to come
out of the closet criticizing neoclassical poets
Sorry? What's that?
I don't
think he meant his sister.
Both believe that a poem's
content or theme should create its form or
structure Shakespeare and Don, the neoclassicists
and the romantics, the romantics and the
metaphysicals, Don and Malo Don
and the romantics The repetition of the same or
similar sounds in two or more words, usually in
the ending syllables of lines in poems and songs.
What's the key word in the question? ending ending
rhyme
The literary device in Wyatt's sonnet, Fainting I
Follow I Leave Off Therefore, is in the opening
couplet of The Bait, John Donne subverts
mainstream artistic traditions by employing parody
alternating rhyme apostrophe meter variations.
The official institution of poetry attacked John
Donne and rejected his poetry. In literature, this
phenomenon is described as feminism,
intertextuality, literary movement or framing.
At least in these cases, if you're not sure, try
to eliminate one or two answers and try just to
think about them. To condemn Zionist alien rule
over Jerusalem in his masterpiece, Fil Quds in
Jerusalem, Tamim el-Bargouti invokes old Arabic
traditions of gallantry and chivalry in the second
stanza, openly calls for armed struggle, begins
with a classical form, poetry form, and shifts to
a loose form, shifts from a loose poetic form to a
classical one. and that's it good
question please stressed
that
no with oh no i'm talking about with that is not
stressed okay any question if you want to stay
behind for questions please do thank you very much
and see you in two weeks do your best for the
exams