Robinson response

Hello Romanticists,

First, excellent work in class on Thursday.  On the topic of sonnets, the "smashing" sonnet (Claude McKay's "The Lynching") can be found here.  Sonnets that comment on the conventions of sonnets themselves include Shakespeare's sonnet 130, Billy Collins' "Sonnet", and our own dear Mr. Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not".

Second, please read the assigned Mary Robinson poems for Tuesday and post your response below. 

Happy reading,
Prof. M.


P.S.: Speaking to her social status (or aspirations thereto), the following portrait of Robinson was painted by the premier English portraitist of fashionable eighteenth-century society, Thomas Gainsborough.

Essay Guide

Hello Romanticists,

As we discussed in Thursday's class, please follow the guidelines below for your first essay. 

All best,
Prof. M.

Analytical Essays

Thesis

A thesis statement articulates the main point of your essay and should generally be one sentence located at the end of your first paragraph.  The entirety of your essay will develop this single point.  A thesis makes a specific, arguable, and important claim. 

Specific:  A good thesis statement is specific enough to be fully supported within the given

scope of your essay.  One way to add specificity is to narrow your topic, and to do this you must attend to your nouns.  Ex:  “In his poem ‘The Tyger,’ William Blake demonstrates that industrialism degrades civilization rather than elevates it.”  This is a good start, but surely the author is not thinking about all aspects of industrialism.  Swap such abstractions for specific examples or precise definitions.  Ex:  “In his poem ‘The Tyger,’ William Blake demonstrates that the dehumanizing process of mechanized labor de-civilizes workers by degrading them to the level of beasts.”

Arguable: A good thesis statement is arguable, which is to say it makes a claim that a reasonable person might disagree with.  A thesis is therefore not a fact about the text, which means not a summary of its content (“Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet examines the lives of star-crossed lovers.”), nor a statement of its themes (“James Joyce’s Ulysses explores the tension between cultural determinism and individual will”).  As above, these statements offer good starting points, but once you have identified a specific topic, you need to assert something about that topic.  This is where verbs come in.  The above thesis statements have no verbs other than “examines” and “explores,” which convey nothing particular.  By contrast, “de-civilizes” in the Blake thesis articulates precisely what industrial labor does to workers.

Important:  A good thesis says something about the text that the reader will care about.  Ex:  “Milton uses enjambment to forcefully juxtapose the light and dark imagery.”  This is a suggestive observation, but what is at stake?  Does the light/dark juxtaposition tell us something larger, more generally applicable?  Are light and dark linked to moral or aesthetic values?  Is Milton suggesting something about sharp contrast or uncertainty or ambivalence?

Evidence

Every claim you make must be supported by evidence that you will collect via close reading.  To “close read” means to examine a small section of text, attending to its various levels of composition.  Key to close reading is starting with the smallest and most basic components of a poem before larger and more abstract ones.  Below is a list of poetic components and some questions to guide your investigations.

1.      Sound and shape.  Determine meter and rhyme scheme.  Where do these patterns vary (slant rhymes, metric substitutions)?  How many stanzas are there?  How many lines per stanza?  Can you identify the poem as belonging to a discrete genre (sonnet, ballad, etc.)?

2.      Words and Phrases.  Is the vocabulary informal or elevated?  Are there any unusual or archaic words?  Words with double meanings or hidden connotations?  Where is the syntax unusual or confusing?  Which words or phrases repeat?  What parts of speech are used?  For example, is the author piling up adjectives or avoiding action verbs?

3.      Figurative Language and Rhetorical Devices.  Do you see metaphor or synecdoche or personification?  What does using non-literal description allow the author to do?  Do you see anaphora or epistrophe; hyperbole, meiosis, or litotes?  What effects do these compositional structures have?

4.      description.  What kind of imagery is presented?  Are there sensory details offered?  Do objects or people being described seem to carry symbolic weight?

5.      Speaker.  Whose point of view you are receiving?  Is the speaker a particular individual or an abstract voice?  Is the poet overtly distancing herself from the speaker, or connecting herself to the speaker?  Does the speaker address the reader?

6.      Theme and Argument.  What is the object or concept the poem examines and what does the poet say about it?  Does the poem present an argument or opinion?  Is it a meditation without a clear conclusion?  Does it narrate a series of events?  Does it aim to arouse certain emotions?  Look for tension, climax, contrast, ambiguity.

As you read, consider how these various observations relate to each other.   Broadly, what is the relation between form and content?  Look at the rhyme, meter, enjambment, caesuras: how does the sound of the language relate to its meaning?  Does the form allow you to read quickly or does it delay your comprehension?  Does the form emphasize certain words?  Do all the parts of the poem (lines, stanzas) flow together or do they seem fragmented?

Once you have collected your textual observations, explain them clearly to your reader.  In particular, show your reader the chain or thought that led you from a passage to your interpretation of it.  It is not enough simply to jam a quotation up against your claim.  Ex:

In the line “that‘s as good/As if thou [God] hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood,” Donne lowers god to the humble level of common mortal life.

In order to make the analytical work clear, the writer needs to explain which specific elements of the quotation support the point, and how they do so:

The eye-rhyme of “…that‘s as good/As if thou [God] hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood,” associates the utterly prosaic word “good” with the truly miraculous concept of God’s blood, conflating god with the mundane terminology of everyday speech.

Things to Avoid

o   Filler.  Cut out meaningless words such as “indeed,” “quite,” “rather.”  Cut out modifiers that are not vital.  Cut out observations or quotations that do not directly relate to your thesis.  The more you streamline your essay, the more precise and elegant it will be.

o   Meandering and dilution.  State your argument at the beginning of your essay and your main point at the beginning of each paragraph.  Do not stumble upon your claims at the end of a long wander.  State your argument with conviction; do not dilute it by with “Perhaps…” or “It’s as if…”

o   Ready-made language.  Clichés, idioms, common metaphors: these are so dull and imprecise that they obscure rather than convey meaning.

o   Passive voice.  Passive voice obscures the subject.  Ex: “Simon Lee is considered an outsider.”  Who exactly thinks this? 

o   Imprecise terms.  Any literary voice is a speaker; only a voice recounting a series of events is a narrator.  A poem with blocks of lines separated by blank spaces has stanzas (Italian for “rooms”); a poem whose sections are divided by indentation only has verse paragraphs (ex: “Crossing the Alps”).

Wordsworth reading response

Hello Romanticists,

After spending some time with Wordsworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, we turn our attentions to each poet individually.  The coming week we will devote to Wordsworth, and in our poems for Monday I've tried to include representative works from several periods of his writing.  "There was a boy" (484) and "Crossing the Alps" (565) come from the long, meditative, autobiographical work The Prelude (though "Boy" was first published as a stand-alone piece in LB).  "Strange fits of passion" (487) and "Three years she grew" (488) belong to what are known as the "Lucy poems," a series of short lyrics about a mysterious beloved.  Finally, "Daffodils" (558), "The Solitary Reaper" (560), and "Stepping Westward" (559) are examples of "encounter poems," in which the speaker is somehow altered after a meaningful encounter with a person or thing.

As ever, choose one poem that moves you and post your response by Monday noon.

To connect our discussion of laboring poets from Thursday and our Wordsworthian discussion, please enjoy the following solitary reaper:

Or, to be proper about it, Jules Breton's The Song of the Lark.

Happy reading and reaping,

Prof. M.

The "Real Language of Men"?: readings for Thursday, Feb 19

Hello Romanticists,

On Thursday we will be discussing poems written by laborers, and its publication and reception among the middle class.  There are two components to the readings.  First, have a look at the book Attempts in Verse, available here: Southey.  This is a collection of poems by a servant named John Jones, with an introductory essay by the poet laureate Robert Southey.  I'd like you to read sections of Southey's essay on uneducated poets (pp. 1-15, 163-167); you may also want to read his section on Ann Yearsley (pp. 125-134).  In addition, please look at the format of the book, its appearance, the extra-textual information it offers, etc.

Second, we'll be reading three poems by laborers, document available here: Thom, Yearsley, anonymous.  NB: departing the syllabus slightly, I've substituted Ann Yearsley for Ebenezer Elliott.  You will note that two of the three poems are written in dialect, Thom's poem is in Scots (some even contend that Scots constitutes its own language) and the anonymous poem is in the Lancashire dialect.  This will present challenges.  Intentionally.  Do the best you can to de-cypher the words you do not know.

Finally, keep in mind the famous proposition in the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads, that the poems therein would speak "the real language of men" (506) and that "[l]ow and rustic life was generally chosen [as subject matter] because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language..." (507).  How is this different from Southey's sense of the value of the language and poetry of laborers?  How does it compare to the language used and life depicted in the actual works of such "low" poets?

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

Ancient Mariner reading response

Dear Romanticists,

Thanks for your thoughtful posts on Smith’s poetry this week!  Elegiac Sonnets might initially strike a reader as monotonously miserable, but you all point out that there are various layers or degrees to Smith’s representation of suffering.  Elisheva notes that the intensity of pain ranges from mild to full-blown trauma, and Avigail traces an evolution from struggle to resignation.  Moreover, the act of “musing” on or articulating her suffering provides Smith with a degree of comfort (as Julie notes) and perhaps even enjoyment (to use Rachel’s term).

Our main text for Tuesday, Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, differs greatly from Smith’s elegies in both form and content.  Unlike the tight structure and meditative tone of Smith’s work, Rime is a long, supernatural narrative told in loose meter and stanzas of varying size.  And yet, there are points of convergence.  Like Smith’s speaker, the mariner finds a certain relief in representing his sufferings.  There is also a degree of mystery to each tale of woe: though drawing from her own experiences, Smith’s sonnets never pin down the source of her suffering.  In Coleridge’s poem, we witness exactly what happens to our unfortunate mariner, but why it happens and what it means are by no means clear.

Post your responses below by Monday noon.  And, should you have time, you may wish to check out the famous illustrations of the poem by the nineteenth-century artist Gustave Doré (link is in the sidebar).

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

The game is done!

Charlotte Smith reading response

Dear Romanticists,

Please post your response to one of the Smith poems here by leaving a comment.  Posts are due by noon on Monday (Feb 9).

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

Syllabus

Prof. Sarah Minsloff                                                                          

sarah.minsloff@touro.edu                                                                                   

                                                                       

Romantic Poetry

Lander College for Women; T, R 2-3:15

The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry.  –Percy Shelley, Defence of Poetry

Class Text:

Romanticism: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu, 4th edition

Requirements and Evaluation

Course grades are based on: attendance and class participation (25%), two essays (20% and 25%), a midterm (15%), and a final exam (15%).

Attendance and class participation: This is a discussion-oriented course in which your observations, analyses, and productive questions will determine much of the course content.  Your regular and timely attendance is therefore essential, as is your willingness to share your thoughts in discussion.  If you miss more than one class your grade will suffer.  If you are uncomfortable speaking in class, let me know and we can develop strategies for quelling anxiety.  Laptops tend to get in the way of discussion; their use in class is strongly discouraged.

Class participation includes weekly reading responses.  Each week, choose one of the poems we will be discussing on Tuesday and write a 1-2 paragraph analysis on what you find most interesting.  Responses can be informal and should be based on careful close readings of the text.  Often these responses become starting points for essays.  Responses are due to blackboard by noon on Monday. 

Essays:  Each essay will be an argument-driven analysis of one or two of the poems we have read.  The first essay, 4-5 pages, will focus on one of the first-generation poets; the second will be 6-7 pages and focus on one of the second-generation poets.  Essays must be typed in a common 12-point font, double-spaced, paginated, stapled, and labeled with your name and the date.  Papers will be penalized for each day they are late.

Calendar

Jan 27:  Course introduction

Jan 29:  Defining Romanticism

Feb 3: William Blake: Introduction (174-180), Songs of Innocence (186-197).  See illustrations at

www.blakearchive.org

Feb 5: Blake: Songs of Experience (197-212)

Feb 10: Charlotte Smith: Introduction (81-87); Elegiac Stanzas: sonnets V, XI, XII, XXXI; Beachy

Head: lines 1-49 and 167-389.

Feb 12: Introduction to Lyrical Ballads (333-338).  William Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads (esp.

506-510, 514-515), Simon Lee, Anecdote for Fathers, We are Seven, The Thorn, The Idiot

Boy

Feb 17: Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, excerpt from Ch. 14 of Biographia Literaria (712-714).  Wordsworth: Note to Ancient Mariner (520)

Feb 19: “The real language of men”?: poetry of the people

Robert Southey: Introduction to The Lives and Works of Uneducated Poets (handout).  William Thom: The Mitherless Bairn (handout).  Ebenezer Elliott: from Corn Law Rhymes (handout).  Anonymous: The Oldham Weaver (handout).

Feb 24:  Wordsworth: Introduction (420-426), There was a boy, Crossing the Alps, Strange fits of passion, Three years she grew, Daffodils, The Solitary Reaper, Stepping Westward

Feb 26: Wordsworth: sonnets (545-549), Surprised by Joy, Elegiac Stanzas

March 3: Mary Robinson: Introduction (250-253), A London Summer Morning, Ode Inscribed

to the Infant Son of S. T. Coleridge, Mrs. Robinson to the Poet Coleridge, The Savage of Aveyron

March 10: Coleridge: Introduction (611-618), The Nightingale, The Eolian Harp*, This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison (633-637)*, Frost at Midnight*.  Wordsworth: Tintern Abbey
*Where the anthology prints two versions of a poem, we will discuss the later version (printed on the odd pages).

March 12: Coleridge: Of the Fragment of ‘Kubla Khan’ (639-640), Kubla Khan, Christabel,

The Pains of Sleep.  Essay 1 due at the beginning of class.

March 17: Romantic Melancholy: Smith: Sonnet XXXV, Sonnet XXXVI.  Wordsworth: Intimations Ode.  Coleridge: Dejection: An Ode. Robinson: The Snow-Drop

March 19: Midterm

March 24: Lord Byron: Introduction (862-871); Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 3, stanzas 1-7 (878-

880) and 111-118 (910-912); On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year

March 26: Byron: Don Juan, Canto 1

March 31: Byron: Don Juan, Canto 2; So we’ll go no more a-roving

Spring Break

April 14: Felicia Hemans: Introduction, The Switzer’s Wife, Joan of Arc, Juana, Costanza, Grave of a

Poetess, Homes of England, The Land of Dreams

April 16: Percy Shelley: Introduction (1070-1080), To Wordsworth, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,

Mont Blanc, Ozymandias, England in 1819

April 21: Shelley: A Defence of Poetry, Stanzas Written in Dejection, To a Skylark, Lift not the

Painted Veil

April 23: Shelley: On Love, Music, when soft voices die, When passion’s trance is overpast, With a Guitar, to Jane.  Hemans: Porperzia Rossi, Indian Woman’s Death Song.

April 28: John Clare: Introduction (1271-1272), June, The Flitting, I am, Silent Love, O could I be,

First Love (handout), The Skylark (handout)

April 30: John Keats: Introduction (1384-1396), On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, The

“Pleasure Thermometer” from Endymion 1.777-842 (1401-1403), Letter to his brothers (1404-1405), Letter to Reynolds (1406), Ode to Psyche

May 5: Keats: Ode on Melancholy, Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (1458), La Belle Dame

sans Merci, Bright Star

May 7: Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode on Indolence, Ode on a Grecian Urn

May 12: Shelley and Keats Odes. Shelley: Ode to the West Wind.  Keats: Ode to a Nightingale,            

To Autumn

May 14: Conclusion.  Essay 2 due at the beginning of class.

Final exam date and time TBA

Illustration is a detail from Newman & Co., engravers, Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire.  West Front. (c.1809).