RVP, Week Four

Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemesWordsworth

Technique: Rhyme scheme

• Like any other element of a poem, can be read as a deliberate choice about how to organize information

• Deviation and extreme regularity can, alike, be read

Possibilities: rhyme schemes

• A: sets out a thought or ideathenA: idea returns—consistencyor B: new idea—alternating

• This can continue for as long as stanza allows

A ContrastPope, Essay on

ManKnow then thyself, presume not God to scan

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,

A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:

With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,

With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,

Shakespeare, “Sonnet XVIII”

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

———A simple Child,That lightly draws its breath,And feels its life in every limb,What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:She was eight years old, she said;Her hair was thick with many a curlThat clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,And she was wildly clad:Her eyes were fair, and very fair;—Her beauty made me glad.…

“But they are dead; those two are dead!Their spirits are in heaven!”’Twas throwing words away; for stillThe little Maid would have her will,And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

Techniques so far and exercise

• Close-reading techniques• polyvalence and the OED• basic scansion/rhythm

• Unusual sentence structure• Repetition• Occasion

• implied addressee• ideal recipient

Towards context I: Isolation

“…as might seemOf vagrant dwellers in the household woods,Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fireThe Hermit sits alone.” (“Tintern,” 19-22)

• WHERE ELSE?

Towards context II: City, House,

CountrySo he took me thro’ a stable, and thro’ a church, and down into the church vault, at the end of which was a mill. Thro’ the mill we went, and came to a cave. Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as a nether sky appear’d beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees, and hung over this immensity.

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,It hath not been my use to prayWith moving lips or bended knees;But silently, by slow degrees,My spirit I to Love compose,In humble trust mine eye-lids close,With reverential resignationNo wish conceived, no thought exprest,Only a sense of supplication;A sense o'er all my soul imprestThat I am weak, yet not unblest,Since in me, round me, every whereEternal strength and Wisdom are.

--Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10 These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses.

What might we say about “setting?”

PERFORMANCE

• Oral presence• Are speeches hard, or even impossible, to say out loud?• Do the speeches arrange speech in particular ways? • Is there a rhythm to the words, or some other oral

ordering?

• Embodiment• Does the poem intend that any particular sort of person

say the poem?• Does the poem describe a speaker, and if so that

speaker’s body?

“Tintern Abbey” out loud

• What is the rhythm of the poem, noticed in oral presentation?

• Where is it regular, where is it not?• Where does this amplify the poem’s

meanings; where might it challenge them