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Poetry

Selections & Sample Essay by Andrew Gottlieb

Writing Assignment:

Write 4 double-space pages about poems or songs.

Use any number of poems from this handout

or ones of your own choosing.

Sample essays are provided on pages 16 and 41.

(September 2019 Edition)

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Specifications

1. Each essay must be stapled in the upper left-hand corner.

Papers that are not stapled will not be accepted.

2. Each page of each essay must have typed page numbers in the upper right-hand corner.

Papers without typed page numbers in the upper right hand corner will not be

accepted.

3. Each essay must be typed. Essays that are not typed will not be accepted.

4. Font size must be 12.

5. Font style must be Times New Roman.

6. Each paragraph must be indented.

7. There must be no more than one double-space between paragraphs.

8. The name of the student, professor, course, and date must be flush left with a double-space

between each. See example on the following page.

9. Each essay must be double-spaced.

10. For citations more than one sentences, use the following specifications.

See example on page 9.

a. single-space

b. font size 10

c. left indent at 1 right indent at 5.5.

11. Quotation marks and the appropriate MLA citation for all quotes must be used. The absence

of quotation marks where needed is PLAGIARISM. See example of internal punctuation

on the following page. WARNING: Omission of quotation marks is grounds for an F for

the paper and possibly for the final grade.

12. All sources used in the essay must be cited in a “Works Cited” page and be done according to

MLA formats. See example on the page after the following page.

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Format First Page This is an example of the top of the first page of a paper.

Use double-spaces. The title must be a double-space below the date and centered.

See MLA Handbook - Seventh Edition. 4.3. Heading And Title. 116.

Internal Punctuation

Long Quotations This is an example of how to do a citation longer than one sentence.

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John Smith

Professor Abraham

English 201

May 7, 2009

Greek Tragedy

When citing a source in the text do as follows: “Oedipus in the play is a free agent” (Fagles 149).

If you provide the name of the author in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

Fagles maintains that “Oedipus in the play is a free agent” (149).

When paraphrasing do as follows: Fagles maintains that Oedipus has free will (149).

When quoting without citing a non-published source, do as follows: My father always said, “follow your heart.”

.

“In the very first year of our century Sigmund Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams offered

a famous and influential interpretation of Oedipus the King:

Oedipus Rex is what is known as a tragedy of destiny. Its tragic effect is said to lie in the contrast

between supreme will of the gods and the vain attempts of mankind to escape the evil that threatens

them. The lesson which, it is said, the deeply moved spectator should learn from the tragedy is

submission to the divine will and realization of his own impotence.

(Trans. James Strachey)

This passage is of course a landmark in the history of modern thought, and it is fascinating to observe

that this idea, which, valid or not, has had enormous influence, stems from an attempt to answer a

literary problem – why does the play have this overpowering effect on modern audiences?”

(Knox, Bernard. Sophocles – The Three Theban Plays. Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Books.

Copyright by Bernhard Knox, 1982. 132. Print.)

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Works Cited Page

This is an example of the top of the first page of a works-cited list.

Entries are in alphabetical order with second lines of each entry indented (hanging indentation).

See MLA Handbook - Seventh Edition. 131.

The Works Cited page must be on a separate page.

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. Edited by Edward Hubler.

A Signet Classic. Copyright by Edward Hubler, 1963. Print.

Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays – Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oeidipus at Colonus.

Translated By Robert Fagles. Penguin Books. Copyright by Robert Fagles, 1982, 1984. Print.

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Poems of Love

What is Love? How does it change our lives?

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La Vita Nuova Dante Alighieri (A New Life)

Dante Alighieri

1265-1321

In that book which is

My memory…

On the first page

That is the chapter when

I first met you

Appear the words…

Here begins a new life

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Light Francis William Bourdillon

1852-1921

THE NIGHT has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes, 5

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

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Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

1564-1616

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

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Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

1564-1616

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 fade

Nor 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.

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She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

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Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

1564-1616

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

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She Is Not Fair to Outward View Hartley Coleridge

1796-1849

SHE is not fair to outward view

As many maidens be;

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me.

O then I saw her eye was bright, 5

A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,

To mine they ne’er reply,

And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye: 10

Her very frowns are fairer far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

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My Funny Valentine Lyrics by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers Verse:

Verse:

Behold the way our fine feathered-friend

his virtue doth parade.

Thou knowest not my dim witted friend,

the picture Thou hast made.

Thy vacant brow and Thy tousled hair

conceal Thy good intent.

Thou noble upright, truthful, sincere

And slightly dopey gent – you are…

Refrain:

My funny valentine

Sweet comic valentine

You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable

Unphotographable

Yet your my favorite work of art

Is your Figure less than Greek?

Is your mouth a little week?

When you open it to speak

Are you smart?

But don't change your hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay little valentine stay

Each day is Valentines day

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When I Was One-and-Twenty by A. E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard a wise man say,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

But keep your fancy free.”

But I was one-and-twenty,

No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard him say again,

“The heart out of the bosom

Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

And sold for endless rue.”

And I am two-and-twenty,

And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

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Love One Another By Khalil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same

music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

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Andrew Gottlieb SAMPLE PAPER

Professor Gottlieb

English 201-(section number)

January 15, 2016

Cupid’s Arrow

We have all heard of cupid and his arrow. Once struck by the fatal dart, we are

consumed by passions that in dire instances, lead to madness and acts of desperation. Every rose

has its thorn and the moth is drawn to the flame. Thorn birds never learn. Temptation overrides

our better judgement and we continue to lower our shields to savor the fragrance of romance.

Our beloved wounds us time and time again, and still we love, and the more we love, the deeper

is the wound. Perhaps, it is our loneliness that overrides our fear. The vacuum of a loveless life

is more than we can bear and so, we who have loved and lost, throw ourselves, once again, into

the fray, trying time and again to find that perfect love. How many songs and poems have been

devoted to the “pangs of despised love” (Hamlet) is hard to say. Every generation reiterates the

same narrative. It’s the same old song with a new melody. In spite of all accounts of romantic

turmoil, poets have persisted in a tradition of idealization. Love is, after all, a transcendent,

transformative adventure. For those who have loved, life is never quite the same after.

Two poems that express love’s indelibility are Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova

(A New Life) and Francis William Bourdillon’s Light.

“In that book which is

My memory…

On the first page

That is the chapter when

I first met you

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Appear the words…

Here begins a new life” ( ).

For Dante life is a birthplace, a new beginning. The heart, like a flower, blossoms and one is

forever transformed. When love ends the reverse is true. The “light of a whole life dies,” writes

Bourdillon, “When love is done” (101). Love is thus an awakening and a sustaining force. It

uplifts us. It takes us to new and wonderful heights. But Icarus fell to his death because he flew

too high. Romeo and Juliet would have lived longer had it not been for love. The loss of love,

the end of romance is for many, a kind of death. The light is extinguished and the world grows

cold and empty. Joy is replaced by despair and life becomes meaningless.

In spite of the overwhelming risks entailed in romantic love, we tend to idealize it.

Or rather, we set a standard by which to gauge its genuineness. One of the most eloquent

expressions of this ideal is expressed in Shakespeare’s sonnet 116. Here we are told that true

love is unchangeable. We are told that for “true minds” love is eternal. It is the “star to every

wandering bark” (116). No pain, no sorrow, no power in the universe can undermine the lover’s

resolve. Even the ravages of time and old age cannot diminish love, for love “is not time’s fool,

though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.” Love is eternal and, if

this is not true, proclaims the poet, “I never writ, nor no man ever loved” (116).

By designating permanence as the touchstone by which one’s love may be gauged, he has

placed romance above the vicissitudes of passion. True love transcends the more ephemeral

emotions such as joy, anger, and fear. How many of us can claim to have lived up to such a

standard? Shakespeare’s vision is lofty indeed and could well lead many of us to conclude that

our love has been untrue or that the Immortal Bard, with all his eloquence, has narrated nothing

more than a dreamy, delightful myth. Surely, we who have loved and lost have known the pain

that is accompanied with the realization that love, however true, however passionate, may fade.

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It is said the only constant in the universe is change. For Shakespeare, or at least as he portrays

himself through sonnet 116, love is the exception. It has been said that the notion of eternal love

is rooted in the belief in reincarnation, that those who love have loved in other lives and will love

again in future incarnations. This is no doubt a most romantic idea concurrent with the notion of

soul mate, one’s other half, and a match made in heaven. These ideals are enticing but it is wise

to keep in mind that the loftier your ideals the deeper is your pain when they have been

compromised. The agony of lost love may well be exacerbated by one’s faith in its ideal form.

Poets have not only idealized the idea of love; they have idealized the object of their love

as well. By means of metaphor, poets have placed their love on a pedestal. In Sonnet 18,

Shakespeare compares his lady to “a summer’s day,” proclaiming her to be “more lovely and

more temperate” (38). Unlike nature which is forever changing, her metaphorical summer

“shall not fade.” Her beauty is as eternal as the poet’s love and even death cannot diminish it.

The power of the poet’s verse has made his beloved immortal. Rather than decay, she will

continue to blossom through the vehicle of poetry. “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee” (38).

The immortality of love is one with the immortality of the poet’s creation. Imagination

wins out against the colder truths of the material realm. As in sonnet 116, Shakespeare has

painted a beatific portrait of romance. We may be well advised to keep in mind the proclamation

of Theseus, one of Shakespeare’s characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The lunatic,

the lover, and the poet/Are of imagination all compact” (Act v. scene1). If Theseus is correct

then perhaps we should take the loftiest of the poet’s proclamations with a grain of salt and be

wary lest we fall prey to what invariable become the “pangs of despised love” (Hamlet, Act iii.

scene 1).

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Shakespeare is far from being the only poet who idealizes the object of romance. In one

of the most passionate poems of all time, She Walks in Beauty, Lord Byron likens his beloved to

“cloudless climes and starry skies.” His intensity of love is evident in every word: “…all that’s

best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes” (577). In the eyes of this lover, the lady

is the very essence of perfection. “One shade the more, one ray the less, had half impaired the

nameless grace which waves in every raven tress…” And though the poet is not psychic he can

see the purity of his lady’s thoughts written on the loveliness of her face. He seem bereft of all

doubt that her mind is “at peace with all below” and that she is possessed of a heart “whose love

is innocent.” One wonders how long this lover has known the object of his affection and how

long his vision of her perfection will endure the test of time. Idealizing the one we love is

tantalizing but dangerous, for one day, when the misty veil of romance lifts and the beatific

visions fades, the charm of Cupid’s spell is supplanted by an agonizing nightmare. It is then,

perhaps, that the Shakespearean vision of true love is put to the test.

Not all poems idealize love. There are those that evince a more sober sensibility.

In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare sees his love in the cool light of day. Her eyes are “nothing like the

sun” and “If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.” She is no goddess, angel, or sprite,

just a lady. Nonetheless, his love is true and precious. “And yet, by heaven,” concludes the

poet, “I think my love as rare/As any she belied with false compare.” In some respects, this

man’s adoration is more impressive than that of the star struck lover. There is something

touching about a love independent of dreamy adoration. Yet, at the same time, it is difficult to

imagine any woman who would enjoy being told that “her breasts are dun” (150). Flattery may

be false but it is usually preferable and likely to be more effective than the reverse. The notion

that love need not be based on beauty but simply on heartfelt affection is noble. The possibility

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of winning the heart of one’s beloved by likening her hair to black wires is remote. The poem,

nonetheless, has a certain charm and is most decidedly unique.

Another poem expressing a similar sentiment is Hartley Coleridges She Is Not Fair to

Outward View. The title speaks for itself. The poet proclaim that he never knew the loveliness

of his beloved until she smiled at him. It was then he “saw her eye was bright,/A well of love, a

spring of light. ” ( ). Sadly, the lady does not return his love. In spite of this, the lover is not

daunted and even goes so far as to say that “Her very frowns are fairer far/Than smiles of other

maidens are.” This man’s love is based neither on beauty nor on the mutuality of affection. His

is the essence of unrequited love. Those of us who have felt its sting, know that such love is

likely to be short-lived. Rejection may for a time act as passion’s catalyst, but in time erodes the

lover’s weary heart.

It is evident from more than a few poems that love is not always a thing of joy forever.

One of the most famous poems expressing this sentiment is A.E. Housman’s When I was one-

and-twenty. A wise man advises the poet to give his worldly possession away, but not his

heart. The young man naturally ignores the advice and one year later is faced with the

painful realization of the terrible price of love. “’Tis paid with sighs a plenty/And sold for

endless rue” (28). This stands in contrast to Alfred Lord Tennyson’s aphorism: “ 'Tis better to

have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all” ( ). Is love worth the pain it so often

incurs? It is up to each of us to answer the question in our own way.

Love, or rather romantic love, acts as a magnifying glass. The heart beats quickly and the

senses are heightened. We are not quite ourselves. Yet we opt for the adventure, however mad

and painful it may be to the peace and loneliness of a life without it. Is this because of a

biological impulse programmed into our DNA to insure the propagation of our species? If this

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were so, why not just stop at sex and be done with it? Why all the proclamations of love,

adoration, and devotion? Why all the longing and lamentation. Are we not more than hungry

animals seeking to fulfil our cravings? Are we not more than a belly seeking sustenance?

There is something within us that wants, that craves for something more, an elevation of mind

and spirit. We want to feel truly alive not only in our loins but in our soul. Romantic love, in

this respect, is a longing for something higher. In the normal course of life, we may tend to live

on the plain. In love we climb the mountain and so, for that exhilarating time in which reason

falls into disarray, we are most truly alive. It is, perhaps, this awareness, this sensibility, that has

throughout the centuries, fueled the engine of poetic inspiration. If, as Aristotle teaches, our

appreciation of the tragic is rooted in its cathartic effect, so too can we say that the poetization of

love in both its agony and its ecstasy, liberates us not only from whatever pain we may have

suffered but from the leaden weight of the mundane.

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Works Cited

Bourdillon, Francis William. Among the Flowers and Other Poems.

London: Marcus Ward & Co., 67, 68, Chandos Stret and Royal Ulster Works, Belfast 1878.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord. She Walks in Beauty. Major British Poets of the Romantic Period.

Edited by William Heath. Amherst College. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. New York.

Coleridge, Hartley. She Is Not Fair to Outward View.

Housman, Alfred Edward. When I was one and twenty. A Shropshire Lad. The World Publishing

Company. Cleveland and New York.

Shakespeare, William. The Sonnets. Edited by Douglas Bush and Alfred Harbage.

Penguin Books. Baltimore, Maryland. Copyright 1961 and 1970 by Penguin Books Inc.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 79-98381.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. New York: Maynard, Merrill, & Co.,

Publishers, 43, 45, & 47 East Tenth Street.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. Edited by Edward Hubler.

The Signet Classic Shakespeare. Copyright 1963 by Edward Hubler.

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Poems of Death & Life

What happens to us after we die?

How does our idea of death define us?

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“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast

thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou return.”

(Genesis 3:19. Pentateuch And Haftorahs, second edition, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, C.H.)

Do you think the author of these lines in the Bible believed in an immortal soul?

From Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

William Shakespeare

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

What is Macbeth’s view of life and death? Do you think he believes life is meaningful? Does he

believe in an immortal soul? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Dust in the Wind by Kerry Livgren (from the Group: Kansas)

I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.

All my dreams pass before my eyes in curiosity.

Dust in the wind.

All they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song.

Just a drop of water in an endless sea.

All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see.

Dust in the wind.

All we are is dust in the wind.

Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

It slips away and all your money won’t another minute buy.

Dust in the wind.

All we are is dust in the wind.

Dust in the wind.

Everything is dust in the wind.

What is Kerry Livgren’s view of life and death. Does he believe in an immortal soul?

Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Lee Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

What is Robert Lee Frost’s view of life and death. Does he believe in an immortal soul?

Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each tomorrow

Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act, - act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solenm main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait.

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How is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s view of life and death different from that of the

Macbeth, Livgren and Frost? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Death, be not proud

(Holy Sonnet 10)

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death shalt die.

How is John Donne’s view of life and death similar to or different from that of the other poets in

this handout? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Sonnet 55 By William Shakespeare

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

Compare and contrast the view of life and death in Shakespeares’ Sonnet 55 with that of the

views of the other poets in this handout. Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Sonnet 30 By William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.

Then can I drown an eye unused to flow

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

How does the poet in Sonnet 30 find consolation for the pain and sadness incurred by the death

of a loved one? Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Sonnet 12 By William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

How is Sonnet 12 different from the other sonnets in this handout?

Refer to lines in the poem to support your view.

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Lawrence Olivier playing Hamlet

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To Be, Or Not To Be Soliloquy Spoken by Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 1

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,*

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment **

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons,***

Be all my sins remember'd.

* fardels: burdens

** Pitch: height In other versions the word pith, meaning vigor, is used.

*** orisons: prayers

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To be, or not to be: that is the question:

What is the significance of this question?

How would you apply it to your life?

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

What is Hamlet asking? What is his dilemma?

To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to! 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.

What is Hamlet’s view of death as expressed in these lines?

Is it something to be feared or longed for?

To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

How is the characterization of death in these lines different

from the one in the lines just above?

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

What is Hamlet thinking of doing and why?

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Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Why, according to Hamlet, are we willing to bear our

suffering rather than end our lives? How, in the above lines

does Hamlet characterize death?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

In Hamlet’s view, what prevents us from taking action?

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Ode To A Nightingale by John Keats

1

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thy happiness,---

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

Why is Keats unhappy?

2

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been

Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, *

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Why do you think fading away means to Keats?

3

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

Why does Keats want to forget?

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4

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Clustered around by all her starry fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

To whom does Keats want to fly? What is the meaning of this flight?

5

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

What sense (sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell) is the poet using in this stanza? What senses is he

not using? How is this stanza different from the other stanzas in the poem?

6

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain,

To thy high requiem become a sod

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Why is Keats half in love with easeful Death?

Why is it now more than every rich to die?

7

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

What is the Bird?

8

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music: do I wake or sleep?

What is Keats’s “sole self?”

What does he mean when he writes that “the fancy cannot cheat so well as she is famed to do?”

Why does he call the Bird a “deceiving elf?”

Why does the poet ask if it was a “vision or a waking dream?”

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Watch two videos and write about the following question:

After reading the poem, discuss the idea that poetry is music and that the song of the Nightingale

is akin to great music and play two videos - Beethoven’s Emperor (played by Arturo Rubenstein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO4UmbcBprw, and Luciano Pavarotti singing Puccinini’s Nessun

dorma https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=nessen+dorma

What is the connection between great poetry and great music? How is Keats’s Ode to A

Nightingale similar in spirit to great music?

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Andrew Gottlieb SAMPLE PAPER

Professor Gottlieb

English 201-(section number)

April 5, 2013

Poems of a Darker Shade

Is death an end or a beginning? How we define ourselves depends in part on how we

answer this question. If it is an end and nothing more, we are a finite being devoid of an eternal

soul or spirit. If, however, death is a beginning, we are potentially an immortal, eternal soul or

spirit of potentially infinite extension. The way we see death thus determines how we see

ourselves. The focus of this paper is to explore how certain poets have defined themselves and

their humanity in relation to the question of mortality.

Before examining the poets, let’s consider a well known passage from the Bible.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for

out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust thou return.”

(Genesis 3:19. Pentateuch And Haftorahs,

second edition, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, C.H.)

This passage suggests that man is no more than the matter out of which his body is made.

In the context of these lines, man is not an eternal spirit. In the words of the singer-songwriter,

Sara Brightman, “All we are is dust in the wind.” This sentiment is reflected as well in William

Shakespeare’s Macbeth (William Shakespeare. Macbeth. Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28). In this

soliloquy Macbeth characterizes life in its most impermanent sense. It is no more than a “brief

candle” whose flame is short lived, a “walking shadow,” a thing without substance, a “poor

player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” All ends with

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death. Even memories of the deceased fade to nothing. In the end, life is “a tale told by an

idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” Life is meaningless.

Not everyone shares this dismal view of life. The opening lines of Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow’s poem, A Psalm of Life, are an offering of hope.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

Referring to Genesis 3:19, Wadsworth proclaims,

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

If we are under the impression that the biblical proclamation “for dust thou art, and unto dust

thou return” signifies the absence of eternal life, Longfellow assures us that we are wrong.

His is a brighter interpretation of the lines. It is only our body that decays and disappears.

The soul in the end prevails.

Longfellow furthermore affirms the meaning of life by offering consolation to those who

fear that they will be forgotten. Unlike Macbeth who characterization life as a “poor player that

struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more,” Longfellow affirms the power

of legacy.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sand of time;

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We are not mere dust in the wind or grains of sand that disperse and disappear. Our memory

survives us. We have the capacity to “make our lives sublime” and leave “footprints on the sand

of time.”

In some of his Sonnets, Shakespeare extols the power of memory over death. In

Sonnet 55, he writes,

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

Here the beloved will live beyond death by the power of the written word. She will live “in

this,” in this poem and dwell in the memory of the lover.

Not only may we live on in the memory of others but also in the limitless realm of

eternity. In his poem, Death be not Proud (Holy Sonnet 10), John Donne declares victory over

death.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

* * *

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death shalt die.

Death is not death, but a beginning. The end of life as we know it is an end not of life but of the

very idea of death, since upon our demise our soul is fully revealed and realized. All that dies is

death. Who could concoct a better paean to rally the soldier rushing into battle or the dissident to

face his oppressor with courage and resolve than this? If we can conquer death, we can conquer

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just about anything. And so, by deflating the power of death as he has, Donne has offered us

a most potent picture of ourselves.

There are times when the contemplation of death may leave us in doubt. This feeling has

never been expressed better than in Hamlet’s To Be or Not to Be soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 1.

Hamlet characterizes death as “The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns”

and wonders “what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.” So, even

though one may have an immortal soul, he may still be worse off dead than alive. Death may

well be an eternal nightmare. Hell rather than heaven may the permanent resting place of the

soul.

For the young British Romantic poet, John Keats, the prospect of death is a source of

consolation.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

In Ode to a Nightingale, death is characterized as an escape, a place away from the pain and

sorrow of life. The song of the bird is a promise, however fleeting, of a blissful immortality.

What conclusion, if any, can we make concerning mortality and how our vision of it

shapes our sense of self? Clearly, there is no one single way to look at death. Each of us must

find our own way to comprehend what we can never truly know. I have often wondered if death

is a realm of dreams and have fancied that the dreams we have while alive are what we can

expect to experience in our next life. Perhaps, life is a dress rehearsal for another phase of

existence. Sigmund Freud referred to the part of us that dreams as the unconscious, a part of self

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that is akin to a deep well from which we can draw joy as well as despair. Much as we may try,

we can never gain a thorough understanding of our inner being. We are in this respect strangers

to ourselves. If death then is a realm of dreams, then Hamlet’s characterization of it as an

undiscovered country is most apt. In the end, no one can give us a definitive understanding of

the big unknown. The role of poets has never been to provide unequivocal answers but to give

voice to our feelings. Death is a region upon which we can only speculate. In this regard, we

can only guess who and what we truly are. Our true identity in the end remains a mystery. It is

only our preference for consolation or the resolution to face life without it that, in the end,

determines the picture of reality we choose to adopt.

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Works Cited

Genesis 3:19. Pentateuch And Haftorahs, second edition, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, C.H.

Major British Poets of the Romantic Period. Edited By William Heath. Macmillan Co., Inc.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Old World Series. Portland Maine. Thomas B. Mosher.