Literary Criticism. Explicating Poetry. UIL Capital Conference

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1 Literary Criticism UIL Capital Conference 2017 Explicating Poetry Sonnet 65 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O, none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright. William Shakespeare The Flower-Fed Buffaloes The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring In the days of long ago, Ranged where the locomotives sing And the prairie flowers lie low: The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass Is swept away by the wheat, Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by In the spring that still is sweet. But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring Left us, long ago. They gore no more, they bellow no more, They trundle around the hills no more: With the Blackfeet, lying low, With the Pawnees, lying low, Lying low. Vachel Lindsay 1

2 Auspex My heart, I cannot still it, Nest that had song-birds in it; And when the last shall go, The dreary days to fill it, Instead of lark or linnet, Shall whirl dead leaves and snow. Had they been swallows only, Without the passion stronger That skyward longs and sings, Woe s me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer The impatience of their wings! A moment, sweet delusion, Like birds the brown leaves hover; But it will not be long Before their wild confusion Fall wavering down to cover The poet and his song. James Russell Lowe Metrical Feet Trochee trips from long to short; From long to long in solemn sort Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able Ever to come up with Dactyl's trisyllable. Iambics march from short to long. With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng. One syllable long, with one short at each side, Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer. If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise, And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies; Tender warmth at his heart, with these meters to show it, With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet May crown him with fame, and must win him the love Of his father on earth and his father above. My dear, dear child! Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 2

3 Holy Sonnet VI This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race, Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My span's last inch, my minute's latest point; And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space; But my'ever-waking part shall see that face Whose fear already shakes my every joint. Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight, And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell, So fall my sins, that all may have their right, To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell. Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil, For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil. John Donne The Hangman at Home What does the hangman think about When he goes home at night from work? When he sits down with his wife and Children for a cup of coffee and a Plate of ham and eggs, do they ask Him if it was a good day's work And everything went well or do they Stay off some topics and talk about The weather, base ball, politics And the comic strips in the papers And the movies? Do they look at his Hands when he reaches for the coffee Or the ham and eggs? If the little Ones say, Daddy, play horse, here's A rope does he answer like a joke: I seen enough rope for today? Or does his face light up like a Bonfire of joy and does he say: It's a good and dandy world we live In. And if a white face moon looks In through a window where a baby girl Sleeps and the moon gleams mix with Baby ears and baby hair the hangman How does he act then? It must be easy For him. Anything is easy for a hangman, I guess. Carl Sandburg 3

4 My Papa's Waltz The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother s countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. Theodore Roethke Lost Love His eyes are quickened so with grief, He can watch a grass or leaf Every instant grow; he can Clearly through a flint wall see, Or watch the startled spirit flee From the throat of a dead man. Across two counties he can hear And catch your words before you speak. The woodlouse or the maggot's weak Clamour rings in his sad ear, And noise so slight it would surpass Credence--drinking sound of grass, Worm talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth; The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake (Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin); Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, Without relief seeking lost love. Robert Graves 4

5 London, 1802 Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. William Wordsworth haiku Water reflects sky Summer of my soul open Under the spell still Raymond A. Foss senryu long commuter ride a stranger discusses his incontinence Francine Porad The Voice Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, Standing as when I drew near to the town Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then, Even to the original air-blue gown! Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness Travelling across the wet mead to me here, You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness, Heard no more again far or near? Thus I; faltering forward, Leaves around me falling, Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward, And the woman calling. Thomas Hardy 5

6 A Route of Evanescence A Route of Evanescence, With a revolving Wheel A Resonance of Emerald A Rush of Cochineal And every Blossom on the Bush Adjusts it's tumbled Head The Mail from Tunis probably, An easy Morning s Ride Emily Dickinson Arms and the Boy Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads, Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads, Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death. For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple. There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple; And God will grow no talons at his heels, Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls. Wilfred Owen Non-exhaustive Listing of Literary Concepts Addressed during This Explication Session alliteration allusion ambiguity anaphora anthropomorphism apostrophe assonance asyndeton conceit connotations consonance couplet denotation diction elision (syncope) enjambment envelope stanza euphemism heteromerous (mosaic) rhyme imagery inversion litotes metaphor metrical feet anapest dactyl iamb pyrrhic spondee trochee metonymy onomatopoeia paradox personification polysyndeton quatrain rhetorical question rhyme scheme feminine rhyme masculine rhyme true rhyme rhythm (metrical pattern) simile sonnet caudate curtal Miltonic Petrarchan (Italian) Shakespearean (English) Spenserian sigmatism synæsthesia synecdoche volta 6

UIL. Student Activities Conference. Literary Criticism. "We murder to dissect"

UIL. Student Activities Conference. Literary Criticism. We murder to dissect UIL Student Activities Conference Literary Criticism "We murder to dissect" Explicating Poetry for the Contest The Darkling Thrush I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's