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

Size: px

Start display at page:

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

Ashlynn Horn
5 years ago
Views:

1 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 dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I. At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware. Thomas Hardy 1

2 from Don Juan Canto I Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, A great opinion of her own good qualities; Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, And such, indeed, she was in her moralities; But then she had a devil of a spirit, And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities, And let few opportunities escape Of getting her liege lord into a scrape. This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might 'brain them with their lady's fan;' And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. 'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed With persons of no sort of education, Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, Grow tired of scientific conversation: I don't choose to say much upon this head, I'm a plain man, and in a single station, But Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all? George Gordon, Lord Byron Sonnet 116 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. William Shakespeare 2

3 On the Sonnet If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness, Let us find, if we must be constrain'd, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of Poesy: Let us inspect the Lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd By ear industrious, and attention meet; Misers of sound and syllable, no less Than Midas of his coinage, let us be Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown; So, if we may not let the Muse be free, She will be bound with garlands of her own. John Keats 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. He Made This Screen not of silver nor of coral, but of weatherbeaten laurel. Here, he introduced a sea uniform like tapestry; here, a fig-tree; there, a face; there, a dragon circling space designating here, a bower; there, a pointed passion-flower. Wilfred Owen Marianne Moore 3

4 The Olive Tree The dour thing in olive trees is that their trunks are stooped like never dying crones, and they camp where roads climb, and drink with dust and stones. The pleasant thing is how in the heat their plumage brushes the sight with a bird's-wing feeling: and perhaps the gold of their oil is mild with dreams of healing. The cold thing is how they were there at the star of us; and one grey look surveyed the builder imaging the sky, the historian with his spade. The warm thing is that they are first promise of the South to waking travelers: of the peacock sea, and the islands and their bolder-limbered spurs. Bernard Spencer I wandered lonely as a cloud I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee; A poet could not be but gay, In such a jocund company! I gazed and gazed but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. William Wordsworth 4

5 To Daffodils Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain d his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having pray d together, we Will go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay, As you, or anything. We die As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer s rain; Or as the pearls of morning s dew, Ne er to be found again. Robert Herric 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 5 senryu long commuter ride a stranger discusses his incontinence Francine Porad

I wandered lonely as a Cloud. That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,

I wandered lonely as a Cloud. That floats on high o'er vales and Hills, I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o'er vales and Hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden Daffodils; Beside the Lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.