UIL Capital Conference 2012 Literary Criticism Explicating Poetry The Solitary Reaper Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again? Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending; I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more. William Wordsworth 1807 1
Luke Havergal Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal, There where the vines cling crimson on the wall, And in the twilight wait for what will come. The leaves will whisper there of her, and some, Like flying words, will strike you as they fall; But go, and if you listen she will call. Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal Luke Havergal. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies To rift the fiery night that's in your eyes; But there, where western glooms are gathering, The dark will end the dark, if anything: God slays Himself with every leaf that flies, And hell is more than half of paradise. No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies In eastern skies. Out of a grave I come to tell you this, Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss That flames upon your forehead with a glow That blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes, there is yet one way to where she is, Bitter, but one that faith may never miss. Out of a grave I come to tell you this To tell you this. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal, There are the crimson leaves upon the wall. Go, for the winds are tearing them away, Nor think to riddle the dead words they say, Nor any more to feel them as they fall; But go, and if you trust her she will call. There is the western gate, Luke Havergal Luke Havergal. Edwin Arlington Robinson 1897 swollen with snowmelt rivers rise like raging beasts hungry for the sea John M. Forsberg 2010 Mariner Man his wife's garden: certainly he has moved every plant twice Francine Porad 1986 long commuter ride a stranger discusses his incontinence Francine Porad 1998 2
"What are you staring at, mariner man, Wrinkled as sea-sand and old as the sea?" "Those trains will run over their tails, if they can, Snorting and sporting like porpoises! Flee The burly, the whirlygig wheels of the train, As round as the world and as large again, Running half the way over to Babylon, down Through the fields of clover to gay Troy town A-puffing their smoke as grey as the curl On my forehead as wrinkled as sands of the sea! But what can that matter to you, my girl? (And what can that matter to me?)" Edith Sitwell 1918 Taken Up Tired of earth, they dwindled on their hill, Watching and waiting in the moonlight until The aspens' leaves quite suddenly grew still, No longer quaking as the disc descended, That glowing wheel of lights whose coming ended All waiting and watching. When it landed The ones within it one by one came forth, Stalking out awkwardly upon the earth, And those who watched them were confirmed in faith: Mysterious voyagers from outer space, Attenuated, golden shreds of lace Spun into seeds of the sunflower's spinning face Light was their speech, spanning mind to mind: We come here not believing what we find Can it be your desire to leave behind The earth, which even those called angels bless, Exchanging amplitude for emptiness? And in a single voice they answered Yes, Discord of human melodies all blent To the unearthly harmony of their assent. Come then, the Strangers said, and those who were taken, went. Charles Martin 1978 3
Sonnet LXI: Since There's No Help Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part, Nay, I have done, you get no more of me, And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes, Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. Lady Lost Michael Drayton 1619 This morning, flew up the lane A timid lady bird to our birdbath And eyed her image dolefully as death; This afternoon, knocked on our windowpane To be let in from the rain. And when I caught her eye She looked aside, but at the clapping thunder And sight of the whole earth blazing up like tinder, Looked in on us again most miserably, Indeed as if she would cry. So I will go out into the park and say, "Who has lost a delicate brown-eyed lady In the West End section? Or has anybody Injured some fine woman in some dark way Last night or yesterday? "Let the owner come and claim possession, No questions will be asked. But stroke her gently With loving words and she will evidently Resume her full soft-haired white-breasted fashion And her right home and her right passion." John Crowe Ransom 1927 4
Sine Qua Non Your absence, father, is nothing. It is naught The factor by which nothing will multiply, The gap of a dropped stitch, the needle's eye Weeping its black thread. It is the spot Blindly spreading behind the looking glass. It is the startled silences that come When the refrigerator stops its hum, And crickets pause to let the winter pass. Your absence, father, is nothing for it is Omega's long last O, memory s elision, The fraction of impossible division, The element I move through, emptiness, The void stars hang in, the interstice of lace, The zero that still holds the sum in its place. A. E. Stallings 2002 Home is so Sad Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, Shaped to the comfort of the last to go As if to win them back. Instead, bereft Of anyone to please, it withers so, Having no heart to put aside the theft And turn again to what it started as, A joyous shot at how things ought to be, Long fallen wide. You can see how it was: Look at the pictures and the cutlery. The music in the piano stool. That vase. Philip Larkin 1964 You Can Take a Horse to the Water, but You Cannot Make Him Drink Towards the running stream the sporting gal May urge her equine quadruped to go, But down its alimentary canal What human skill can force the H 2 O? Joyce Johnson 5
alliteration allusion analogue anaphora / parallelism anastrophe / hyperbaton / inversion (while anastrophe and hyperbaton are the same, inversion is a bit different) apostrophe assonance chiasmus connotation consonance couplet denotation elegy elision enjambment / run-on line (while a run-on line is a form of enjambment, the Handbook treats the run-on line as primarily an occurrence within a stanza and enjambment as an occurrence between two stanzas) eye rhyme feminine ending feminine rhyme haiku / senryu (they are different and not always seventeen syllables) heteromerous rhyme/ mosaic rhyme iambic pentameter (etc.) idiom imagery inversion masculine ending metaphor metonymy meter mood numbers / lay octave onomatopoeia oxymoron paradox ploce prosthesis quatrain rebus redende name / nominal symbolism rhyme scheme senryu / haiku (they are different and not always seventeen syllables) synecdoche sestet sigmatism simile sonnet symbol synaesthesia tercet terza rima theme tone volta 6