I mentioned in class that I would post a reading/assignment/test schedule to Blackboard. It's up now. Once you have finished the selections from Yeats, you'll want to get started on Dubliners as soon as you can.
This week I would like to talk about Yeats's image/perception of himself as he ages, his feelings about Ireland as it does the same, and how he views the role of the poet, and the importance of art, in the Ireland of the future.
Remember what we discussed on Friday about gyres and cyclical journeys (including Nietzsche's idea of "eternal recurrence"). The later Yeats is a man who is aware that he is aging (you might want to look up "Steinach operation" to see the lengths Yeats went to in order to keep/restore his virility) but is also continually questioning his past and his future. He believes in reincarnation as well, and this is not something to be glossed over. Furthermore, as a very "public man" (as he refers to himself in "Among School Children"), Yeats believes that his life and his art, indeed the work of all artists, constitutes the soul of a nation.
Any comments that address these concerns directly or indirectly (or that don't address them at all, if you'd rather talk about something else) will be welcome.
Saturday 31 January 2009
Monday 26 January 2009
"Terrible Beauty"
The Easter 1916 rising was the result of a chain of events, but in a nutshell, it occured largely because the English refused to give Home Rule to Ireland. A bill had been passed in the House of Commons in 1912, giving Ireland home rule, but the House of Lords refused to ratify it. This actually happened twice, and then the bill was shelved when WWI began.
The uprising, passionate as it was, was futile in some ways. Home Rule was not given (or taken), and many who were involved lost theie lives, both in the fighting and in subsequent executions. But it was also because of the executions that the Easter Rising became a symbolic event, an important rallying point, for the Irish liberation movement. Republicans won the majority of the seats in the next parlimentary election, and Ireland declared independence in 1919, resulting in the Irish War of Independence.
Yeats, we should note, was uninterested in the onset of WWI. It didn't hit close enough to home. But when the Easter rising broke out soon after, Yeats was "changed, changed utterly." He knew the men that marched on the General Post Office, some of whom he mentions in "Easter 1916": MacDonagh and MacBride, Connolly and Pearse. Yeats did not necessarily agree with what these men did. "Was it needless death after all?" he asks in the poem (Yeats, incidentally, almost never answers the questions he asks. The poets role is to ask them.) He also writes that "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart" - a line that nationalists like Maud Gonne did not like because they believed one could not sacrifice too much. But whether or not Yeats agreed with the actions of these men, the experience changed him a great deal. He began to see people in a new way (th
e poem, in fact, is largely about this altered perception of people). For example, Yeats disliked Maud Gonne's husband, Major John MacBride, "A drunken, vanglorious lout" as the poem has it. But MacBride, too, is numbered in Yeats's song, "changed" along with the others.
We will talk about this poem, and these events, in greater detail, but what I would like for you to do now is focus on the birth of "terrible beauty" in this poem and others. Yeats's earlier work is beautiful, certainly, but it is not "terrible." As we discussed in class today, there is much in these middle-period poems that talks about the price that life exacts, whether in love, or art, or politics. That price became very real to Yeats in 1916. I would like to have a discussion about the awareness of "terrible beauty" that is evident in these poems.
I would also like to talk about the idea of passion, or rather the act of being passionate, in these poems. In particular, look at "The Fisherman," "The Wilde Swans at Coole," "September 1913," and "Ego Dominus Tuus." Talk about passion.
I would like for everyone to respond to one of these ideas before class on Wednesday.
-D
The uprising, passionate as it was, was futile in some ways. Home Rule was not given (or taken), and many who were involved lost theie lives, both in the fighting and in subsequent executions. But it was also because of the executions that the Easter Rising became a symbolic event, an important rallying point, for the Irish liberation movement. Republicans won the majority of the seats in the next parlimentary election, and Ireland declared independence in 1919, resulting in the Irish War of Independence.
Yeats, we should note, was uninterested in the onset of WWI. It didn't hit close enough to home. But when the Easter rising broke out soon after, Yeats was "changed, changed utterly." He knew the men that marched on the General Post Office, some of whom he mentions in "Easter 1916": MacDonagh and MacBride, Connolly and Pearse. Yeats did not necessarily agree with what these men did. "Was it needless death after all?" he asks in the poem (Yeats, incidentally, almost never answers the questions he asks. The poets role is to ask them.) He also writes that "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart" - a line that nationalists like Maud Gonne did not like because they believed one could not sacrifice too much. But whether or not Yeats agreed with the actions of these men, the experience changed him a great deal. He began to see people in a new way (th
e poem, in fact, is largely about this altered perception of people). For example, Yeats disliked Maud Gonne's husband, Major John MacBride, "A drunken, vanglorious lout" as the poem has it. But MacBride, too, is numbered in Yeats's song, "changed" along with the others.We will talk about this poem, and these events, in greater detail, but what I would like for you to do now is focus on the birth of "terrible beauty" in this poem and others. Yeats's earlier work is beautiful, certainly, but it is not "terrible." As we discussed in class today, there is much in these middle-period poems that talks about the price that life exacts, whether in love, or art, or politics. That price became very real to Yeats in 1916. I would like to have a discussion about the awareness of "terrible beauty" that is evident in these poems.
I would also like to talk about the idea of passion, or rather the act of being passionate, in these poems. In particular, look at "The Fisherman," "The Wilde Swans at Coole," "September 1913," and "Ego Dominus Tuus." Talk about passion.
I would like for everyone to respond to one of these ideas before class on Wednesday.
-D
Saturday 24 January 2009
Walking Naked
This week, in lieu of writing responses before each class, I would like to have an ongoing discussion here. I will post some questions every day for you to think about and respond to. You don't need to feel obligated to respond to all of them; just pick the ones that strike you and respond to those.
You will have noticed while reading "middle" Yeats that there are definite developments in the poetry. It seems like every time I begin reading these poems, I begin to say (sometimes out loud), "Where is Fergus? Where are the faeries?" and what I quickly realize is that Yeats is dealing with his feelings more directly and honestly, as opposed to burying them in a refashioned mythology. I don't know if I would go so far as to call it "Yeats Unplugged," but it is definitely Yeats stripped-down. In fact, stripping is a good metaphor because it's one Yeats uses himself:
A Coat
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.
It's perhaps no coincidence that this poem comes from Responsibilities (1914), a volume whose title reflects Yeats's growing sense of, well, responsibility as a public figure and national poet. In fact, one of the volume's two epigraphs is "In dreams begin responsibility" (feel free to discuss what you think this might mean in the context of the poems we are reading).
I would like to begin with a discussion of the changes you are noticing in the poetry. What themes seem to arise and recur in these poems? What is different about the poetry in terms of form and content? What features and themes remain from the early work? try to draw some conclusions about how Yeats is evolving as an artist.
You are going to notice a lot of references to love, especially to spurned and/or unrequited romance. As we briefly discussed in class on Friday, many of Yeats's poems are devoted, at least in part, to his feelings for the Irish nationalist Maud Gonne. Indeed, it is difficult to read Yeats without at least some of this biographical background. But try, at least for a few days. People read Gonne into practically every line Yeats penned, and they often do so at the expense of the poems. (You will have noticed by now that I try to work against the cult of personality, and the popular practice of reading literature in order to "get to know" a writer. The artist is important, of course, and biography can illuminate the art, but it is the art itself that makes us care about the artist at all.) So let's start by getting into the poems themselves, which is where we really belong anyway.
See you Monday,
-D
You will have noticed while reading "middle" Yeats that there are definite developments in the poetry. It seems like every time I begin reading these poems, I begin to say (sometimes out loud), "Where is Fergus? Where are the faeries?" and what I quickly realize is that Yeats is dealing with his feelings more directly and honestly, as opposed to burying them in a refashioned mythology. I don't know if I would go so far as to call it "Yeats Unplugged," but it is definitely Yeats stripped-down. In fact, stripping is a good metaphor because it's one Yeats uses himself:
A Coat
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.
It's perhaps no coincidence that this poem comes from Responsibilities (1914), a volume whose title reflects Yeats's growing sense of, well, responsibility as a public figure and national poet. In fact, one of the volume's two epigraphs is "In dreams begin responsibility" (feel free to discuss what you think this might mean in the context of the poems we are reading).
I would like to begin with a discussion of the changes you are noticing in the poetry. What themes seem to arise and recur in these poems? What is different about the poetry in terms of form and content? What features and themes remain from the early work? try to draw some conclusions about how Yeats is evolving as an artist.
You are going to notice a lot of references to love, especially to spurned and/or unrequited romance. As we briefly discussed in class on Friday, many of Yeats's poems are devoted, at least in part, to his feelings for the Irish nationalist Maud Gonne. Indeed, it is difficult to read Yeats without at least some of this biographical background. But try, at least for a few days. People read Gonne into practically every line Yeats penned, and they often do so at the expense of the poems. (You will have noticed by now that I try to work against the cult of personality, and the popular practice of reading literature in order to "get to know" a writer. The artist is important, of course, and biography can illuminate the art, but it is the art itself that makes us care about the artist at all.) So let's start by getting into the poems themselves, which is where we really belong anyway.
See you Monday,
-D
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Early Yeats - Writing Prompts
1. As we discussed today at some length, Yeats formed--and projected in his work--an idea of Ireland while he was living in England, trying to make a name for himself as a writer. He created an idealized, imagined Ireland that was both an escape from industrialized, secular England and a return to the magical land of his childhood (as we discussed, Yeats was quite Romantic in this way). Declan Kiberd writes that for Yeats, Ireland "would be [. . .] the sort of place endlessly invented by exiles who fear that, if they do not give it a local habitation in words, it may entirely disappear." If your only idea of Ireland came from early Yeats, what would that place--that "habitation in words"--look like? Use examples.
2. Yeats immediately follows "The Song of the Happy Shepherd" with "The Sad Shepherd." These are the first two poems in Crossways. What is it that makes the first shepherd happy, the second sad? If the poems are meant to be read in succession (and they surely are; Yeats was a creator of books, and the order of poems is very important to the story of each book), then how does the second poem resonate with/expand upon/contradict/or illuminate the first (and vice versa)?
3. If "Down by the Sally Gardens" and "When You are Old" were part of the same story, what would the plot be?
4. In "The Two Trees," Yeats writes of "The ravens of unresting thought." In the context of the poem, where do these "ravens" come from? What might they symbolize? (Why not doves, or pigeons, for example?) And, by extension, are there other moments of "unrest" in these early poems? Where?
5. In "To Ireland in the Coming Times," Yeats writes, "While still I may, I write for you / The love I lived, the dream I knew." Talk about the idea of writing, and the importance of words, in this poem and others from the early work. How does Yeats view the act of writing? There are a lot of possible answers here, but please make specific reference to the poems.
6. In our discussion of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," we talked about the sound and rhythm of the poem, and how Yeats uses both to mimic what he describes ("bee-loud glade," "peace comes dropping slow," "cricket sings," "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore," etc. Plato and Aristotle called this "mimesis," or art representing nature. Point to other places in the early poems where the rhythm and sound "mime" the content of the poem. (Note: I don't expect you to be an expert on this, but it would be really cool if someone were to try this one.)
Thanks, and I'll see you on Friday. In the meantime, I'm off to drive with Fergus...
2. Yeats immediately follows "The Song of the Happy Shepherd" with "The Sad Shepherd." These are the first two poems in Crossways. What is it that makes the first shepherd happy, the second sad? If the poems are meant to be read in succession (and they surely are; Yeats was a creator of books, and the order of poems is very important to the story of each book), then how does the second poem resonate with/expand upon/contradict/or illuminate the first (and vice versa)?
3. If "Down by the Sally Gardens" and "When You are Old" were part of the same story, what would the plot be?
4. In "The Two Trees," Yeats writes of "The ravens of unresting thought." In the context of the poem, where do these "ravens" come from? What might they symbolize? (Why not doves, or pigeons, for example?) And, by extension, are there other moments of "unrest" in these early poems? Where?
5. In "To Ireland in the Coming Times," Yeats writes, "While still I may, I write for you / The love I lived, the dream I knew." Talk about the idea of writing, and the importance of words, in this poem and others from the early work. How does Yeats view the act of writing? There are a lot of possible answers here, but please make specific reference to the poems.
6. In our discussion of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," we talked about the sound and rhythm of the poem, and how Yeats uses both to mimic what he describes ("bee-loud glade," "peace comes dropping slow," "cricket sings," "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore," etc. Plato and Aristotle called this "mimesis," or art representing nature. Point to other places in the early poems where the rhythm and sound "mime" the content of the poem. (Note: I don't expect you to be an expert on this, but it would be really cool if someone were to try this one.)
Thanks, and I'll see you on Friday. In the meantime, I'm off to drive with Fergus...
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Poetic Terminology
Don't worry about writing a response for tomorrow's class, but since we will be discussing poetry for the first time, I would like for you to be familiar with the following terms when you arrive. If you don't know their meanings, please look them up prior to class. There will be other terms you will need to know, but these will suffice for the time being. Thanks. I'm really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow and discussing the early Yeats.
- Accentual verse
- Syllabic verse
- Accentual-syllabic verse
- Iamb
- Trochee
- Spondee
- Pyrrhic
- Anapest
- Dactyl
- Trimeter
- Metrical substitution
- Enjambment
- End-stopped line
- Stanza
- Rhyme scheme
- Stichic poem
- Strophic poem
- Tetrameter
- Pentameter
- Caesura
A Few of Oscar Wilde's Aphorisms
- The one duty we have to history is to rewrite it.
- There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
- Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But invariably they want it back in such very small change.
- It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But...it is better to be good than to be ugly.
- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- I can resist everything except temptation.
- What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
- The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.
- To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
- Anyone can make history. Only a great man can write it.
- A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
- A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies.
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Oscar Wilde FiIm / Reading Assignment
There is a trend among some critics to focus on artists instead of, and at the expense of, art itself. For this reason I rarely introduce a work of literature with an author bio, instead preferring to use biography to supplement the works we read. I am not anti-biography, of course. As we have discussed at length, there is no denying that Oscar Wilde's life illuminates his work.So as we wind down our discussion of Wilde, I wanted to let you know, in case you don't know already, that there is a movie/biopic based on Wilde's life. It is simply called WILDE, and it stars Stephen Fry as Wilde. Jude Law plays Alfred Douglas, and Jennifer Ehle plays Wilde's wife. (If you've ever seen the 6-part BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, Ehle plays Elizabeth Bennett). The film doesn't shy away from Wilde's sexuality, which is admirable (I hardly think you could have a biopic on Wilde without exploring this). It is, in fact, largely about his relationship with Douglas. Thus, it is very much a film about him, not his work. Some of Wilde's more famous lines do pop up from time to time, however. And the acting is superb.
For Friday, please read the article that I uploaded to Blackboard: "Satiric Strategy in The Importance of Being Earnest," by Otto Reinert. It's short, it's lucid, and it makes some very good observations about the play. It also references An Ideal Husband, which we talked about in class today. And having just read the Craft article, I think you'll find Reinert refreshing. Let's forego the 1-page reading response for Friday and talk about Reinert's piece on the blog instead.
-D
Monday 12 January 2009
Prompt #2
The second writing prompt is now up on Blackboard. This is just a reminder that with few exceptions, the prompts are posted there, not here.
Many thanks,
-D
Many thanks,
-D
Oscar Wilde and U.S. Copyright Law
I mentioned in class today that a photograph of Oscar Wilde played a role in U.S. copyright law. The photograph, taken by Napoleon Sarony in New York, was used without permission by a department store that wanted to promote its line of hats (nevermind that there is no hat in the photograph). Sarony sued, and the case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that photographs are not mere reproductions of life, made by machines, but works of art, owned by the artists who produce them. This was an extremely important case for photographers, but also for artists in general because the scope of copyright law was not narrowed. There was an article about this case several years ago in Smithsonian Magazine, and you can still read it online at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/indelible-may-2004.html. It's an entertaining read. My favorite bit is where Wilde, on his U.S. tour, extols blue and white porcelain as a tasteful choice for homes of the American frontier. It reminds me of one of Wilde's famous lines: "I am finding it harder and harder to live up to my blue china."I thought you might also like to see a few of the images of Wilde that appeared in Punch (a popular satire/humor magazine) since the article briefly mentions that magazine, and since Wilde was a favorite target of its cartoonists.
This first cartoon, The Six-Mark Tea-Pot," does not mention Wilde by name, but it clearly aludes to the abovementioned "blue china" quote. The "Aesthetic Bridegroom" says, "It is quite consummate, 
is it not?" and his bride responds, "It is indeed! Oh, Algernon, let us live up to it!" The name of Algernon is (obviously) a reference to The Importance of Being Earnest.
The second cartoon (Fancy Portrait No. 37) mocks the practice--and it was a common practice of the period, especially among aesthetes--of wearing a flower in one's lapel. Along these lines, you might also recall this exchange from the Second Act of Earnest (pp. 28-29):
Cecily: How thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals. Won't you come in?
Algernon: Thank you. Might I have a buttonhole first? I never have any appetite unless I have a buttonhole first.
Cecily: A Marechal Niel? (Picks up scissors.)
Algernon. No, I'd sooner have a pink rose.
Cecily: Why? (Cuts a flower.)
Algernon: Because you are like a pink rose, Cousin Cecily.
In case you can't read it, the quatrain at the bottom of the portrait reads as follows:
Aesthete of Aesthetes!
What's in a name?
The poet is Wilde,
But his poetry's tame.
Friday 9 January 2009
Writing Prompts for "Earnest"
Normally I will be posting the writing prompts to Blackboard only, but there have been some problems with Blackboard this week (I am unable to upload anything tonight, for example), so I am posting this first set of prompts here.
Please write a one-page response to The Importance of Being Earnest based on one of the following prompts. As I mentioned in class today, when you respond to a prompt, you don’t have to answer it exactly. It is meant to spur your thought process, not dictate your response. You certainly don’t need to quote the prompt or use its exact language.
1. In class today, I asked you to consider what it is that makes Earnest a great play (that is, if it is great; you might argue that it is not). Certainly the characters are flat, or "stock," and the plot is contrived with very unbelievable turns. Earnest has justifiably been called a "farce," which is a comedy with improbable events, mistaken identities, slapstick and physical humor, thinly-veiled sexual references and, more often than not, a god-from-the-machine ending where mistaken identities are worked out, someone inherits a great deal of money, etc. The form of the play, then, does not make it great, nor do its characters. I want you to convince me that The Importance of Being Earnest is, or is not, a great play. This will obviously require you to define "greatness" and then show how the play does, or does not, meet the requirements you set forth.
2. In his preface to our edition, Michael Gillespie argues that the play offers us "considerable insights on the human condition." Do you agree? If so, point to places where you think Wilde is particularly insightful. Your response might also apply these insights to contemporary events/circumstances (although this is not mandatory). I have in mind what Jeff said in class today, namely that in some ways the play seems very contemporary. I would be happy to read a response that focuses on this aspect.
3. Analyze the play's title beyond the obvious earnest/Ernest pun. Is it a well-chosen title? Does it work beyond the wordplay? Alternatively, you might consider Wilde's subtitle for the play, "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People." Meaning?
4. How and where does Wilde deal with sexuality in the play? What do these instances reveal about the nature of sexuality in Victorian society?
5. Wilde was a prominent figure in the aesthetic movement. In brief, he believed that art was its own justification and did not bear the responsibility of moral instructiveness. Does The Importance of Being Earnest live up to his credo of "art for art's sake"? Or does it have a "moral" of some kind?
6. In what way is the scene where Cecily and Gwendolen have tea a microcosm of the entire play? In what way does Wilde (hilariously, it must be said) use his stage directions to enhance the scene?
Whatever you write, DON'T be clever. I'm sick to death of cleverness. But do be earnest. See you on Monday. Until then, I'm off to see dear Bunbury...
-D
Please write a one-page response to The Importance of Being Earnest based on one of the following prompts. As I mentioned in class today, when you respond to a prompt, you don’t have to answer it exactly. It is meant to spur your thought process, not dictate your response. You certainly don’t need to quote the prompt or use its exact language.
1. In class today, I asked you to consider what it is that makes Earnest a great play (that is, if it is great; you might argue that it is not). Certainly the characters are flat, or "stock," and the plot is contrived with very unbelievable turns. Earnest has justifiably been called a "farce," which is a comedy with improbable events, mistaken identities, slapstick and physical humor, thinly-veiled sexual references and, more often than not, a god-from-the-machine ending where mistaken identities are worked out, someone inherits a great deal of money, etc. The form of the play, then, does not make it great, nor do its characters. I want you to convince me that The Importance of Being Earnest is, or is not, a great play. This will obviously require you to define "greatness" and then show how the play does, or does not, meet the requirements you set forth.
2. In his preface to our edition, Michael Gillespie argues that the play offers us "considerable insights on the human condition." Do you agree? If so, point to places where you think Wilde is particularly insightful. Your response might also apply these insights to contemporary events/circumstances (although this is not mandatory). I have in mind what Jeff said in class today, namely that in some ways the play seems very contemporary. I would be happy to read a response that focuses on this aspect.
3. Analyze the play's title beyond the obvious earnest/Ernest pun. Is it a well-chosen title? Does it work beyond the wordplay? Alternatively, you might consider Wilde's subtitle for the play, "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People." Meaning?
4. How and where does Wilde deal with sexuality in the play? What do these instances reveal about the nature of sexuality in Victorian society?
5. Wilde was a prominent figure in the aesthetic movement. In brief, he believed that art was its own justification and did not bear the responsibility of moral instructiveness. Does The Importance of Being Earnest live up to his credo of "art for art's sake"? Or does it have a "moral" of some kind?
6. In what way is the scene where Cecily and Gwendolen have tea a microcosm of the entire play? In what way does Wilde (hilariously, it must be said) use his stage directions to enhance the scene?
Whatever you write, DON'T be clever. I'm sick to death of cleverness. But do be earnest. See you on Monday. Until then, I'm off to see dear Bunbury...
-D
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