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fandomhigh2005-11-09 03:28 pm
geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2005-11-09 03:28 pm
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Creative Writing: Poetry, Lesson Three
Wednesday, November 9, 7:00PM FST
[Professor Chaucer is sitting in his chair, feet propped up on his desk, writing in a leather-bound journal (is this sounding familiar?). He welcomes all the students once they've arrived.]
Today we'll continue our lesson on the elements of poetry, but first I would like to announce that Paige Matthews will be acting as my assistant for this class. Thank you, Paige.
All right, on the with lecture.
[Lecture] Foot refers to the most basic component of meter. The meter is made up of the stresses that recur at fixed intervals in a poem. There are four commonly used meters:
Iambic (foot: "iamb" - /) is the most familiar meter used in the English language -- in fact, ordinary speech often falls into this meter. Example: "The falling out of the faithful friends", where the stress falls on "fall-", "out", "faith-", and "friends".
Anapestic (foot: "anapest"- - /) Example: "I am monarch of all I survey", where the stress falls on "mon-", "all", and "-vey".
Trochaic (foot: "trochee" / -) Example: "Double, double, toil and trouble", where the stress falls on "Dou-", "dou-", "toil", and "trou-".
Dactylic (foot: "dactyl" / - -) Example: "Take her up tenderly", where the stress falls on "Take" and "tend-".
Iambic and trochaic are known as "rising meters", while anapestic and dactylic are "falling meters". Another somewhat lesser-used form of meter is accentual meter. This is not written in feet but rather counts accents (stresses), placing the same number of stresses in each line, regardless of where they lay or how long the line is. Old English poetry is written using a strict accentual meter. An excellent example of accentual meter can be found in Coleridge's poem "Christabel":
"There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the top-most twig that looks up at the sky."
Meter can be found in any length, although most commonly between one foot (monometer) and eight (octameter). The most common poetic meter in the English language is the iambic pentameter, a line made of five iambs, or iambic feet. It occurs in nearly all blank verse, heroic couplets, and sonnets.
Pause, or cesura, refers to a light but definite pause within a line, often occuring at a punctuation mark, although also occasionally found at the end of a line. An end-stop is the punctuated pause at the end of a line. A run-on line ends with no puncuation and only the slightest pause before continuing to the next line.
Form is the design of a poem as a whole. Closed form has a set pattern, and tneds to look regular and symmetrical on paper. Open form has no pattern, and often makes use of white space for emphasis.
The works you've been reading by Petrarch, in Canzoniere, are sonnets. From the Italian sonnetto, meaning "little song", the sonnet owes a great deal of its prestige to Petrarch. This style of poetry utilizes a fourteen line pattern and a set rhyme scheme, which is different for English and Italian sonnets. Both rhyme schemes are set into two distinct parts: the "octave", or first eight lines, and the "sestet", or second six lines.
The English sonnet follows this rhyme scheme, which ends in a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg
The Italian sonnet uses a slightly different scheme: abba abba for the octave, and any of cdcdcd/cdecde/cdccdc for the sestet.
[Discussion] From your assigned reading, choose one sonnet from Canzoniere and give the class a brief analysis of it. Tell us what about the poem interested you enough to choose it, talk about the subject and the sybolism, tell us what you didn't like or didn't understand.
***Assignment for next week: Write your own sonnet. You may use either the English or Italian rhyme scheme. (OOC: Plagiarize if needed, but an original will get you a higher grade.) Also, begin reading The Collected Sonnets by William Shakespeare.***
EDITED: [At the end of class, Professor Chaucer makes an announcement.] I've decided that the classroom needs redecorating. Therefore, I am inviting all of you to do one of the following: either bring something to class next week with which to decorate the room, or write down your suggestions for what you'd like to see and I'll look into making the arrangements.
[Professor Chaucer is sitting in his chair, feet propped up on his desk, writing in a leather-bound journal (is this sounding familiar?). He welcomes all the students once they've arrived.]
Today we'll continue our lesson on the elements of poetry, but first I would like to announce that Paige Matthews will be acting as my assistant for this class. Thank you, Paige.
All right, on the with lecture.
[Lecture] Foot refers to the most basic component of meter. The meter is made up of the stresses that recur at fixed intervals in a poem. There are four commonly used meters:
Iambic (foot: "iamb" - /) is the most familiar meter used in the English language -- in fact, ordinary speech often falls into this meter. Example: "The falling out of the faithful friends", where the stress falls on "fall-", "out", "faith-", and "friends".
Anapestic (foot: "anapest"- - /) Example: "I am monarch of all I survey", where the stress falls on "mon-", "all", and "-vey".
Trochaic (foot: "trochee" / -) Example: "Double, double, toil and trouble", where the stress falls on "Dou-", "dou-", "toil", and "trou-".
Dactylic (foot: "dactyl" / - -) Example: "Take her up tenderly", where the stress falls on "Take" and "tend-".
Iambic and trochaic are known as "rising meters", while anapestic and dactylic are "falling meters". Another somewhat lesser-used form of meter is accentual meter. This is not written in feet but rather counts accents (stresses), placing the same number of stresses in each line, regardless of where they lay or how long the line is. Old English poetry is written using a strict accentual meter. An excellent example of accentual meter can be found in Coleridge's poem "Christabel":
"There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the top-most twig that looks up at the sky."
Meter can be found in any length, although most commonly between one foot (monometer) and eight (octameter). The most common poetic meter in the English language is the iambic pentameter, a line made of five iambs, or iambic feet. It occurs in nearly all blank verse, heroic couplets, and sonnets.
Pause, or cesura, refers to a light but definite pause within a line, often occuring at a punctuation mark, although also occasionally found at the end of a line. An end-stop is the punctuated pause at the end of a line. A run-on line ends with no puncuation and only the slightest pause before continuing to the next line.
Form is the design of a poem as a whole. Closed form has a set pattern, and tneds to look regular and symmetrical on paper. Open form has no pattern, and often makes use of white space for emphasis.
The works you've been reading by Petrarch, in Canzoniere, are sonnets. From the Italian sonnetto, meaning "little song", the sonnet owes a great deal of its prestige to Petrarch. This style of poetry utilizes a fourteen line pattern and a set rhyme scheme, which is different for English and Italian sonnets. Both rhyme schemes are set into two distinct parts: the "octave", or first eight lines, and the "sestet", or second six lines.
The English sonnet follows this rhyme scheme, which ends in a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg
The Italian sonnet uses a slightly different scheme: abba abba for the octave, and any of cdcdcd/cdecde/cdccdc for the sestet.
[Discussion] From your assigned reading, choose one sonnet from Canzoniere and give the class a brief analysis of it. Tell us what about the poem interested you enough to choose it, talk about the subject and the sybolism, tell us what you didn't like or didn't understand.
***Assignment for next week: Write your own sonnet. You may use either the English or Italian rhyme scheme. (OOC: Plagiarize if needed, but an original will get you a higher grade.) Also, begin reading The Collected Sonnets by William Shakespeare.***
EDITED: [At the end of class, Professor Chaucer makes an announcement.] I've decided that the classroom needs redecorating. Therefore, I am inviting all of you to do one of the following: either bring something to class next week with which to decorate the room, or write down your suggestions for what you'd like to see and I'll look into making the arrangements.
LECTURE QUESTIONS
DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
CHATTING
OOC
Re: CHATTING
"Sir?" she says looking awkward "I'm very sorry about yesterday, I'm having some...personal issues night now."
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
"I liked this one because it's a conversation between the speaker and his soul concerning the woman he is enamored of. The speaker laments over being rejected by the woman, and likens love to a war. His soul replies that her seeing him in a bad mood isn't going to help him at all. He is concerned with her outward show, but his soul tells him that often, appearances are deceiving, that he can't know for certain what the woman is really thinking. In spite of that, the man doesn't listen and seems that he would rather wallow in his own misery than give her the benefit of the doubt - or just talk to her. If he doubts her that much, I'm not really convinced he's in love with her - at least, not the real her. He's just in love with her image, or what he wants her to be. But on the other hand, maybe he has good reason to be uncertain about her."
Re: CHATTING
"It's all right, Paige. I expect students will miss a class now and again. If you can make up the work and hand in a written version of the class assignment, I'll consider you caught up."
Re: CHATTING
She looks at him for a few moment thinking about how he'd always protected her honour, you'd never call me a whore like James did she thinks suddenly looking upset
Re: CHATTING
Seeing the sudden change in her expression, he says, "Are you all right, Paige?"
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
Fred fipped to poem 168 He is bordering between love and lonely. He is tore between something wonderful or something terrible. He is afraid that love will disappoint him in the end but he still holds out hope for greatness in the end.
[OOC: Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere]
I think its about daring to love but being terrified at the same time. The depreciation of love that makes the poet doubt it but then there is that one brief shining moment when love it worth and possibly he will be the one who has that moment instead of going along undecided between love and lonely.
Re: CHATTING
Re: CHATTING
Re: CHATTING
Re: CHATTING
Re: CHATTING
Re: CHATTING
Re: CHATTING
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
The ability to express in poetry the beauty of a woman's features is quite a simple job if you have the wit and vocabulary to use evocative adjectives and elaborate metaphors for her finer qualities. This poem captures the author's, perhaps, rose-tinted gaze upon the creature of his delight and portrays her as something more than human and certainly more than a pretty face.
I chose the poem, of course, as this is a creative style I unfortunately work in everyday in my poetry journal. It's purple prose, of course, but…*he turns a bit pink*
Anyway, my central issue with this poem is that it's obviously translated very quickly from the original Italian with no particular care on the translator's part to make it as evocative in the English translation as it must be in the Italian.
I particularly love the turn of phrase in "and hair that seen in summer, at mid-day, outdoes the sun" as I do have quite a love for blonde hair kissed by the sun.
DECORATING SUGGESTIONS
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
I have some issues with this poem, since it seems to be all about despair. The speaker's completely given up. That's no way t'live.
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
Two fresh roses, gathered in paradise,
just now, that opened on the first of May,
a lovely gift, divided, by an older, wiser lover
between two young lovers, equally,
with such sweet speech and with a smile
that would make even a savage being love,
made each of them change their aspect
with its sparkling and amorous rays.
'The sun has never seen such lovers'
he said, smiling then and sighing:
and, embracing both, he turned away.
So the roses and the words depart,
the heart is left still joyful and in fear:
O happy eloquence, O glad day!
I think it's a poem of an older man who is looking fondly, perhaps even wistfully at two young people in love, delighting in the newness, the freshness, of their relationship.
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
"He's saying that his love died, and he thought his capacity to love was also gone, right? But then he met someone else, and loved her, and she also died. And now his passion has nowhere to go, and he can't get rid of it.
I like the imagery in the poem, and it makes me think about how love continues even as people die or leave."
Re: DECORATING SUGGESTIONS
Re: DECORATING SUGGESTIONS
Re: OOC
Re: DISCUSSION: Canzoniere
It's about love. The kind that makes you a better person, I think. Or makes you feel like you're... transcending something, I guess. Maybe it has religious implications? Love beyond yourself anyway. I'm not particularly familiar with the idea, to be honest.
Re: DECORATING SUGGESTIONS
Re: DECORATING SUGGESTIONS