IB English IV—Paper 2 Study Guide (Class Notes for Poets)

Wislawa Szymborska

Wole Soyinka

Wislawa Szymborska (1923- )

Biographical details (Relevance):

 Born in Western Poland (Bnin) in 1923, later moves to Krakow where she spends most of
her life
 Nobel Prize—1996-- Nobel lecture was self-deprecating, she isn’t a “true poet”
 Lived near railroad tracks—watched people go by, inspires some of her poetry
 Heavily influenced/affected by:
o Nazi occupation of Poland/WWII
o Stalinism/Communism in Poland
o Inspired by illegal poems and theater
 Member of communist party, but leaves in 1966
o Won’t let her earlier poetry be read/published for political reasons
 Communism in Poland
 Early poetry fits within socialist model (only way to publish at the time)
 Denounces socialism in 1960s
  Modest, shy, humble (“lucky couch” won the Nobel prize)—no real public persona, “poet
embarrassed of being a poet”
o Reclusive—hates publicity, travels very little
 Humorous/witty
 Very particular about what is published—revises over and over, very few poems published
 POETRY IS TRANSLATED!!!
 Married once, partnered once

Techniques/devices:

 Anaphora—frequent use, creates rhythm, convinces reader, covers a lot of beliefs/topics,

brings emphasis
 Epistrophe
 Parallel structure
 Imagery—visual, vivid, NUMBERS (especially relating to human life)
 Personification/anthropomorphism—Cat in “Cat in an empty apartment”; Death “On
Death, without exaggeration”
 Irony—“contribution to statistics” “Hitler”
 Short sentences—clinical/detached/factual
 Repetition
 Simplistic, sparse, direct diction
 Understatement
 Juxtaposition/contrast—“Hitler’s First Photograph”
 Paradox
 Symbolism—“On Death, without exaggeration” (words represent different aspects of
human life), animals (“In praise of feeling…”)
 Ambiguity (speaker in “Cat”)—usually narrator
 Dialogue (usually entire poem—see “Vietnam” and “Funeral (ii)”)
 Tone—sarcastic, sincere/serious, satiric, lofty, hopeful (varies—see VOICE)
 Ekphrastic poetry (Brueghel’s Two Monkeys, Pieta)
 Rhetorical questions
 Wit/Humor
 Introspective voice
 Occasional Elision—usually to fit a meter or create a desired sound effect
 Starts with a bold statement or claim, broadens theme (mocking effect)

Voice (body of work):

 Pensive
 Serious
 Humorous/witty
 Reflective
 First person is common
 Neutral gender (not especially feminine or masculine)
 Personal connection to event or theme

Purpose of poetry:

 Informative—effects of communism, WWII, holocaust, human rights

 Focus on details of life—appreciation, acknowledge war/events/importance
 Human dignity
 Poetic inspiration/role of the poet in society
Use of the speaker/effect on the reader:

 Inspires you to think about things in a new way (change/new perspective—use of

understatement and simple diction accomplishes this)—“The Terrorist, He’s Watching”

Key Ideas/Themes:

 Humanity
 Life/death
 Political ties—Vietnam, war
 Existence (entire universe)
 Nature
 Focus on minutiae/details—downplays bigger picture, but emphasizes larger theme after
audience realizes (UNDERSTATEMENT)—ambiguity (“Vietnam” “On Death, Without
Exaggeration”)
 Time (“View with a grain of sand” “Cat” “Terrorist”)
 Ideas about future of mankind—“The Century’s Decline” “The End and the Beginning”
“Nothing Twice” “I’m working on the world” “Brueghel’s two monkeys” (ekphrastic) “View
with a grain of sand” “Discovery” (scientific progress)
 Humanity/Human Relationships (moment in time)—“Vietnam” “In praise of my sister”
“Beheading” “Buffo” “In praise of feeling bad about yourself” “Life While-You-Wait” “Pieta”
(ekphrastic—based on work of art)
 Juxtaposes an event in progress with aftereffects (war/picking up after the war) “The End
and the Beginning” “Hitler’s first photograph” “Starvation Camp” “Maybe all this”
 Statistics/numbers (usually compared to human life—“A contribution to statistics,”
“Starvation Camp” “Maybe all this”)
 Brevity of life--“On Death, Without Exaggeration” “Funeral” “I’m working on the world”
“Pieta” (ekphrastic) “Nothing Twice”

Phrases:

John Keats (1795-1821)

Biographical details (Relevance):

British Romantics: elaborate, passion/love (perspective), inspired by nature/love (equally),

fascination with the supernatural, sonnets/odes, prefer feeling over thinking, Emphasizes the
individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the
emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental

 Wrote most famous works in 9 month  Charles Armitage Brown—Hampstead

period (winter 1818-spring 1819)
 British Romantic poet
 Died of tuberculosis at age 25, mom
died of it, brother Tom died of it,
Fanny’s family had a history of
tuberculosis as well
Heath; Keats lived here during his 9
month creative time
 Flirtation with Isabella Jones
 Three siblings, one brother died (Tom
—tuberculosis)
  Volatile personality—bouts of  Charles Armitage Brown, Charles
depression, intense emotion Clarke (son of headmaster of first
school), Joseph Severn
 Too poor to marry Fanny Brawne
 ROMANTIC—love, nature, sonnet form,
 Trained as a doctor and apothecary, WORDSWORTH, P. B. SHELLEY,
never practiced medicine respect/return to Classical learning

Techniques/devices:

 Apostrophe—“Bright Star” “Ode to a Grecian Urn”

 Use of sonnet form—Italian/Petrarchan (octave/sestet—abba abba VOLTA cde cde),

English/Shakespearean (abab cdcd efef gg)

 Ode (Pindaric/Horatian)—grandiose/grand theme/subject or occasion; highly developed

language

 Synaesthesia—mixing sensations/sensory experiences (“taste the south wind”)

 Allusion: classical Greek/Roman gods, goddesses, mythical figures
 Tone: passionate, loving,
 Elision—usually to fit a meter or create a desired sound effect

 Epezeuksis!

 Puns/play on words—On the sonnet (foot of poesy)

 Euphony

 Anaphora, repetition for emphasis/development

 Sibilant “s” sound (whooshing)

 Vivid imagery (nature, classical references—sacrifice, gods/goddesses, mythical figures)

 Juxtaposition of ideas
 Rhyme (couplets or specific to form—sonnet)—emphasizes idea, creates coherence within
the poem (ideas, within stanzas)

Voice (body of work):

 Highly personal

 Distance between narrator/speaker and what is being observed (e.g. “Elgin Marbles”
“Chapman’s Homer”)

 Passionate/emotional

 Expressive

 Explicative

 Hopeless—acceptance of fate/brevity of life

  Reflective

 Pathetic/mournful

Purpose of poetry:

 Evoke emotions/empathy from the reader

 Appreciating/romanticizing details of life (preserving moments/experiences)

 emphasis on feeling/experiencing the poem

Use of the speaker/effect on the reader:

 Sad, reflective

 Emotional response (pathos)

Key Ideas/Themes:

 Mortality/brevity of life—“Elgin Marbles” “Grecian Urn” “Bright Star” “Cease to be”

 Nature—“Grecian Urn” “Psyche” “Nightengale” “Grasshopper and the Cricket” “Bright

Star”

 Classical references/allusions—“chapman’s homer” “elgin marbles” “ grecian urn” “ode

to psyche”

 Love/passion—“Bright Star” “Grecian Urn” “La belle dame”

 Artistic inspiration—“Nightengale” “On the Sonnet”

 Sleep/rest/death?—“To Sleep”

 Love “Ode to a nightingale” “Grecian urn” ”Ode to Psyche” “Bright Star!”

 Transient/fleeting passion--ODES

 Life/death—mortality “Elgin Marbles” “Bright Star”

 imagination and beauty--ODES

 Individual experiences

 Joy/melancholy

 Poetic inspiration and development: “On the sonnet” “On first looking into Chapman’s
Homer” ALL ODES

Phrases:
John Keats' letters and ideas
Written by Stephanie (SOURCE: http://www.keatsian.co.uk/keatsian-ideas.htm)

Italics= quotes from letters sent by Keats to others

Normal= notes on Keatsian ideas (developed from his poetry) related to these quotes

Beauty and the Imagination

To Benjamin Bailey
Nov. 1817

'I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination-
What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth'

-The beauty and truth paradox

From 'Ode on a Grecian Urn':

'Beauty is truth and truth beauty,- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'.

Keats could be saying that pain is beautiful. There is the issue of whether it is the poet (a
persona), Keats, or the urn speaking. Also which of them is being addressed? It could be a
philosophical statement about life or it may only make sense in context of the poem,
As in 'Ode to a Nightingale, Keats wants to create a world of pure joy. In this poem the world of
fantasy is the life of the people on the urn. Keats sees them, simultaneously, as carved figures on
the marble vase and live people in ancient Greece. Existing in frozen time, they cannot move or
change, their feelings cannot change, yet the sculptor has succeeded in creating a sense of
action. As in 'OTAN' the real world of pain contrasts with the fantasy world of joy.
Some critics feel that Keats is saying art is superior to nature. Is Keats thinking, feeling or talking
about the urn only as a work of art?
The last 2 lines may merely sound as if they mean something, or speak to some deep part of us
that apprehends the meaning but it's an experience/meaning that cannot be put into words.
A final statement is made on the relation of the ideal to the actual. The urn is rejected at the end
because art can't and will never be a substitute for real life.

- He's saying that the Imagination can make things real: 'Sleep and Poetry' and you can dissolve
the harsh reality in escapism
- Anything that is beautiful to him is his own truth and beauty is truth. But to Keats, the truth was
horrible, painful due to his impending death. So is he saying beauty is horrible and painful, and
that it must end at some point?
-Every time he sees beauty, it's tainted, transient- won't last
- Relevant poems: Ode on Melancholy, Ode to Autumn, Le Belle Dame

Senses over thoughts

'O for a Life of Sensations rather than of thoughts!'

'Imagination and its empyreal reflection is the same as human Life and its spiritual repetition'

- Idea of escapism again

- Senses over thoughts
- Saying life, in a sense, is unreal? Purely Imagination
- Thoughts worry the mind, but with sensations, there is no worry, you can escape into feeling
without concern.
- Life as a repetition- Buddhist idea of cycle of life, reincarnation.

Negative Capability

To George and Thomas Keats

Dec 1817

'Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts,
without any irritable reaching after fact and reason'

'With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration'

To Richard Woodhouse
Oct 1818

'A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no Identity- he is
continually in for- and filling some other Body- The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women
who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute'

- Negative Capability

'being capable of eliminating one's own personality, in order imaginatively to enter into that of
another person, or, in extreme cases, an animal or an object.'
The phrase was coined by Keats in the very letter to his brothers, as quoted above.
The whole concept is a bit hazy, probably because his own identity is precarious, and he was
continually being invaded by the identities of others. The person of fixed opinions, such as
Wordsworth, enjoys/suffers from the 'egotistic sublime'
In his letter to Bailey, Nov 1817, Keats affirmed that 'Men of Genius' do not have 'any
individuality' or 'determined character'
Another letter to Woodhouse Oct 1818 defines 'the poetic Character' as taking 'as much delight
in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen' adding: 'What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the
chameleon poet'

Chameleon poet: You can change to your surroundings temporarily, and you can move to
different identities to hide from the world. Let your imagination take you away- Negative
Capability is the way Keats escapes- possibly allowed him to cope with the knowledge that he
didn't have long to live. But you are still a chameleon even when you have changed your colour.
Underneath, Keats is still Keats, no matter what he does to escape the harsh reality.

- Negative capability is 1. the ability to engage. To see beauty in things that are seen as
negative, and experience everything; good or bad. You can get inspiration from everything.
Sublime. Solitary- staring at the world (Chapman's Homer) Passive, contemplating, waiting.
- Negative capability is 2. Being at one with nature. Keats told Woodhouse that he could conceive
of a billiard ball taking a sense of delight in 'its own roundness, smoothness and rapidity of its
motion'. When in a room with the dangerous, leopardess-like woman Jane Cox, he felt her
identity pressing in upon him- letter in Oct 1818: 'I forget myself entirely because I live in her'.
- You can detach yourself and become something else without being limited.
- However, you can't get rid of your own personality, because for example, the billiard ball is still
your subjective view, and another poet would see it in a different way.
- Many writers have identified themselves as having 'negative capability', even if they have not
always used the phrase. Coleridge speaks in a letter Nov. 1819 of 'a sort of transfusion and
transmission of my consciousness to identify myself with the object'. This suggests an actual
movement to something else, with extreme personification by losing actual consciousness.
Danger and pain --> Terrible --> Distanced --> Modified --> Delightful --> Experience

Poems with the idea of negative capability:

- Eve of St Agnes: the passive poet, waiting. Also because of the half-states, dreamlike.
'While legioned faeries paced the coverlet, And pale enchantment help her sleepy-eyed'. Sensory
experience, dreamlike half-state, voyeuristic tendency.

- La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad: Beauty and negativity- beauty must die
'Alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing'.
Loitering- half-state, between being with nature and elsewhere. A sense of unawareness but
sensory knowledge makes up for it.'Palely'- reference to Keats' tuberculosis.

- On First Looking into Chapman's Homer: passive observer

'He stared at the Pacific- and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise- silent, upon a
peak in Darien'. Solitary character, engaging in world, but from a distance.

- Ode on Melancholy: depression is positive, use it.

'Whose strenuous tongue can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine'. Sensory experience,
personifying beauty and melancholy. Hard to achieve, requiring great effort, but when you do, its
satisfying.

- When I have Fears: Moulding into the landscape

'Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and Fame to nothingness do sink'. Sensory,
solitary. Separated from landscape- half-state.

Ode to Autumn- nature, life and death

'Close bosom friend of the maturing sun'- contrast between giver of life and dying of nature
makes a half-sta

Poetic Beliefs

To John Taylor
Feb 1818

'I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess'

- Poetry should involve the element of surprise, with the use of excessive imagery, but in a
refined way; pure yet bold and dazzling.

'The setting of imagery should like the sun come natural to him'
'If poteetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all'.

- Poetry should be a natural thing, not forced but fluid and inspired.

Vale of Soul Making

To George and Georgiana Keats

April 1819

'The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is 'a vale of tears'
from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of God and taken into
Heaven- What a little circumscribed straightened notion! Call the world if you please 'The Vale of
Soul- making. Then you will find out the use of the world'
'I say 'soul making' Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence- There may be intelligences or
sparks of divinity in millions- but they are not souls until they acquire identities, till each one is
personality itself'
'I think it a grander system of salvation than the Christian religion- or rather it is a system of
Spirit Creation'
'I will call the world a school instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read. I will call
the human heart the hornbook used in that school. And I will call the child able to read, the soul
made from that school and its hornbook'.
'Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and
make it a soul? A place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways'
'As various as the lives of men are- so various become their souls, and thus does God make
individual beings, souls, identical souls of the sparks of his own essence'

(In this same letter was an original of 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci')
The poem is a story that leaves questions unanswered, but in this letter he seems to finding an
answer to what his life means, trying to come to terms with his impending death.
- Keats does not deal with conventional religion in his poems.
- States that he does not believe in Christianity, or in any of the other received faiths of his era.
'cosmology' and 'ontology' (cause-belief system)
- As he faced death, it's clear that Keats did struggle to find meaning in life, but in this letter he
finds an answer.
- Rejects Christian 'Valley of Tears' and accepts 'Vale of Soul Making'
- The Romantics in general were spiritual rather than religious.
- Says religion is a process by which a soul is made- described as human heart going to school.
-States there are different stages a soul passes through: Copes with experiences, discovers
misery and oppression. Compared to chambers in a mansion'
- The final stage the soul passes through recognising the burden of the mystery.

Quotes from Keats:

'I would rather give women a sugar plum than my time'

Suggests that he thinks women are shallow, and that they'll accept something so meaningless
instead of attention. 'Sugar plum' is also a sickly reference, and perhaps suggests that women
are like this too, sweet but with slightly sinister connotations; we already know that Keats didn't
trust women.

About Fanny Brawne in a letter to his brother George, Dec 1818:

'she manages to make her hair look well- her nostrils are fine though a little painful- her mouth is
bad and good... Her arms are good and her hands badish- her feet tolerable.. She is ignorant-
monstrous in her behaviour flying out in all directions. I am however tired of such style and shall
decline any more of it'

Keats' words in this letter make him out to be a 'nitpicker' frequently finding faults and making
harsh and unfair judgments about Brawne. It makes one wonder if this letter was meant to be
comical, because many of the comments are too ridiculous to be taken seriously. It is ironic that
the following year he becomes engaged to the woman he scrutinized so meticulously.

On Keats' grave:

'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'

- Ripples go on forever, he'll always be remembered. Arrogant, or just insecure, depressed.

Link to the poem 'When I have Fears'
Robert Frost
Biographical details (Relevance):

 American  England (WWI), Russia (met with

Khrushchev)
 Two kids died in infancy, wife Elinor
died, sister died, history of mental  4 Pulitzer prizes
illness in family
 Read poetry aloud often
 Dartmouth, Harvard, lectures at
Amherst, Harvard, Dartmouth,  Modernist poet
Cambridge
 JFK inaugural poet—FIRST POET TO
 Lives on a farm (Derry farm) READ AT PRESIDENTIAL
INAUGURATION
 Rural/isolated from society
 Died in 1963 (heart attack)
 Warmer welcome in England
initially/early in career (rejected by
The Atlantic)

Techniques/devices:

 Observational poet

 Narrative—“Love and a question” “death of the hired man”

 Blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter

 Precise, conversational, simple diction—experiments with cadence of vernacular speech

(sound of sense)

 Blended sonnet

 Personification

 Pathetic fallacy/anthropomorphism

 Uses rhyme, but with no set structure

 Ambiguity (usually speaker’s voice)

 Juxtaposition of nature/mankind, natural/man-made forms

 Dialogue—“Mending wall”

 Allusions—historical (Cortez, Balboa, Columbus—explorers; founding of America)

Voice (body of work):

 Serene

 Grandfatherly—wise, reflective
  Reflective/nostalgic—wistful (“Good Hours” “Birches”)

 Neutrality towards certain subjects/mild –“Vantage point” “Quandary”

 Sympathetic/empathetic attitude (wants reader to feel experience/share in experience)

Purpose of poetry/effect on reader/purpose of speaker:

 Appreciate/admire nature

 Enjoy life/details (carpe diem?)

 Limitations on humans (from nature/man/society)

 Insignificance of man (to nature, to god)

Key Ideas/Themes:

 Nostalgia—“birches” “After apple-  Insignificance of man—“bound and

picking” free” “dust of snow” “birches”

 Nature/rural life—“birches”  Relationships—“mending wall” “love

and a question”
 Limitations on humans—“Out, out—“
 Love—“love and a question”
 Time
 History—“America is hard to see” “JFK”
 Nature vs. world—“Mending Wall”
 Truth vs. authentic/real knowledge--

Phrases:

Wole Soyinka
Biographical details (Relevance):

 Solemn, mournful poetry  Drama, poetry, essays, films, novels,

 Politically active—speaking out against
the corrupt government (dictatorships
in Africa, colonial system, human
rights offences in Africa and abroad)
 Imprisoned for 22-25 months in
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT—snuck out
writings on scraps of tissue paper
EVERYTHING (primarily drama)
 Nobel Prize—1986—first African to
receive prize in literature
 Speech about apartheid, dedicated to
Mandela, HELPED FREE NELSON
MANDELA BY BRINGING
INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION TO CAUSE

 Educated in Nigeria and England—  Yoruba—polytheistic, outside Hausa-

University of Ibadan, University of Ibo conflict, western Nigeria
Leeds
 Ogun--Warrior god, machines,
metallurgy, exists in “fourth phase”—
 can skip between world of ancestors,
world of living, world of unborn—
completely free
 Abiku—“belly-jumping”—meant to
torment mother, can reappear
multiple times in different women
(usually haunts one)
 Strife between tribal factions—Hausa-
Fulani vs. Ibo/Igbo
 Nigeria—colonial British rule until 1960
(imperialism—seeking palm kernels
and oil—primary export of Nigeria;
imposed false hierarchy within tribes,
even in groups with no social
hierarchy e.g. Ibo), several power
changes/revolutions (great political
unrest)

Techniques/devices:

 Metaphors/similies—acorns in “Massacre”; comparisons to animals or nature (plants)

 Symbolism—acorns, hogs, dawn

 Palm—kernels, oil (allusion—colonial imperialism/exploitation, economic product)

 Enjambment—emphasize certain words/phrases, flow

 Repetition—anaphora, epistrophe, epezeuksis (repeats same word in line—“happy happy

joy joy”)

 Personification—anthropomorphism/pathetic fallacy

 Duality (multiple interpretations)/ambiguity

 Political messages/aspects

 Direct tie between title and subject of poem (not as ambiguous as some)

Voice (body of work):

 Hope/devestation (juxtaposed)

 Highly political/charged

 Provides insight/moral guidance

 Serious

 Morbid

 Shocking—doesn’t “sugarcoat”; “Hunchback of Dugbe”

 Purposeful ambiguity/veiled meanings (product of political situation he’s writing in)

Purpose of poetry:

 Political change

 Pathos
Key Ideas:

 dawn—symbol for beginning, life fading/hope fading (usually sunset)—“Death in the dawn”

 ethnic conflicts/massacres—“Massacre, October 1966”

 revolution/war—“Civilian and Soldier” “Massacre” “Harvest of Hate”

 death/dying—”Death in the dawn,” “Abiku” “Post Mortem”

 despair/hopelessness”Abiku” “Massacre” “Luo Plains” “Hunchback”

 darkness/light—aftermath of traumatic event (massacre, war, battle, funeral, death)

“Civilian and Soldier”

 ambiguity/veiled nature—“Apres” “Massacre”

 rebirth/new life (cyclical nature)—“Abiku” “night” “Her joy is wild”

 blending of cultural/personal experiences to enact/inspire change

Phrases:

SZYMBORSKA/FROST

 time

o szymborska:

o Frost:

 Death

o Szymborska: death as an abstract concept (society/larger whole);

death has a persona; weakens death (its power is exaggerated)

 “On death, without exaggeration”—critiquing death and its

ineptitude/incompetence

 “Funeral”—people aren’t as concerned as they should be (no

fear), entirely dialogue/conversation snippets; flow of ideas
between people at a funeral (death is irrelevant—living people
don’t focus on it); ambiguity—goodbyes addressed to the
deceased or to the living

 “Still”—

 “Cat in an Empty Apartment”—practical

  “Seen from above”—

 “Starvation Camp at Jaslo”—death is important, powerful, far-

reaching (contradicts “On Death, Without Exaggeration”)—
discusses absence of people after death and its effect on society
(lost potential—empty cradle)

 “The Terrorist, He’s Watching”--

o Frost: death is individual, singular, focused inward (biographical

details); death is an occurance

 “Out, Out—“—last lines about others ignoring death/continuing

life (compare with “On Death, Without Exaggeration” because
death doesn’t erase presence or what you have done in life—
death does not affect legacy)

 “Disused graveyard”—view of death through gravestones—

people are irrelevant; compare with “Cat in an Empty
apartment”—abstract concept

 Observations on life

o Szymborska:

 “Terrorist”

o Frost:

SZYMBORSKA/KEATS

 Both are very particular about what is published/seen

o Limited publication (Keats died at 25, Szymborska is a ruthless editor)

 Biographical influences

o Szymborska

 Real relationships—family

 WWII and Nazi occupation of Poland

 Living near railroad tracks/people watching

o Keats

 Real relationships—Fanny as inspiration, Charles Cowden Clarke

(“Chapman’s Homer”)

 Poetry itself (as an art)

 o Szymborska:

 “In praise of my sister”—describes what sister does not do

o Keats:

 “On the Sonnet”--

 Mortality

 Szymborska: close to modernists—simplistic, direct

o “Still”--

o “Cat”--

 Keats: romantic, flowery, classical allusions

o “When I have fears”--

SZYMBORSKA/SOYINKA

 Atrocities of War

o Szymborska: use of statistics—people forget about the individuals after

war (a thousand and one rounds down to one thousand—loss of
humanity, loss of importance/life, history has little respect for the
dead)

 “Starvation Camp near Jaslo”

 “A contribution to statistics”

o Soyinka: public perception

 “Massacre, October 1966”—minimizing death tolls to avoid

public backlash, “arithmetics of death”—death doesn’t care
about particulars/individuals, only sums

 NATURE

o Szymborska:

o Soyinka:

 “Dawn”—common goals/accomplishments (civil war), destructive

tone, contradictory statement (dawn is usually positive, but here
it “destroys peace of night”—destructive and constructive
simultaneously)

 “Luo Plains”—extended litote (almost, not quite—used negative

connotative words to emphasize beauty of plains)
  “Night”—cyclical nature, birth/rebirth (“Abiku”)

 “Her joy is wild”--

 “Death in the Dawn”—unnatural death (death of bird by the car,

car crash), dawn=new life but here death occurs at dawn, nature
as an explanation for death (cyclical nature of death), death is
“futile rite”—must occur, but doesn’t have much meaning

 “Harvest of Hate”—hate is a natural, growing product (“reap

what you sow”)

 “Around us, dawning”—sun, death, airplane (unnatural),

 2 readings: plane crashes=death; sun rises=life

 Elements of nature=elements of human world

(beast=plane, uncontrollable, beyond man, form of death)

o Frost:

 “birches”—

 “after apple-picking”—cider apple pile—wasted resource, wasted

life, does not achieve full potential

o Keats:

 DEATH (use of animals—comparing humans to animals to emphasize

mortality)

o Szymborska:

 “In praise of feeling bad about yourself”

o Soyinka:

 “Abiku”

 “Death in the dawn”

KEATS/FROST

 Insects (small/large—connection between individual and universe)

o Keats--Grasshopper and cricket

o Frost--Fireflies in the garden

 NATURE (nature’s relationship to humanity; plants)

o Keats—“Grecian Urn,” “Psyche”

 o Frost—“Birches” “Rose Family”

 Narrative Poetry

o Keats

o Frost—“Death of the hired man” “Out, Out—“

FROST/SOYINKA