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Showing posts from February, 2015

Diameter of the Bomb by Yehuda Amichai

how a localized tragedy affects the whole world speaker appears to have lost faith in God pain and time - ideas intentionally placed together contrast of death and youth pain of separation through death physical description pain is eternal no peace even after death physical to metaphysical grief then becomes immeasurable tangible to intangible Concentric circles progression from 30 cm, 7 m, two hospitals and one graveyard, 100 km, across the sea, whole world, "circle with no end and no God"

Modernism

Not the same thing as modernity Keywords (I shall elaborate later) Modern Period Modernist movement Expressionism, Surrealism etc A set of movements, deliberations, discussions in the first half of the 20th century Usually, literature glorifies life, but in Prufrock, reader forced to question whether he has one to begin with Fragmentation, fractured existence - not whole, not complete, not holistic Imagination and reality We construct our own realities - they are products of our imagination, which shapes our world Reality is constantly changing as we attempt to find imaginatively satisfying ways to perceive the world Reality constituted by an imaginative process of piecemeal attempts at finding coherence.

Riders to the Sea by John Millington Synge

Guys here's the text for  Riders to the Sea I'll post notes on it once we discuss in class. Cheers!

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

Hardy’s work – Naturalism, Wessex (countryside), pre-industrial England, nostalgia Role of destiny in everything Society of consumption, consumerism The industrialized were brought back to their human nature “Had chosen thus to fling his soul (<3) Upon the growing gloom” The Darkling Thrush BY  THOMAS HARDY I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. dusk The tangled pine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. All have returned home to warmth and love, but speaker is alone, leaning on a coppice-gate The land's sharp features seemed to be Rigor mortis The Century's corpse outleant, Century – Victorian Era Death is the starkest contrast to life His crypt the cloudy canopy, Crypt – enclosure, pit The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was ...

Easter 1916 by W. B. Yeats

YEATS not Yates Remember that. Marks the transition Irish nationalist movement – strong folk tradition (Irish); independent of Great Britain (republic) W.r.t. revival of Ireland and its spirit Written after the Irish uprising of Easter 1916 Fiery spirit (Irish, not Hardy’s) About choosing roles in life – societal, macrocosmic pressures stronger than personal drive Personal choice subservient to social pressure Speaker indifferent at first but then realizes the enormity of what Ireland was trying to achieveContrast between pre- and post-uprising – all has changed Evolution – nation-public-common cause – how he changes through the poem Cursory nods show indifference which is later transformed into celebration and glorification Motley – grey – commonplace existence (no more nonchalance) Significance of "grey/Eighteenth century houses" http://www.enotes.com/topics/easter-1916/in-depth   Countess Markievicz – sweet-voiced then shrill from shouting and fighti...

The Windhover by Hopkins

Hopkins is fangirling over the kestrel - extreme Romanticism minion = subordinate/darling dauphin = nobleman (title) Hopkins is observing the bird on a brilliant morning, where the bird is the lord of the morning dappled = spotted dawn-drawn = morning brings him in riding in the wind = hovering in gusty winds; it does not just fly - it rolls metaphor of humility and contro in your own terms not always the one who's highest that's in control fact that he is witness to this bird lets him explore its inscape and the instress - it is an individual experience compared to a horse (reins) the windhover rules the sky with just two foldable wings lives in the present = unaffected, gliding smoothly in the roughest, harshest winds "My heart in hiding/Strirred for a bird" = gave up poetry, didn't write for years and then a bird comes along and makes him sit up and take notice again achieve, mastery = master of himself, without pretense or self-conscio...

First-Person Narrative

http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/ref/fiction/pov.html http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-effect-does-use-first-person-pov-bring-story-280953 http://classroom.synonym.com/analysis-effects-first-person-narrative-point-1783.html This might help with tomorrow :P