Monday, April 20 realist poetry of the late 19th century

Stephen Crane                                       Edwin Arlington Robinson                    W.E.B. Dubois

Langston Hughes                           Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Oliver Wendell Holmes                                                    Russell Lowell

Your first grade of the 4th quarter was the essay due on Friday, unless other arrangements were made with me. 

In class today: power point review of last week's vocabulary, which was postponed. Your quiz is tomorrow.

We are finishing up the unit on realism with a look at poetry.

To re-anchor ourselves, let's review what was happening in the second half of the 19th century. We will follow with modelling a poetry analysis as a class. (class handout / copy below) with Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask"  What we do not finish in class, we will complete this tommorrow.

Society and Culture

• 1. The late nineteenth century was a period of tremendous change as political empires broke up, nationalism arose, the power of the middle class replaced that of the aristocracy, and colonialism flourished.
• 2. The Industrial Revolution greatly changed the social and economic structure as steam engines increased the speed of transportation and manufacturing drew the population to urban areas.
• 3. Despite tendencies toward liberty, growing middle-class values, and industrial progress, opposition emerged that challenged the assumptions of the new social and political order and revolted against the material consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
• 4. Although there were efforts to revive religious interest, generally institutional religion diminished in influence in the late nineteenth century and was replaced by personal spiritual, moral, or philosophical beliefs.
• 5. By the late nineteenth century, colonialism had expanded so that 67 percent of the earth fell under European rule, with the most concentrated imperial efforts directed at Africa.
• Literature emerged as the artistic medium that best expressed the social, economic, and philosophical concerns of the day, moving away from the issues and styles associated with Romanticism earlier in the century.

Literature

• 1. Late-nineteenth-century writers moved toward a new style called “realism”.
• Realists sought a truthful portrayal of contemporary life, a “slice of life,” from an objective viewpoint.
• 2. Similar in principle to realism, “naturalism” placed greater emphasis on science, particularly the effects of heredity and environment on individual action.
• Please keep this material in mind, as we look at the poetry of the this time period.

We Wear the Mask

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

       We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

       We wear the mask!

Name_________________________________________

THE “TIPCASTT” METHOD OF POETRY ANALYSIS will integrate the literal and figurative meanings conveyed by a poem into a coherent understanding of the poem, highlighted by an understanding of the literary devices that helped the poem’s purpose to be realized.  

Use the rest of this worksheet to follow these steps for your given poem, writing in the spaces provided.  

STEP 1: TITLE. Write the title and author of the poem: _______________________________________________by_________________________________ Then, predict what the poem will be about: __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

STEP 2: PARAPHRASE

 Silently read the poem. Then, with your partner, each of you read the poem aloud, following along as the other reads. Finally, restate its literal meaning in your own words on the following lines. Write at least one sentence for each stanza of the poem, capturing all of its literal ideas: __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

 STEP 3: CONNOTATION.

Reread the poem and state its point of view. (1^st person singular / plural, 3^rd person limited, 3^rd person omniscient)

Then, reread the poem, looking for rhyming patterns. What is the rhyme pattern, if any? A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.  Example:

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Next, look for especially significant or unusual words in the poem. Why were they included? What meaning do they convey?

Word Line # Why included/Meaning

Word/ line #	Why included?	Meaning?

Step 4:

Look for examples of poetic devices in the poem. Describe these devices. How do such devices aid the poem in achieving its poetic effects?

Look for: simile(compares two things using like or as), metaphor (a connection between two unlike things); personification (human characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, or ideas), hyperbole (outrageous exaggeration); litotes (ironical understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (e.g., you won't be sorry, meaning you'll be glad ), synecdoche (a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”); symbolism (word which has meaning in itself but is used to represent something entirely different), alliteration (repetition of the first consonant sounds), assonance (repetition of a vowel sound e.g., penitence, reticence ).- idiom (expression that has a meaning that is only known to a particular group of people. For example: kick the bucket; raining cats and dogs); onomatopoeia (words that sound like their meaning, or mimic sounds); oxymoron (two seemingly contradictory elements, such as "wise fool," "jumbo shrimp" or "icy hot."); imagery (detailed description which incorporates the five senses -- sight, sound, smell, taste and touch)

 Note these examples below. 1.________________________________________________________________________________ 2_____________________________________________________________________________
3________________________________________________________________________________ 4________________________________________________________________________________ 5________________________________________________________________________________6________________________________________________________________________________7________________________________________________________________________________ 8________________________________________________________________________________

 STEP 5. SHIFT. Rarely does a poet begin and end the poetic experience in the same place. Discovery of a poet’s understanding of an experience is critical to the understanding of a poem. Trace the feelings of the speaker from the beginning to the end, paying particular attention to the conclusion. Look for the following to find shifts: 1. Key words (but, yet, however, although) 2. Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis) 3. Stanza division 4. Changes in line or stanza length or both.

Key words	Punctuation/ after?	Stanza division/ how?	Changes stanza / line length

Look over the above chart you created. Write two sentences about why you think the poet made particular choices.

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Step 6

Write the theme of the poem in a complete sentence. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________