EN227: RVPFelicia Hemans

terms: REGULARITY AND interruption

Note: our interest in these terms is as things that indicate particular emphasis, which we may in turn read.

• Elision: “A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field”—generally marked when deliberate (but note also “laboratory”)

• End-stopped: opposite of enjambed—when a line is clearly bounded, and doesn’t run over—often marked by punctuation

• Stress: an emphasized syllable—may, also, be marked (punishéd, would be pronounced PUN-i-SHED)

Recall…

• See Booth, Rhetoric of Fiction (1961)

• Not useful for all poems, and you do not have to use this vocabulary; nevertheless, something to notice when present, but not to always look for

• Implied addressee• Is the speaker talking to someone?

• Is that person present? Absent? • How is that person reacting? Are they talking back, doing

something to the surface of the poem; or are they silent?

• Ideal recipient• The poem may be addressed to one person but intended

for another• An ideal recipient “gets” the poem’s references, and

may even share its aesthetic/ethical philosophy

Dramatic monologue

• Comparison: “Now, what news on the Rialto?” (MoV, I.i.1)

• Particularly characteristic of C19

• “Drama” in implication of speech taking place within larger world, which poem contains• What to read for:

• Details of surrounding world• Implied audience of poem• Potential ironies (difference of knowledge between speaker and

audience, reader and speaker, reader and audience)• “The dramatic m. gains additional force from the fact that a silent

auditor often constrains or controls the speaker's words, contributing to complex levels of irony within the poem.” (“Dramatic Monologue,” Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics)

“Performative”

• Word can be used in multiple ways; this definition via Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1962)

• Language that is not only descriptive, but also attempts to change a situation

• Examples: marriage ceremony (“now pronounce you man and wife,”) shouting “fire” in a theater

• Performatives are either felicitous (they work) or infelicitous (they don’t change situation in desired way—they fail)

“Casabianca”

• Much-recited poem of later nineteenth century

• Ways in to other Hemans poetry• Importance of speech and overhearing• A heroism unable to manifest itself in the world• Retreat into the ideal

“Corinne at the Capitol”

• Female accomplishments and anti-feminism

“A Spirit’s Return” and “Arabella Stuart”

• Assignment:• What are the poem’s formal characteristics?• Indicate how the dramatic monologue works: who is the

speaker, who is the addressee? Where, and when, does the monologue occur?

• Indicate two moments where the poem implies a response from the addressee

• Take us through the development of the poem—show how its ideas change, develop, or show some sort of forward motion

• Describe an implied performative effect: a description of what speech makes, or made, someone do