Knox Grammar School

2/1/2011

2011Imagery

John Keats: 1795 - 1821'The great beauty of Poetry is, that it makes every thing every place interesting'John Keats to his brother George, 1819.

John Keats's literary career amounted to just three and a half years. It began in July 1816 after he passed the apothecaries' examination at Guy's Hospital and lasted until late 1819.

He used imagery to arouse emotions and provoke though rather than simply paint a picture. Keats’ synaesthetic imagery involved combining the senses such as sight and sound to convey the unity of even the most dissimilar of things.

Literary criticism and articles on Romanticism: http://www.literaryhistory.com/19thC/KEATS.htm ‘Ode to a Nightingale’:http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/nighting.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wdLPvV7hLg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xqkNem9xb0 ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’:http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/urn.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzPb_RFoC14&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE-6gS8s-D8&feature=related ‘Bright Star’:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqkTe9DVK3s&feature=related The Romantics:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpAkWNCFEI0&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeHRKmr36hI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N-4bxJUP3Y&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a18xsN_eJMY&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbymicBlJMg&feature=related -

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Ode to a Nightingale – May 1819

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, - That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

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I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain - To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

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Ode on a Grecian Urn - 1819

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

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O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Ode on Melancholy - 1819

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

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Sonnet on sitting down to read King Lear once again

O GOLDEN tongued Romance, with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit: Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion, Begetters of our deep eternal theme! When through the old oak Forest I am gone, Let me not wander in a barren dream, But, when I am consumed in the fire, Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.

Bright Star – Published 1838

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

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Robert Gray‘My poems are about visual experience becoming language’ Robert Gray.

Robert Gray who was born in 1945 grew up in Coffs Harbour. He experienced a difficult childhood. He published his first anthology in 1973. He calls himself an imagist who prefers similes.

In a recent interview Gray referred to the power of imagery:

‘The fundamental language of human beings is imagery. We think in images. The language we dream in is images. It’s not words; it’s images. That’s where the emotions lie, in images. They’re embodied and preserved as memories and imagery. And my treatment of an image is transparent. …I don’t write with words, I write with images. And, by images, I also mean sounds, because the sound is an image, you know. When I say, in a poem there’s an image–which is the horse’s lumpy hooves clump on the planks–and you’re seeing the horse’s lumpy hooves clump on the planks, you hear it, and hearing makes you see. Makes you see it all the more intensely. You actually see through the ear. And in poetry, poetry is that sort of writing that makes you see through the ear as well as through the image, you know. And you see through the texture of the language. The texture of the crisp lines about the secret ministry of frost in Coleridge–which sounds like walking on the creeping frost, crisp frost, you know. Everything goes to enliven the senses in poetry. And so…when I’m writing, it’s not the language that’s important, it’s the imagery…’

Read two insightful articles on Gray at: http://www.marktredinnick.com.au/index.php/writing/more/under_the_mountains_and_beside_a_creek/ and http://authspot.com/poetry/robert-gray-a-modern-influence/an. Read an interview with Gray at: http://www.doubledialogues.com/archive/issue_five/gray_mccreddin.htm Critical notes, reviews and interviews at: http://www.duffyandsnellgrove.com.au/TeachersNotes/notes/Graytn.html

Sultry night. The moon is small and fuzzy, an aspirin in a glass of water.

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Flames and Dangling Wire

On a highway over the marshland.Off to one side, the smoke of different fires in a row,like fingers spread and dragged to smudge.It is the always-burning dump.

Behind us, the city driven like stakes into the earth.A waterbird lifts above this swampas a turtle moves on the Galapagos shore.

We turn off down a gravel road,approaching the dump. All the air wobblesin some cheap mirror.There is a fog over the hot sun.

Now the distant buildings are stencilled in the smoke.And we come to a landscape of tin cans,of cars like skulls,that is rolling in its sand dune shapes.

Amongst these vast grey plastic sheets of heat,shadowy figureswho seem engaged in identifying the dead –they are the attendants, in overalls and goggles,

forking over rubbish on the dampened fires.A sour smokeis hauled out everywhere,thin, like rope. And there are others moving – scavengers.

As in hell the devilsmight poke about through our souls, after scrapsof appetitewith which to stimulate themselves,

so these figuresseem to be wandering despondently, with an eternitywhere they could findsome peculiar sensation.

We get out and move about also.The smell is huge,blasting the mouth dry:the tons of rotten newspaper, and great cuds or cloth....

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And standing where I see the mirage of the cityI realise I am in the future.This is how it shall be after men have gone.It will be made of things that worked.

A labourer hoists an unidentifiable mulchon his fork, throws it in the flame:something flapslike the rag held up in ‘The Raft of the Medusa’.

We approach another, through the smokeand for a moment he seems that demon with the long barge pole.It is a man, wiping his eyes.Someone who worked here would have to weep,

and so we speak. The rims beneath his eyes are wetas an oyster, and red.Knowing all that he does about us,how can he avoid a hatred of men?

Going on, I notice an old radio that spillsits dangling wire –and I realise that somewhere the voices it receivedare still travelling,

skidding away, riddled, around the arc of the universe;and with them, the horse-laughs, and the Chopinwhich was the sound or the curtains lifting,one time, to a coast of light.

Journey: the North Coast - 1998

Next thing, I wake up in a swaying bunk,as though on board a clipperlying in the sea,and it’s the train, that booms and cracks,it tears the wind apart.Now the man’s gonewho had the bunk below me. I swing out,cover his bed and rattle up the sash –there’s sunlight rotatingoff the drab carpet. And the water swayssolidly in its silver basin, so coldit joins together through my hand.I see from where I’m bentone of those bright crockery days

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that belong to so much I remember.The train’s shadow, like a birds,flees on the blue and silver paddocks,over fences that look split from stone, and banks of fern,a red clay bank, full of roots,over a dark creek, with logs and leaves suspended,and blackened tree trunks.Down these slopes move, as a nude descends a staircase,slender white gum trees,and now the country bursts open on the sea -across a calico beach, unfurling;strewn with flakes of lightthat make the whole compartment whirl.Shuttering shadows. I rise into the mirrorrested. I’ll leave my hairruffled a bit that way – fold the pyjamas,stow the book and wash bag. Everything done,press down the latches into the case,that for twelve months I’ve watched standing outof a morning, above the wardrobein a furnished room.

A Day at Bellingen - 1998

I come rowing back on the mauve creek, and there’s a daylight moon among the shabby trees, above the scratchy swamp oaks and through the wrecked houses of the paperbarks; a half moon drifting up beside me like a jelly fish. Now the reflected water becomes, momentarily, white— magnesium burning. My oars have paused, held in their hailing stance— are melting; and the long water is a dove-grey rippled sand. A dark bird hurries low in a straight line silently overhead. The navy-blue air, with faint underlighting; Has gauze veil hung up within it, or a moist fresh Smoke. I land in the bottom of an empty paddock,

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at a dark palisade of saplings…

Diptych

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The Meatworks

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