rvp, week four poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes wordsworth

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RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

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Possibilities: rhyme schemes A: sets out a thought or idea then A: idea returns—consistency or B: new idea—alternating This can continue for as long as stanza allows

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Page 1: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

RVP, Week Four

Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemesWordsworth

Page 2: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

Technique: Rhyme scheme

• Like any other element of a poem, can be read as a deliberate choice about how to organize information

• Deviation and extreme regularity can, alike, be read

Page 3: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

Possibilities: rhyme schemes

• A: sets out a thought or ideathenA: idea returns—consistencyor B: new idea—alternating

• This can continue for as long as stanza allows

Page 4: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth
Page 5: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

A ContrastPope, Essay on

ManKnow then thyself, presume not God to scan

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,

A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:

With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,

With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,

Shakespeare, “Sonnet XVIII”

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Page 6: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

———A simple Child,That lightly draws its breath,And feels its life in every limb,What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:She was eight years old, she said;Her hair was thick with many a curlThat clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,And she was wildly clad:Her eyes were fair, and very fair;—Her beauty made me glad.…

“But they are dead; those two are dead!Their spirits are in heaven!”’Twas throwing words away; for stillThe little Maid would have her will,And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

Page 7: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

Techniques so far and exercise

• Close-reading techniques• polyvalence and the OED• basic scansion/rhythm

• Unusual sentence structure• Repetition• Occasion

• implied addressee• ideal recipient

Page 8: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

Towards context I: Isolation

“…as might seemOf vagrant dwellers in the household woods,Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fireThe Hermit sits alone.” (“Tintern,” 19-22)

• WHERE ELSE?

Page 9: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

Towards context II: City, House,

CountrySo he took me thro’ a stable, and thro’ a church, and down into the church vault, at the end of which was a mill. Thro’ the mill we went, and came to a cave. Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as a nether sky appear’d beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees, and hung over this immensity.

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,It hath not been my use to prayWith moving lips or bended knees;But silently, by slow degrees,My spirit I to Love compose,In humble trust mine eye-lids close,With reverential resignationNo wish conceived, no thought exprest,Only a sense of supplication;A sense o'er all my soul imprestThat I am weak, yet not unblest,Since in me, round me, every whereEternal strength and Wisdom are.

--Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10 These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses.

What might we say about “setting?”

Page 10: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

PERFORMANCE

• Oral presence• Are speeches hard, or even impossible, to say out loud?• Do the speeches arrange speech in particular ways? • Is there a rhythm to the words, or some other oral

ordering?

• Embodiment• Does the poem intend that any particular sort of person

say the poem?• Does the poem describe a speaker, and if so that

speaker’s body?

Page 11: RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

“Tintern Abbey” out loud

• What is the rhythm of the poem, noticed in oral presentation?

• Where is it regular, where is it not?• Where does this amplify the poem’s

meanings; where might it challenge them