Modern/Post Modern Literature (Final Exam) Flashcards
Rupert Brooke
A patriotic poet.
He died of blood poisoning before he fought the war.
Brooke-Boosts your morale!
“The Soldier”
-If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England …rich earth…. dust… flowers… England’s rivers… Under an English heaven.
Wilfred Owen
Revealed the gore of war.
Composed most of his poetry during his war recovery, died in war shortly after.
Ow-en Owie! Owen was hurt in war and hates it!
“Anthem for the Doomed Youth”
-die as cattle, bells, choirs for mourning, who can hold the candles? Not the dead boys of war. (this talks about music… So remember some types of music are called Anthems!)
“Dulce Et Decorum Est” [Sweet and fitting it is to die for your fatherland] -The old lie.
W. H. Auden
Taught at the Oxford University and they found his old syllabus students had to read 1,600 pages in one semester.
Was a homosexual. Wanted to live in America even though he was British.
“September 1st, 1939”
-Collective Man, building skyscrapers, obsessing over their private lives,
“Musee des Beaux Arts” (Museum of Fine Arts)
-The Fall of Icarus is mentioned in the last stanza, talks about a dog scratching it’s bum on a tree.
William Butler Yeats
Irish, early poetry was romantic and lyric.
Yeats is on a Lake sailing through a second storm on a stolen swan saying a prayer.
“The Lake of Innisfree”
Innisfree is an island in northern Ireland.
He will live there and have peace. With bean rows and a honey hive. Peace comes slow.
“The Second Coming”
Poem talks about the “gyre” a cycle or a pattern. This poem is talking about what else will come and take over instead of Christianity.
“Sailing to Byzantium”
First old men, aged man, sage, I… Talks about gold.
“The Wild Swans at Coole”
the whole poem is describing the swans swimming in October.
“The Stolen Child”
-Come away oh human child, to the waters and the wild
“A Prayer for my Daughter”
This poem reminds me of when Sleeping Beauty gets her three gifts from the fairies.
Joseph Conrad/ Josef Kinrad Nalecz Korzeniowski
Born in Poland, he changed his name and settled in England.
Heart of Darkness
Chinua Achebe
Talks about the dehumanization of Africa.
“I would not call that man an artist, for example, who composes an eloquent instigation to one people to fall upon another and destroy them. No matter how striking his imagery or how beautiful his cadences fall such a man is no more a great artist than another man be called a priest who reads the mass backwards….” “To set people against people” Conrad’s rudimentary souls…
Conrad is now dead…Unfortunately his heart of darkness still plagues us.
“I will accept just any traveller’s tales solely on the grounds that I have not made the journey myself: I will not trust the evidence even of a man’s very eyes when I suspect them to be as jaundiced as Conrad’s.
Known to be “notoriously inaccurate in the rendering of his own history.”
James Joyce
Dubliners
“Araby”
-He goes to the bazaar and realizes that he has been vain.
“Eveline”
-She is on the boat and can’t decide to stay or to leave.
“The Clay”
-Maria is liked by everyone. Sings for the group.
“The Dead”
-Gabriel wants to be philosophical but he is afraid of failure.
George Bernard Shaw
Pygmalion
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
T. S. Eliot
Born in America but lived most of his life in England and got his citizenship there.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
-Etherized on the table, yellow fog/smoke, time, time, time, Do I dare? they will say he is ugly, pinned wriggling on the wall, head is going bald brought in on a platter, That is not what I meant at all, do I dare eat a peach?
“Journey of the Magi”
- first stanza the poem talks about the long and hard journey that the magi had walking to the place.
- second stanza talks about Christ’s life.
- third stanza talks about birth and death
“Waste Land”
I. The burial of the dead…..
-April is the cruelest month of all. (girl at a funeral)
-hyacinth girl
-taro card reader Madame Sosostris
-London bridge, has that corpse began to sprout?
II. A game of chess
First woman getting ready artificially
Second woman got her tongue cut out. ‘Jug Jug’
Third woman looses her mind
Fourth doesn’t want to have another child.
III. The Fire Sermon
Song on the Thames river
Rat running across the banks. It all seems dead.
Guy with wrinkled breasts, man and a woman.
Woman waits for man and he has his way with her.
IV. Death by Water
Man dies by drowning, picked apart by fish.
V. What the Thunder Said Talks about rock and water. Talks about great cities falling. Thunder says "give, sympathize, and control." "Self Control, alms giving, and compassion." Ends in Shanti Shanti Shanti
Dylan Thomas
Uses Welsh influences to write. Blood, sea, ghost, grave, death, light, time, sun, night, wind, love and rain.
Thomas the fern is forcing poems on gentle people
“The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”
Talks about the force how it drives nature then him. Worms
“Fern Hill”
He is reminiscing of his time in nature. Refers to himself as green.
“Poem in October”
Talks about his birthday, and a water scene with boats.
Birds are mentioned and also apples.
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” Villanelle
Seamus Heaney
Irish poet.
Heaney H-Helicopter with a singing skunk lands on a grave or memorial saying postscript.
“Personal Helicon”
Wells and echoes. Helicopter diving into a well
“The Skunk”
He is remembering a loved one with oranges and eucalyptus scents. The skunk reminds him of her.
“The Singer’s House”
Poem talks about salt and seals and how they go in for singers.
“In Memoriam Francis Ledwidge”
Reminiscing on the war. some priest goes to war when he doesn’t have to. Poem refers to bronze and cows and remembering this soldier and how he died. Political ties.
“Postscript”
going for a drive to see the ocean and the slate rocks. You find swans there and they catch your heart off guard.
Postscript
Seamus Heaney
The skunk
Seamus Heaney
In Memoriam Francis Ledwidge
Seamus Heaney
Personal Helicon
Seamus Heaney
The Singer’s House
Seamus Heaney
