Unit 4 Poetry Flashcards
“Corinna’s Going A-Maying” Robert Herrick
poem in which the speaker urges his beloved, Corinna, to arise from bed and join him in the festivities of May Day already in progress.
Robert Herrick Renaissance:
Revived classic lyric, well educated and was famous for his thought, imagery, and romance. Admired Horace (outstanding Latin lyric poet with themes of his love, friendship, philosophy, and the art of poetry) and Catullus (expressions of love and hatred are generally considered the finest lyric poetry of ancient Rome)
17th Century England:
turbulent with new traditions, religious intolerance, and prejudice, religion took over with strict rules
The Sun Rising by John Donne
the speaker orders the sun to warm his bed so that he and his lover can stay there all day instead of getting up to go to work. The poem’s playful use of language and extended metaphor exemplifies Donne’s style across his work, erotic and religious alike.
John Donne
was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets
To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
Over the course of the poem, the speaker develops this argument through a series of elaborate poetic conceits that are often humorous and overstated. In the end, though, his message is quite straightforward: his coy mistress should have sex with him now because life is too short.
Andrew Marvell:
embodiment of the change of the 17th century. Marvell wrote a varied array of lyrics that blend Cavalier grace with Metaphysical wit and complexity. attacking the royal court and the established church in both prose and verse.
My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
“My Last Duchess” is a dramatic monologue. The speaker, a duke, is talking with the representative of a count. The duke and the representative have paused in the middle of a walk, as two characters in the theater might pause to look at something while passing across the stage.
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax
e. e. Cummings
Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax. He abandoned traditional techniques and structures, creating a new, highly idiosyncratic means of expression through poetry. Highly criticized both for this form and for not departing from it, he created meaning in words using free verse in interesting ways
In Just by e. e. Cummings
celebrates the thrills, pleasures, and subtle dangers of spring—both the literal season and the symbolic time of life. Childhood, in this free verse poem, has a lot in common with the very earliest part of spring, when the world feels full of delicious, muddy potential. But the strange old “balloonman” who whistles his way through the landscape reminds readers that neither the springtime of the year nor the springtime of childhood lasts forever.
Since Feeling is First by e. e. Cummings
a love poem that celebrates the joys of romance. The speaker also suggests that emotions tend to overshadow thoughts, arguing that feeling itself is something more immediate and profound than logic or reason. The poem exemplifies Cummings’s unique poetic style, which often plays with standard grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Interestingly enough, the poem’s speaker claims that analyzing life like a piece of syntax—breaking down its grammar and rules—keeps people from being present in life and fully appreciating things like love.
I Being Born a Woman and Distressed by Edna St. Vincent Millay
In the poem, Millay separates lust from rationality and, even, affection. Lust, Millay’s speaker makes clear, can exist without either—a rather radical opinion for a female writer to take at the time. Although the poem is written using a classic form, its frank portrayal of lust and women’s sexuality subverts many traditional expectations for sonnets as well as for depictions of women.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd
Girl Powdering Her Neck by Cathy Song
Cathy Song interpreted the painting Girl Powdering Her Neck by Kitagawa Utamaro with the ekphrastic poem, “Girl Powdering Her Neck.” Song uses poetry to create dialogue between the reader and the painting. Her descriptions bridge the gap between the painted image of the beautiful “Picture Bride,” and the life the image claims to represent. The girl is identified by beauty, however Song’s poetry allows the reader to see beyond the surface.
Cathy Song
American poet who has won numerous awards including the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. She uses her heritage, coming from an Asian American culture, as the key compartment for her work.
