"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty Joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!
This poem is a conversation between a newborn baby and its mother. The mother gives the baby the chance to name itself and chooses Joy because being so young, joy is all it knows. Joy is going to be the baby's lot in life.
This poem is written in two stanzas of six lines, each with 28 syllables. The rhyme scheme is ABCDDC. One theme is The Gift of Life! I've noticed that couplets within each stanza match up with couplets of the same position in the next stanza.
The fact that the baby picks its own name symbolizes Blake's desire to see the human spirit determine its own state of bliss, rather than seek help in some religion or group organization. The main idea this poem tries to reach is when left alone, find happiness not help.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
ROMANTICISM!
Each of you needs to choose a different literary movement, research it - the characteristics, major themes, styles, employment of literary devices, authors, and bring one example of a poem from the period to share with the class and to discuss. You'll need to post all of these things on your blog so that your classmates can use it to study.
The Romantic Movement started between the 17th and 18th centuries, and produced many of the stereotypes of poets and poetry that do exist to this day; the poet, as a highly tortured and melancholy visionary. Romanticism is philosophical and mystical, it is an art and a statement. Some main ideas, or themes include dreams and visions, imagination, emotions, rebellion and creativity of the individual artist. Romanticism can employ styles of free verse, sonnet...long ones...and some poets refer to the bible. This type of poem is usually fitting as a song.
Some Poets
The Romantic Movement started between the 17th and 18th centuries, and produced many of the stereotypes of poets and poetry that do exist to this day; the poet, as a highly tortured and melancholy visionary. Romanticism is philosophical and mystical, it is an art and a statement. Some main ideas, or themes include dreams and visions, imagination, emotions, rebellion and creativity of the individual artist. Romanticism can employ styles of free verse, sonnet...long ones...and some poets refer to the bible. This type of poem is usually fitting as a song.
Some Poets
- Germans (these two worked together)
- Fredrishch Schiller
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (supreme genius of modern german literature; wanted to be a painter-color!)
- Brittish
- William Wordsworth (SONNETS; wrote "magnum opus" for Coloridge
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (wrote lyrical ballads with Wordsworth)
- Percy Bysshe Shelly
- George Gordon Lord Byron
- English
- John Keats
- French
- Victor Hugo
- American
- Walt Whitman (father of FREE VERSE; concerned w/politics)
- Edgar Allen Poe
- Not sure
- Charles Baudelaire
- Rainer Maria Rilke
- William Blake
- Talks about the bible
- called mad -idiosyncratic views- others called it creativity
- kinda symbolizes Romanticism
- Matthew Arnold
- John Clare
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