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Thomas C. Foster
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Thomas C. Foster
How to Use This Blog
The purpose of this blog is to assist you in the analysis of your summer reading assignment for AP English. As you are reading and annotating How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, you will be required to post your study guide responses for each chapter for a minimum of 25 posts. Additionally, you should try to avoid repeating your classmate's examples; therefore, those who wait to complete the blog assignment will have a more difficult time trying to find creative and original examples. If you do utilize the same example, you must expand and look at the work in a different perspective. Finally, you will need to respond to at least five other individuals' posts. Aim for 100-200 words per response for each post, depending on the type of question you are asked to answer. Focus on facts and specific details in the novel/movie rather than making judgments or summarizing. Pay attention to the movies/TV shows you are watching and think about novels you have read. These ideas will hopefully help everyone think outside the box and dig deeper. I'm looking for the WOW factor!
Blog Archive
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2009
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May
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- Introduction: How'd He Do That?
- Chapter 1 - Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It'...
- Chapter 2 - Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion
- Chapter 3 - Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
- Chapter 4 - If It's Square, It's a Sonnet
- Chapter 5 - Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
- Chapter 6 - When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare ...
- Chapter 7 - ... Or the Bible
- Chapter 8 - Hanseldee and Greteldum
- Chapter 9 - It's Greek to Me
- Chapter 10 - It's More Than Just Rain or Snow
- Interlude - Does He Mean That
- Chapter 11 - ... More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: C...
- Chapter 12 - Is That a Symbol?
- Chapter 13 - It's All Political
- Chapter 14 - Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too
- Chapter 15 - Flights of Fancy
- Chapter 16 - It's All About Sex; Chapter 17 - ......
- Chapter 18 - If She Comes Up, It's Baptism
- Chapter 19 - Geography Matters...
- Chapter 20 - ... So Does Season
- Interlude - One Story
- Chapter 21 - Marked for Greatness
- Chapter 22 - He's Blind for a Reason, You Know; C...
- Chapter 25 - Don't Read with Your Eyes
- Chapter 26 - Is He Serious? And Other Ironies
- Chapter 27 - A Test Case
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May
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18 comments:
The sonnet I chose was "The Buried Years" by Hiram Ladd Spencer.
The twilight shadows creep along the wall,
Without, the sobbing of the wind I hear,
And from the vine-clad elm that marks the mere
The ivy leaves in crimson eddies fall.
Deeper and deeper grow the shades of night,
And, gazing in the fire, to me appears
The form of one departed with the years--
The buried years of hope, and faith and light.
"Oh that those lips had language"--would they tell
The old, old story of the bygone days--
Ere on our heart the blighting shadow fell,
And we henceforward followed parted ways?
I ask, but as I ask the embers die--
The vision fades--and answer none have I.
He is well known for his many Shakespearean sonnets, as he uses that form most often, as in this poem. This is easily recognized at a glance because the poem consists of four sentences, all occupying four lines, with the exception of the last with only two. It is even easier to identify as a Shakespearean sonnet by it's characteristic rhyme scheme: [ABBA,CDDC,EFEF,GG]. Each set of letters stays within its quatrain or couplet. Additionally, the sonnet could be split in half by subject, with the first eight lines concentrating on fact and description and the other six lines on wishing and questioning.
I chose a Shakespearean sonnet called "That Time of the Year Thou Mayst in me Behold" by William Shakespeare.
That time of the year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or a few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take me away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by
This thou perciev'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
This is Shakespearean because it's divided into four: the first four lines, the next four, the third four, and the last four which only consists of a couplet (two lines). It's a sonnet because its lines have a regular pattern of rhyme.It also includes a complex network of imagery and figures of speech that are related. The aging speaker's lost youth is being related to autumn and sunset. The rhyming lines at the end of the poem talk about how the lovers must eventually die to make their love stronger.
Donald Justice- "Sonnet: The Poet at Seven"
And on the porch, across the upturned chair,
The boy would spread a dingy counterpane
Against the length and majesty of the rain,
And on all fours crawl under it like a bear
To lick his wounds in secret, in his lair;
And afterwards, in the windy yard again,
One hand cocked back, release his paper plane
Frail as a mayfly to the faithless air.
And summer evenings he would whirl around
Faster and faster till the drunken ground
Rose up to meet him; sometimes he would squat
Among the bent weeds of the vacant lot,
Waiting for dusk and someone dear to come
And whip him down the street, but gently home.
This sonnet is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet. It is divided into two parts; the octave and sestet. The octave has a seperate rhyming scheme from the sestet. This sonnet's octave rhyming scheme is, abbaabba. The sestet's rhyming scheme is, ccddee. These types of rhyme schemes are very common in Petrarchan sonnets. Also this sonnet expresses a typical sonnet by breaking the poem up at the end of the octave. It makes the turn and Donald Justice wraps the poem up in the sestet.
I have chosen the sonnet "When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes," written by William Shakespeare.
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gates;
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
This is a Shakespearean sonnet. I recognized this as a Shakespearean because of the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. It does not have periods at the end of each quatrain, but the idea in the in the first quatrain follows the idea in the second and so on. This sonnet consists of fourteen lines separated into three quatrains and a couplet at the end which follows the form of a traditional Shakespearean sonnet. In first quatrain he introduces the miserable, sorrowing character. The second and third quatrains follow by the character describing his thoughts and feelings about his life. Lastly, the couplet finishes it up with the character deciding he is happy because all he needs is to remember the love he once had.
The sonnet I chose is "Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare.
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 fade
Nor 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.
This is a Shakespearean Sonnet because of the way that the lines are divided in it. They are divided into the four sections of four except for the last section only having two instead of four. It also follows arelatively simple rhyme scheme of [ABAB,CDCD,EFEF,GG]Shakespeare is referring to woman he loves in this poem and he is saying that she is very beautiful and saying how much he loves her.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
By: Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
This is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet. The octave and sestet are separated by punctuation and rhyme scheme. The octave has its own rhyme scheme [ABBAABBA] and so does the sestet [CDEDCE]. There are only two sentences. The first sentence is the octave and the second one is the sestet. Also, each part has a slightly different idea. The octave is about how she doesn’t remember past lovers individually. She only remembers arms being under her head, not specific names. In the sestet, Edna St. Vincent Millay writes of a tree that doesn’t remember what birds had been there. The tree only remembers that the birds where there at one point. Therefore, the octave is her situation and the sestet is her comparison of her situation to nature. This comparison ties the two components of the sonnet together through idea yet separates them by form.
The White City
By: Claude McKay
I will not toy with it nor bend an inch
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch
I bear it nobly as I live my part.
My being would be a skeleton, a shell,
If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,
And makes my heaven in the white world’s hell,
Did not forever feed me vital blood.
I see the mighty city through a mist-
The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,
The poles and spires and towers vapor kissed,
The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,
The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,
Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.
This poem is an example of a Shakespearean Sonnet because it has three quatrains and a couplet at the end. The sonnet follows the pattern of [abab,cdcd,efef,gg] which is the pattern that Shakespearean sonnets follow. The first quatrain describes a man’s hate toward white people. The second and third quatrain describe his hate more in depth and how much he dreads the white people. The couplet ends by saying how he believes that whites thrive on the suffering of those who are not like them.
The sonnet I chose was written in 1922 by Claude McKay and entitled “The White City.”
I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch
I bear it nobly as I live my part.
My being would be a skeleton, a shell,
If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,
And makes my heaven in the white world’s hell,
Did not forever feed me vital blood.
I see the mighty city through a mist—
The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,
The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,
The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,
The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,
Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.
Who knew that fourteen lines could say so much? Though a sonnet, it does not have the traditional feel one would associate with such as a Shakespearean sonnet. However, this is a Shakespearean sonnet because it structurally has three quatrains rhymed abab/cdcd/efef with a concluding couplet rhymed gg. Still, when I first read this poem, I didn’t realize it rhymed because I was struck by how it came off as somewhat unstructured, edgy, and cold.
Let’s start from the beginning. The first line and sentence is McKay’s stance. Since we know this, we, the readers can continue on to figure out what the poet is standing for as well as why he feels this way and he in return can take his time to explain. In lines 2-4, the poem begins to flow and we begin to see that thoughts that add to the original statement. With words such as “deep,” “chambers,” “heart,” and “muse” we can see the depth of his words, and by the end of this section we know this is something that the poet or subject he has created is ingrained and a part of. The lines 5-8 are especially interesting and exhibit a new level of depth, passion, and rage. In line 5-7 we learn more from the poet, but by making this quatrain one sentence instead of two, and one line longer than the last sentence the line “Did not forever feed my vital blood” is outrageously sinister. For the next six lines, at least for the most part, everything seems more dreamlike and imaginary compared to the previous eight, but by the word “contemplate” this dream spirals to the word “hate” and thus ends with a similar mixed feeling to lines 1 and 8. Even if someone never read the poem, by recognizing the many short and sudden sentences in the first eight lines and the one very flowing sentence in the last six, they would be able to get an understanding of the feel from this form.
Hillary- I hadn't noticed that we picked the same poem until I submitted mine! Though you know the form that the poem is in, I disagree with your interpretation. I believe that the city McKay is talking about is the "ideal city." Though I don't know whether or not it is an actual city, or if it's something McKay likes or dislikes, I think McKay is talking about ideals, purity, and even political correctness. For instance, when describing "the city" McKay directs the reader through the mist to view the city, which is seemingly perfect as if in a dream. This suggests that "the city" is only a dream, or rather, that it can only exist as a dream and an aspiration. At the same time, McKay is talking about how his hate makes the city itself and how his heaven would be the white city's hell. First, I think that McKay is saying that he takes pride in his position because as humans we quickly learn that we are not pure and have our own ideas and ideals that everyone does not necessarily have. As McKay says with the example of the shell, if he did not have his own ideas and ideals separate from those of everyone else he wouldn't have meat and muscle on his bones and he would be hollow like the shell and without reason. Second, McKay is saying that he didn't hate, the white city wouldn't exist because there would be no use for it and it wouldn't be seen as beautiful or heavenly but simply normal and bland. If we widen the scope on this point, we can see that McKay thinks that if an idea or belief doesn't have an opposition that it can not be beheld as something of beauty and purity. In other words, McKay could be saying that without hell there would be no heaven, and like the Chinese ying and yang, not exist without the other. Of course, there are many ways to view this, but I think this was McKay's original intent.
I chose the sonnet “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments” by William Shakespeare.
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
This is a Shakespearean sonnet. This is easily recognized by the fact that it is split up into four quatrains, with the last consisting of only a couplet. The rhyme scheme of the poem is also another way to recognize that this is a Shakespearean sonnet. The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is [ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG] like most other Shakespearean sonnets. The first two quatrains have a sort of unity. They are both talking about how the memory of a friend will be forever remembered by this sonnet. Monuments will be destroyed by war or by time, but the ancient god Mars can’t destroy a sonnet like he can monuments. The last two quatrains also have a sort of unity. They both talk about how this friends memory is memorialized by this sonnet and will last until end times.
I selected “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific ― and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise ―
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
This is an example of a Petrarchan Sonnet. It’s octet contains the rhyme scheme abbaabba, and the sestet runs bcbcbc (a bit of a variation from the original rhyme scheme, but apparently that’s allowed). This sonnet expresses the author’s fascination with Homer, or rather, the translation of Homer by George Chapman. He speaks of the legendary status of Homer and how he’s never had the fortune to enjoy it for himself, despite his many travels and experiences. However, once Chapman comes and saves the day with his translation of Homer, the author states (entering the new thought in the sestet) that he feels like he’s receiving a wonderful insight to something grand. He compares his feelings of elated discovery with an astronomer who discovers a new planet and with Cortez when he gazed over the Pacific Ocean for the first time. This is a poem of praise for Homer and Chapman, filled with wonder and awe.
The sonnet I chose was "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow" by William Shakespeare.
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer, "This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
This is quite obviously an example of a Shakespearean sonnet. It was very easy to notice this not only because it was written by Shakespeare, but because it is divided into four sections they are three quatrains and one couplet. It also contains an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme which is typical of Shakespearean sonnets. It contains fourteen lines which is also a characteristic of Shakespearean sonnets. This sonnet is about the poet attempting to scare a young man into having a child. He tells him of his future by using vivid imagery.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true mines
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempest and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Lover alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
This is a Shakespearian sonnet, because it is divided into four quatrains, where the last quatrain is only a couplet. You can tell it’s a sonnet because of the regular pattern, rhyme scheme, and the square shape it creates with its 14 lines. In this poem Shakespeare is trying to convey what it’s truly like to be in love. He’s saying when you love someone you don’t ask them to change, nor would you expect them to change for you. Love is forever, and it can’t be destroyed or shaken. No one knows love’s true worth, and love can’t stop or end in the face of danger or death. And in Shakespeare’s couplet, he dares someone prove him wrong, because that would be like trying to prove he wasn’t a writer, and that no man has ever loved.
Quick clarification, I lied. "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is NOT by Gwendolyn Brooks. He wrote a different sonnet that I had been considering. The real author is John Keats.
The sonnet I chose was "Since There's No Help" by Michael Drayton.
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,--
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,--
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!
This poem is an example of a Shakespearean sonnet. It is easily recognized because of the rhyme scheme: [ABBA,CDDC,EFEF,GG]. Other characteristics include three quatrains which is three stanzas with four lines. Next, is one stanza with two lines called a couplet. In the sonnet a man denies his true feelings after breaking up with his lover. The poem is over all sad and depressing, the man is begging that she give him one more chance.
The sonnet below is “Sonnet 13” by William Shakespeare.
O that you were your self, but love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live,
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination, then you were
Your self again after your self's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
You had a father, let your son say so.
This is a typical Shakespeare sonnet that could be recognized as his without reading the title or author. One way I could always tell if a poem was a sonnet is if it had 14 lines. This poem consists of four sentences and all of which take up there own line, except for the last two of course. For those of you who didn’t notice this adds up to fourteen. This poem could also be split into the octave and the sestet. The rhyme scheme is something that also makes it easier to identify. This poems rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. In this poem Shakespeare is describing a man that often changes. The poem is asking how a man like this can have an identity if he changes so much. At the end of the poem he is simply stating that the man should have children because they will resemble their father.
I chose "First Fight. Then Fiddle" by Gwendolyn Brooks.
First fight. Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string
With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note
With hurting love; the music that they wrote
Bewitch, bewilder. Qualify to sing
Threadwise. Devise no salt, no hempen thing
For the dear instrument to bear. Devote
The bow to silks and honey. Be remote
A while from malice and from murdering.
But first to arms, to armor. Carry hate
In from of you and harmony behind.
Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.
Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late
For having first to civilize a space
Wherein to play your violin with grace.
This sonnet is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet. The sonnet can be divided up into an octave and sestet. The rhyme scheme is an almost sure give away of the type of sonnet it is: ABBAABBA for the octave and CDDCEE for the sestet. The octave talks of playing the violin freely and with talent. The sestet says that in order to play the violin, you must fight to be able to play. Forget the music and carefree lifestyle and become a warrior so that you may create a space to play the violin.
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