Tuesday November 10

ROMANTICISM TEST ON FRIDAY.
KNOW: all titles and authors (Cooper, Irving, Melville, Poe, Hawthorne, Holmes, Dickinson, Lowell, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Longfellow, qualities of Romanticism, the Lyrical Ballads of 1797. The test will consist of exerpts from the various texts we read. You should be able to identify the work and / or what aspect of the piece is reflective of Romanticism. These will be short answer responses.
Please familarize yourself with the following poems for discussion on Thursday.

AUSPEX*
• noun; In ancient Rome, someone who watched
for omens in the flight of birds.

by: James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

Y heart, I cannot still it,
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet, 5
Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only,
Without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,--
Woe's me, I shall be lonely 10
When I can feel no longer
The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion,
Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long 15
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.

Study questions for the above.

1. According to the first stanza, what will “fill”
the speaker’s heart when the songbirds are gone?


2. According to the second stanza, when will the speaker
be lonely?

3. What is the “sweet delusion” the speaker refers to in lines 13-14?
What will happen when the delusion ends?

4. In this poem Lowell compares songbirds to the happiness that provides
him with poetic inspiration. To what does he compare the emptiness
following the disappearance of his happiness?

5. What do the swallows represent (line 7)?

6. How does the image of the leaves falling and covering the poet represent?


Now for some Emily Dickinson

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 5
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea; 10
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

1. According to the speaker, what “perches in the soul”?

2. What type of tune does it sing?

3. When does it stop singing?
4. Name two places where the speaker has heard
the “little Bird”? What has the little never done?

5. Throughout the poem Dickinson develops a comparison between hope and a
“little Bird.” What is the effect of this comparison?

6. What qualities does the “little Bird” possess? What does this suggest
about the characteristics of hope?

7. What does this poem suggest about the human ability to endure hardships?

I like to see it lap the miles by Emily Dickinson


I like to see it lap the miles,

And lick the valleys up,

And stop to feed itself at tanks;

And then, prodigious, step


Around a pile of mountains, 5

And, supercilious, peer

In shanties by the sides of roads;

And then a quarry pare



To fit its sides, and crawl between,

Complaining all the while 10

In horrid, hooting stanza;

Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;

Then, punctual as a star,

Stop--docile and omnipotent-- 15

At its own stable door.

Study questions for the above.

1. What does “it” do to the valleys?

2. Where does it stop to feed itself?

3. What does it “chase itself down”?

4. Where does it stop?

5. In this poem Dickinson develops an implied comparison between a railroad and a horse. With what words and images does she reveal this comparison?

6. What human qualities are attributed to the train in the second and third stanzas?

7. Considering the attitude she expresses, how do you think she would have reacted to the numerous technological advances that have occurred since her death?


I never saw a moor by Emily Dickinson

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God, 5
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

(billow- large wave)


Study questions

1. What two things has the speaker never seen?
2. What does she know in spite of never having
Seen them?
3. How might the speaker have acquired the knowledge she claims to possess in the first stanza?
4. In what way is the knowledge presented in the second stanza different from the first?
5. What things do you think you know through intuition rather than through experience?



Tell all the Truth but tell it slant Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---

Study questions

1. According to the speaker, what is “too bright for our infirm delight”?
2. What must the Truth “dazzle gradually”?
3. What does Dickinson mean when she tells us “tell all the Truth but tell it slant”?
4. To what type of “Truth” do you think Dickinson is referring?
5. To what types of truths do you think people have to be led gradually? Why?


Much Madness is divinest Sense
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail --
Assent -- and you are sane --
Demur -- you're straightway dangerous --
And handled with a Chain –

1. According to the speaker, what is “divinest Sense”?

2. What is “the Starkest Madness”?

3. According to the speaker, how are you judged if you assent?

4. What happens if you demur?

5. What is paradoxical about the first line?

6. How can this be true?

7. According to the speaker, how does society define sanity?

8. How does it define madness?

9. What is the speaker’s attitude towards individuality?

10. What is the speaker’s attitude toward the society?