3.

A Survey of 19th and 20th Century Poetry and Drama

One poem (altogether four) either by or Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Hardy,
Yeats, Eliot, Larkin, Heaney; one play by either Beckett or Pinter

1. Shelley - Ode to the West Wind

2. Keats - Ode to a Grecian Urn
3. Larkin-Church Going
4. Eliot- The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
5. Beckett- Waiting for Godot

19th Century Poetry in general

 Romanticism
 Characteristics of Romantic literature emphasize passion, emotion, and
nature. Romantic poetry was often written in common everyday language
for all to relate, not just the upper class. Nature was a focus of many
famous poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge. Wordsworth was
known as the "father of English Romanticism."
 Love and worship of Nature and dislike for the urban life.
 Love for the Medieval Age.
 Pastoral Life
 Great importance on originality

1. Shelley: Ode to the West Wind

Shelley:

 1792-1822
 Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic
poets
 visionary poet
 atheist
 friend of Byron

Ode to the West Wind

(1819)

The first stanza is an invocation to the West Wind.

 The speaker describes the West Wind as the breath of Autumn.
 Like a magician banishing ghosts or evil spirits, the West Wind sweeps
away the dead leaves. These dead leaves are multicolored, but not beautiful
 in the way we usually think of autumn leaves – their colors are weird and
ominous and seem almost diseased (like "pestilence-stricken multitudes").
 The following picture  The wind, burying seeds in the ground like a
charioteer driving corpses to their graves.
 Once the West Wind has carried the seeds into the ground, they lie there all
winter, and then are woken by the spring wind.
 West Wind a wild spirit that’s everywhere at once.
 The West Wind is both "Destroyer and Preserver"; it brings the death of
winter, but also makes possible the regeneration of spring.
 At the end of the first stanza, we (the readers) find out what the speaker
wants the wind to do: Just to be listened to,by the wind.

The second stanza: The speaker continues to describe the West Wind.
 Description of a storm, that the West Wind is bringig
 There is a parallel between the thunderclouds and the hair of Maenad,( a
women from the greek mythology, she is considered wild and crazy, she
was a companion of Dionysus.) The poet reminds us that these Mænad-
hair-like clouds go vertically all the way through the sky, from the
horizon to the center.
 metaphor: The Wind is described as a "dirge," or funeral song, to mark
the death of the old year.
 The poet ends by asking the West Wind once again to "hear" him, but we
don’t know yet what exactly he wants it to listen to.

The third stanza: The picture of the Mediterranean Sea

 It has lain calm and still during the summer, but the West Wind woken the
Mediterranean, presumably by stirring him up, The Mediterranean is
personified here as male.
 During his summertime, the Mediterranean has seen in his dreams the
"old palaces and towers" along Baiæ’s bay, places that are now
overgrown with plants
 the wind disturbs the water, making waves, but it also suggests that the
ocean is subservient (alárendeltje) to the West Wind’s amazing powers.
 Once again, the speaker ends all these descriptions of the West Wind by
asking it to "hear" him.

The fourth stanza: The speaker begins to describe his own desires more
clearly.
  He wishes he were a "dead leaf" or a "swift cloud" that the West Wind
could carry, or a wave that would feel its "power" and "strength." He
imagines this would make him almost as free as the "uncontrollable"
West Wind itself.
 The speaker is willing to compromise: even if he can’t be a leaf or a
cloud, he wishes he could at least have the same relationship to the wind
that he had when he was young, when he was young, the speaker felt like
it was possible for him to be faster and more powerful than the West
Wind. He begs the wind to treat him the way it does natural objects like
waves, leaves and clouds.
The Fifth Stanza: the most important part : he wants the wind to turn him into
its lyre.(lant) common metaphor in Romantic poetry.

 Shelley’s speaker describes himself as the harp, or "lyre," that the wind
will play. He’ll be the instrument, and the West Wind will play its own
music on him, just as it does in the branches of trees in the forest.
 The speaker and the trees of the forest are both decaying (The speaker is
getting old, the trees are loosing their leaves.)
 The speaker compares his thoughts to the dead leaves; perhaps the West
Wind can drive his thoughts all over the world in the same way it moves
the leaves even if his thoughts are garbage, at least that garbage can
fertilize something better.
 The speaker returns to the metaphor of the wind playing him as an
instrument, but this time he describes his mouth as a trumpet through
which the wind will blow its own prophecy.
 The speaker ends by asking the wind a question that seems very simple:
"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
 The symbolic weight that he’s attached to the seasons, however, makes us
realize that this is more than a question about the wheel of the year. He’s
asking whether or not the death and decay that come at the end of
something always mean that a rebirth is around the corner.
 He’s hoping that’s true, because he can feel himself decaying.

2. John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn

Keats:
 1795-1821
 One of the great figures of the second generation of Romantic Poets
(among Byron and Shelley)
 Sensual imagery, extreme emotions
 his reputation grew after his death
Ode on a Grecian Urn

 The poet is wondering about the Grecian Urn, how it looks like
 It starts with a personification ’THOU’
 Romantic ideology good, beauty and truth are moral values
 Moral good leads us towards beautiful things: love, music and sacrifice
 Iambic pentameter
 5 stanzas long- Iambic pentameter
 Ekhprasis: An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more
commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and
reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify
and expand its meaning. A notable example is “Ode on a Grecian Urn,”
in which the poet John Keats speculates on the identity of the lovers who
appear to dance and play music, simultaneously frozen in time and in
perpetual motion
 1st Scene:Man and Maidens
 2nd Scene: A Young Musician
 3rd Scene: A Sacrifice

Summary:
 A man is whispering sweet nothings to a Grecian urn, an ancient
Greek pot that is covered in illustrations. He thinks the pot is
married to a guy named "Quietness," but they haven’t had sex yet,
so the marriage isn’t official. He also thinks that the urn is the
adopted child of "Silence" and "Slow Time." Then the speaker gives
us the urn’s profession: it’s a "historian," and it does a much better
job of telling stories than the speaker possibly could. The speaker
looks closer at the urn and tries to figure out what’s going on in the
pictures that are painted on it.It looks like a bunch of guys are
chasing beautiful women through the forest. People are playing
pipes and beating on drums. Everyone looks happy. The scene is
chaotic and the speaker doesn’t know quite what’s happening.

 Not only is the urn a better storyteller than the poet, but the
musicians in the illustration have sweeter melodies than the poet.
The poet then tries to listen to the music played by the people in the
image. That’s right: even though he can’t hear the music with his
ears, he’s trying to listen to it with his "spirit." He looks at the
illustration of a young guy who is playing a song under a tree.
 Because pictures don’t change, the man will be playing his song as
long as the urn survives, and the tree will always be full and green.

 Then the speaker addresses one of the guys who is chasing a

maiden, and he offers some advice: "You’re never going to make
out with that girl, because you’re in a picture, and pictures don’t
change, but don’t worry – at least you’ll always be in love with her,
because you’re in a picture, and pictures don’t change.

 Then he starts talking about love and repeats the word "happy" a
bunch of times. He is jealous of the lovers on the urn, because they
will always be lusting after each other. Seriously. He thinks the best
part of being in love is trying to get your lover to hook up with you,
and not the part that follows.

 Now the speaker has moved to a different section of the urn. He’s
looking at an illustration of an animal sacrifice. Something
changes in the speakers mind and he strarts shouting at the urn:
Whereas before he was really excited about the idea of living in the
eternal world of the illustrations, now he’s not so sure. Something
about it seems "cold" to him. He thinks about how, when everyone
he knows is dead, the urn will still be around, telling its story to
future generations. The urn is a teacher and friend to mankind. It
repeats the same lesson to every generation: that truth and beauty
are the same thing, and this knowledge is all we need to make it
through life.

Analysis
 the Urn described as: a married bride, a story teller, a teacher
 The idea that a "melodies [. . .] unheard are sweeter" is a paradox. The
melodies are heard by the "spirit" and not by the ears.
 "Ditties of no tone" is another paradox, because it’s hard to imagine a
song that has no notes.
 the speaker is absolutely Romantic, he wants to be in love all the time
 He (the speaker) desperately wants to be a great artist
 The urn represents an innocent world, without suffering:The trees never
have to deal with losing their leaves, the violent sacrifice of a cow hasn’t
 been committed yet, and even the urn itself is "unravish’d," or pure. By
the end of the poem, however, the speaker begins to wonder if what he
took for innocence might actually be a form of cold distance and
alienation.
 The people on this urn never have to deal with changes in their world.
Their world is permanently frozen in a single moment

Structure
Greek form - In Ancient times, the ode was usually performed at a
ceremonial occasion, with music. Ode in Iambic pentameter

20th Century Poetry in General:

 Less importance on originality (e.g.allusion)
 The artist can only work with borrowed material
 Moral uncertanity after the World War
 Idea of different voices
 People have no vision of future
 20th century writers often felt alienated from the style of Victorian era,
they wrote more intellectually challenging works, and they sometimes
pushed the boundaries of acceptable content

3. Philip Larkin: Church Going

Philip Larkin:
 1922-1985
 English poet, novelist and librarian
Church Going:
 speaker sneaks into a church after making sure it's empty, lets the door
thud shut behind him and glances around at all the fancy decorations,
showing his ignorance of how sacred all this stuff is
 after a short pause, he walks up to the altar and reads a few lines from the
notes that are sitting on a lectern, then walks back out of the church and
slides an Irish sixpence into the collection box, which is basically like
donating an old shirt button
 thinks that the place wasn't worth stopping to check out, admits that he
did stop, and that this isn't the first time he's done so  wonder what he's
looking for when he keeps coming back to this place, and asks himself
 about what will happen to churches when there are no more believers left
in the world  museums? leave the buildings' doors open so that sheep
can hang out inside them?
 asks what will happen to the world when religion is gone, what the last
religious person will be like
 finally, comes out and admits that he's pleased by the church because it's a
serious place for serious questions  humanity will always have a hunger
to ask those big questions like "Why are we here?" and "Where do we go
when we die?” for this reason created religion in the first place will
never go away, even if organized churches do
 church: the building  main motif is the speaker's relationship to the
church as a physical place

o material structure of the church demonstrates that the speaker
doesn't have the religious knowledge necessary to know how the
place is supposed to affect him spiritually
o looks up at the church's roof and is surprised to find that it looks
pretty new  restored or cleaned?  "Someone would know: I
don't"
o symbolic statement: not just talking about the roof, but his
ignorance of the Christian religion
o empty church also suggests that somewhere in the world, there
might be a true believer who could convince the speaker about
religion  this person is always absent from the building, just as
faith is absent from the speaker's mind
o lets the door shut behind him  carelessness in his treatment of the
building
o what will become of churches when no one believes in religion
anymore how grass and weeds will take over the churches, unique
shape of the churches will start to crumble and become less
recognizable as time goes on  religious faith will crumble over
time and slowly become less recognizable as it decays
o purpose of the church  shell: people from the harsh world
o admits that even if he doesn't believe in religion, he still has to
respect the fact that for thousands of years, millions of people have
come to churches for a sense of spiritual meaning
 church stuff: lots of church-related objects come up in this poem
 o focuses on these objects because he lacks the spiritual knowledge to
really understand how the church is supposed to make him feel
o there is something in all of these objects that attracts the speaker,
even though he can't quite find the words to say what that thing is

4.T.S. Eliot: The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

T.S.Eliot:
 1888-1965
 British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and "one
of the twentieth century's major poets
 He moved from his native United States to England in 1914 at the age of
25
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

 examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man:

overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted, he is hesitant,
uncertain
 speaker: Prufrock seems to be addressing a potential lover (love song but
formal sign)
o afraid to be heard but wants to confess his love
o narrator (not a hero, anxious, embarrassed)  Lazar, Hamlet,
Michelangelo (women are talking about, they are intelligent)
o with whom he would like to “force the moment to its crisis” by
somehow consummating
(= to make a marriage or a relationship complete by having sex) their relationship
o but Prufrock knows too much of life to “dare” an approach to the
woman: in his mind he hears the comments others make about his
inadequacies, and he chides himself for “presuming” emotional
interaction could be possible at all
 poem moves from a series of fairly concrete physical settings (cityscape)
and several interiors (women’s arms in the lamplight, coffee spoons,
fireplaces) to a series of vague ocean images  conveying Prufrock’s
emotional distance from the world as he comes to recognize his second-
rate status (“I am not Prince Hamlet”)
 Do I dare?  when trivial things are in consideration we do not hesitate,
only when we have too much to lose and as a result we are frightened
  strongly influenced by the French Symbolists (Mallarmé, Rimbaud,
Baudelaire)
o moody, urban, isolated, yet sensitive thinker
 “Prufrock” ends with the hero assigning himself a role in one of
Shakespeare’s plays
o while he is no Hamlet, he may be useful and important as “an
attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene
or two...”  continuity: Shakespeare’s world  ours
 T.S. Eliot quotes other poets, he is one of the first poet who uses so many
allusions, he takes different voices of culture and mix them in an artistic
way he mixes different voices of culture in Alfred Prufrock
 Poetic vision the mermaids in the sea, the white hair of the
wavesRomantic, but the hesitant voice is still there
 Prufrock embodies the modern man: full of hesitation (Prototype of the
modern man)
 In a way he is just like Hamlet (It shouldn’t take 5acts to kill his father’s
murderer, Hamlet is hesitant too!!)
 Moral uncertainty after the war
 The title doesn’t resemble to a romantic poem’s title, we don’t even know
his first name (J.?)
 The poem starts with a little section of Dante’s Inferno, it describes
Prufrock’s ideal listener: who is as lost as the speaker and who will never
betray his confession
 There is a picture at the beginning of an unconscious bodyIt isn’t a
romantic image, but it sets up a tone of bleakness(sivárság)
 No fancy establishments: cheap hotels, sawdust restaurants

5.Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot

Beckett:

 1906-1989
 Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who
lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and
French

Waiting for Godot:

 Waiting for Godot consists of two men unable to act, move, or think in
any significant way, They often "decide" to leave the stage, only to find
that they are unable to move. Such inaction leads to stagnancy and
repetition in the seemingly endless cycle of their lives.
 2 men, Vladimir and Estragon, meet near a tree  converse on various
topics and reveal that they are waiting there for a man named Godot  2
other men enter (Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell his slave,
Lucky, P. converse with V. and E., L. entertains them by dancing
 after Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells V. that he is a
messenger from Godot
o tells that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that he will surely
come tomorrow
o V. asks him some questions about Godot and the boy departs
o after his departure, V. and E: decide to leave, but they do not move
as the curtain falls
 next night: V. and E. again meet near the tree to wait for Godot
o Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time Pozzo is blind and
Lucky is dumb
o Pozzo does not remember meeting the 2 men the night before
o they leave and Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait
 shortly after, the boy enters and once again tells Vladimir that Godot will
not be coming
o insists that he did not speak to Vladimir yesterday
o after he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but again
they do not move as the curtain falls, ending the play
 tree of life, tree of strife
o tree is the only distinct piece of the setting, so we’re pretty sure it
matters  biblical stuff: Jesus was crucified on a cross, sometimes
referred to as a "tree."
o Vladimir and Estragon contemplate hanging themselves from the
tree  reference to the crucifixion, parodies the religious
significance  if Jesus died for the sins of others, Vladimir and
Estragon are dying for nothing, 2 men as the 2 thieves crucified
along with Jesus
o Vladimir reports that he was told to wait for Godot by the tree,
Estragon points out, they’re not sure if this is the right tree
 o Vladimir proverb: tree of life  desire has been fulfilled  no
desires have been fulfilled  proverb is completely without truth
and reason  fits with Godot’s general stance on religion
 carrot, root veggies: Vladimir and Estragon’s disagreement over the
vegetable
o could be a hint as to the differences between the way Vladimir and
Estragon live their lives
 duality: full of pairs
o Vladimir and Estragon, the 2 thieves, the Boy and his brother,
Pozzo and Lucky, Cain and Abel, and of course the 2 acts of the
play itself
o repeated notion of arbitrary, 50/50 chances, one thief is saved and
other damned, for no clear reason
 smell: Estragon is repeatedly repelled by smells in Waiting for Godot
o Vladimir stinks of garlic, Lucky smells like who knows what, and
Pozzo reeks of a fart
o every time Estragon tries to get close to a person, he is repelled by
their smell
o smells represent one of the barriers to interpersonal relationships
Pozzos blindnesshistorical, political metaphor, Pozzo can’t see the
futurepeasants have no future; they don’t have control over their faith

There is no catharsis in the play.

Waiting for Godot is hailed as a classic example of "Theater of the Absurd,"

dramatic works that promote the philosophy of its name. This particular play
presents a world in which daily actions are without meaning, language fails to
effectively communicate, and the characters at times reflect a sense of artifice,
even wondering aloud whether perhaps they are on a stage.

Friendship is tricky in Waiting for Godot, as each character is fundamentally

isolated from each other. Relationships is between a fear of loneliness and an
essential inability to connect.

Every character in Waiting for Godot seems to live in a prison of his own
making. Each is confined to a state of passivity and stagnancy by his own
inability to act.
Suffering is a constant and fundamental part of human existence in Waiting for
Godot.