Slideshow for the ninth lecture in my summer course, English 10, "Introduction to Literary Studies: Deception, Dishonesty, Bullshit." http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/m15/

1. Lecture 9: The Things
You Can’t Say (in
Public)
PATRICK MOONEY, M.A.
ENGLISH 10, SUMMER SESSION A
6 JULY 2105

2. ●
Quotations always have to be exact.
– down to the shortest word, smallest punctuation mark,
and even issues of spelling and capitalization.
– for poetry, this means you must also preserve line
breaks, because they are taken to be significant in this
context.
– Any departures from perfect accuracy have to be
indicated (often with square brackets).
●
“Avoid the error of obviously …”
●
Integrate quotes into the grammatical structure of
sentences in which they appear.
Quotations in papers

3. ●
Original text:
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know
(Shelley, “England in 1819,” lines 1–4)
●
Quoted with adaptations:
Percy Shelley writes of “[r]ulers who neither see nor feel nor
know,” speaking of “[a]n old, mad, blind, despised, and dying
King” and “[p]rinces […] who flow / Through public scorn”
(lines 4, 1, 2–3)

4. The Pushkinian sonnet
He reads it through twice, somewhat chary,
Of yet one more time being had.
It goes: Dear Yuppie, I am wary
Of answering a personal ad.
This is the first time, I should mention,
That I have broken my convention
Of reticence. But, well, here goes:
I rather liked your literate prose.
As an attorney, the clear crafting
Of words (our stock-in-trade) excites
My admiration. Nothing blights
A document like sloppy drafting.
Your ad, if I may be allowed
To matronize you, does you proud.
(Seth 2.26)
●
Popularized by Alexander
Pushkin in Russian with the
publication of Eugene Onegin
(1825–32).
●
Iambic tetrameter, but …
●
Structured not just in terms of
rhyme, but also has structured
occurrences of masculine/
feminine rhymes:
aBaBccDDeFFeGG
– Uppercase: masculine (final
syllable stressed)
– Lowercase: feminine (extra
final syllable, unstressed)

5. Edward Estlin Cummings (1894–1962)
●
Often written “e.e. cummings”
– There is no definitive
evidence that cummings
himself preferred this
orthography
●
Essayist, novelist, painter,
playwright, and poet
●
Probably best known for his
formal poetic
experimentation
●
Rarely titled his poemsSelf-portrait, c. 1920

6. e.e. cummings
●
Despite the emotional heaviness of
several of today’s selections,
cummings is best known for his early,
Romantic-influenced work, which is
much lighter.
●
cummings’s work often stretches the
limits of traditional poetic form
without abandoning it completely.
●
Notice the rhythm of “i sing of Olaf
glad and big” …
Cummings, 1953

7. ●
Much of “Olaf” depends for its effect on the tension
between the grammatical (syntactic) structures and the line
breaks:
but---though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--- (lines 7-14)
●
Here, cummings constructs a series of linked dependent
clauses to propel the reader, headlong, through Olaf’s
experience.

8. ●
Parataxis: Grammatical arrangement of items, clauses,
or sentences in “equal” constructions.
– The sun was shining brightly. We went for a walk.
– The sun was shining brightly; we went for a walk.
– The sun was shining brightly, and we went for a walk.
●
Hypotaxis: Grammatical arrangement of elements that
subordinate one clause or element to another.
– Often through subordinating conjunctions: although,
as, because, before, in order that, until, since, whereas
… many more …
Some grammatical terminology

9. His wellbelovèd colonel
(trig westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand; but—
though an host of overjoyed noncoms
(first knocking on the head him)
do
though icy waters
roll
that helplessness
which other stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl
while kindred intellects evoke allegiance
per blunt instuments—
Olaf
(being to all intents a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
(lines 4–17)

10. “Anyone lived in
a pretty how
town” (515;
reader page 236)
●
What “is happening” in this
poem?
– In terms of its plot?
– In terms of form and
meaning?
●
To what extent can we call
this poem a “narrative”?
●
To what extent is it a poem?
●
To what extent is it
“meaningful”?

11. Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
●
Experienced bipolar episodes for much of her adult life.
●
Encouraged to write poetry by her therapist in 1955 as a form
of therapy.
●
Writing experiences brought her into contact with some of the
best-known American poets of her time
– Including Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, W.D. Snodgrass,
Maxine Kumin, etc.
●
Pulitzer prize for Live or Die (1967).
●
Last act before her suicide was to finalize publication details
for The Awful Rowing Towards God (1975).

12. “
”
Lowell’s “Skunk Hour” and Sylvia Plath’s “Lady
Lazarus” were true examples [of confessional
poetry] because they put the speaker at the center
of the poem in such a way as to make his
psychological vulnerability and shame an
embodiment of his civilization. . . . [A] genuine
confessional poem has to be superbly successful
artistically if it is to achieve this fusion of the
private and the culturally symbolic, but it must at
any rate be far more highly charged than the usual
poem.
M.L. Rosenthal on “confessional” poetry
(1967)

13. The self-portrait of e.e. cummings (slide 5) is out of copyright and in the
public domain because it was first published prior to 1923.
Original source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EECummings_pd4.jpg
Walter Albertin’s 1953 photo of cummings (slide 6) is in the public domain
because it is part of a collection by the New York World-Telegram & Sun that
was donated to the Library of Congress, and released into the public domain
as part of that donation process.
Original source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E._E._Cummings_NYWTS.jpg
Media credits