Literature Class

[deadwing2112]

So far I've read in English Block Class this year was:

 

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

-didn't like

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

-really enjoyed

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

-really enjoyed

Into The Wild by Jon Kraukauer

-really enjoyed also

Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck

-liked this one also

 

Pretty sure that's just about all where reading this year.

[barney_rebel]

 

 

Autumn Daybreak

 

Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud

At dawn, a fortnight overdue,

Jostling the doors, and tearing through

My bedroom to rejoin the cloud,

 

I know - for I can hear the hiss

And scrape of leaves along the floor -

How many boughs, lashed bare by this,

Will rake the cluttered sky once more.

 

Tardy, and somewhat south of east,

The sun will rise at length, made known

More by the meagre light increased

Than by a disk in splendour shown;

 

When, having but to turn my head,

Through the stripped maple I shall see,

Bleak and remembered, patched with red,

The hill all summer hid from me.

 

Edna St Vincent Millay

 

 

[barney_rebel]

When You Are Old

 

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

And paced among the mountains overhead

And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

 

William Butler Yeats

[barney_rebel]

Here I Love You

Pablo Neruda

 

 

Here I love you

In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.

The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters

Days, all one kind, go chasing each other

 

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.

A silver gull slips down from the west.

sometimes a sail. High, high stars.

 

Oh the black cross of a ship.

Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.

Far away the sea sounds and resounds.

This is a port.

Here I love you.

 

Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.

I love you still among these cold things.

Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels

that cross the sea towards no arrival.

I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.

My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.

I love what I do not have. You are so far.

My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.

But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.

 

The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.

And as I love you, the pines in the wind

want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

 

 

[*Limelight*]

QUOTE (deadwing2112 @ Nov 30 2008, 12:29 PM)

So far I've read in English Block Class this year was: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne -didn't like The Crucible by Arthur Miller -really enjoyed The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -really enjoyed Into The Wild by Jon Kraukauer -really enjoyed also Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck -liked this one also Pretty sure that's just about all where reading this year.

my english teacher told me we are reading Of Mice and Men for a novel study!

[deadwing2112]

QUOTE (*Limelight* @ Dec 1 2008, 10:10 PM)

QUOTE (deadwing2112 @ Nov 30 2008, 12:29 PM) So far I've read in English Block Class this year was: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne -didn't like The Crucible by Arthur Miller -really enjoyed The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -really enjoyed Into The Wild by Jon Kraukauer -really enjoyed also Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck -liked this one also Pretty sure that's just about all where reading this year. my english teacher told me we are reading Of Mice and Men for a novel study!   The first half of the book I had a really tough time liking, since it was mostly just an introduction for the last 30 or so pages of the book. The ending made the book worthwhile. Its a really short read.

Edited December 2, 2008 by deadwing2112

[goose]

QUOTE (Cygnalschick @ Nov 29 2008, 01:24 AM)

QUOTE (goose @ Nov 28 2008, 11:14 PM) CC, I really liked these lines from Li-Young Lee's "Black Petal", written for a brother who died young... "Does someone want to know the way to spring? He'll remind you the flower was never meant to survive the fruit's triumph. He says an apple's most secret cargo is the enduring odor of a human childhood, our mother's linen pressed and stored, our father's voice walking through the rooms." http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19804 Glad you liked it! I actually got to meet him last tuesday. He came to my university to do a reading, and he signed a book for me He was really a very soft-spoken and witty kind of guy. It was awesome to be in the presence of such a talented poet Congrats on the meet-up!

[goose]

QUOTE (barney_rebel @ Nov 30 2008, 04:28 PM)

Here I Love You Pablo Neruda Here I love you In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself. The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters Days, all one kind, go chasing each other The snow unfurls in dancing figures. A silver gull slips down from the west. sometimes a sail. High, high stars. Oh the black cross of a ship. Alone. Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet. Far away the sea sounds and resounds. This is a port. Here I love you. Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain. I love you still among these cold things. Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels that cross the sea towards no arrival. I see myself forgotten like those old anchors. The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there. My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose. I love what I do not have. You are so far. My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights. But night comes and starts to sing to me. The moon turns its clockwork dream. The biggest stars look at me with your eyes. And as I love you, the pines in the wind want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

I love Neruda! A great way to get introduced to his work is to check out the movie "Il Postino".

 

Another great poet is the Federico Gracia Lorca. His stuff is amazing, but some of his best work loses something in the translation ("Romance a la luna, luna, for example).

 

Here's one..."The Guitar"

 

The weeping of the guitar

begins.

The goblets of dawn

are smashed.

The weeping of the guitar

begins.

Useless

to silence it.

Impossible

to silence it.

It weeps monotonously

as water weeps

as the wind weeps

over snowfields.

Impossible

to silence it.

It weeps for distant

things.

Hot southern sands

yearning for white camellias.

Weeps arrow without target

evening without morning

and the first dead bird

on the branch.

Oh, guitar!

Heart mortally wounded

by five swords.

Edited December 5, 2008 by goose

[goose]

A shorter Lorca piece, again inspired by flamenco guitar.

 

Riddle of the Guitar

 

In the round crossroads,

six maidens are dancing

Three of flesh

and three of silver

Yesterday's dreams search for them,

but a golden Polyphemus

is embracing them.

The guitar!

[iluvgeddy05]

I was an English major!

[barney_rebel]

William Carlos Williams is also a great poet.

[*Limelight*]

We get to read Kubla Kahn on Monday

[goose]

[*Limelight*]

[*Limelight*]

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

Loved that poem, long but amazing.

[*Limelight*]

Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth, another great one.

 

After reading Coleridge and Wordsworth, i can see why they could not do a poem together.

[Finding IT]

[goose]

[goose]

[*Limelight*]

[*Limelight*]

from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:

 

Apostrophe To The Ocean

 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin, his control

Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan

Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

 

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields

Are not a spoil for him, - thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray

And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth: - there let him lay.

 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake

And monarchs tremble in their capitals,

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee and arbiter of war, -

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar

Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee -

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free,

The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts: - not so thou,

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play;

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed - in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; - boundless, endless, and sublime -

The image of Eternity - the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

 

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy

I wanton'd with thy breakers - they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror - 't was a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here.

[iluvgeddy05]

[barney_rebel]

[Finding IT]

In college, I had an MR2 with the vanity plate, PRUFROC. I love the poem and nearly all of Eliot's work, except for his unfortunate play, Murder in the Cathedral.

[*Limelight*]