Poetry I: Poe, Shakespeare, Cummings, Whitman
In Poe’s “The Raven,” the large bird enters the narrator’s home and perches upon a bust of this figure from ancient Greece.
Who is (Pallas) Athena?
Sadie scraped life with this in Gwendolyn Brooks’s “Sadie and Maud."
What is a fine-toothed comb?
In Act I, Scene 4, Goneril, describing the state of the royal court as “a riotous in . . . more like a tavern or brothel than a graced palace,” demands that Lear do this.
What is "disquantity" his "train," or get rid of his train of soldiers and followers?
It’s appropriate that in Act IV this character tells the audience, “’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.”
Who is Gloucester?
When Edgar expresses his concern about King Lear to the audience but not to the other characters on stage, he provides an example of this.
What is an aside?
It’s the word that completes the line from Shakespeare’s 12th sonnet: “And nothing ‘gainst Time’s _____can make defense”
In Dunbar’s sympathy, the song of the caged bird is “not a carol of joy or glee,” but this.
What is a prayer?
After witnessing this event at the end of Act III, a servant remarks: “I’ll never care what wickedness I do, if this man come to good.” (I need the thing that as done, the character who did the thing, and the character to whom it happened.)
What is Cornwall's removal of Gloucester's eyes?
Describing him as a “noble philosopher” in Act III, Scene 4, it’s the character Lear addresses when he says “thou art the thing itself.”
Who is Edgar or Poor Tom?
The vast majority of Shakespeare’s King Lear is written in this poetic meter.
What is iambic pentameter?
It’s the name of any two of the four children who “went down to the beach(to play one day)” in E. E. Cummings’s poem.
Who are: Maggie, Milly, Molly, and/or May?
For Dunbar, thought is able to thrive when the “fleshless _____” fades.
What is a dream?
After his scuffle with Oswald, this character is put in the stocks by Regan and Cornwall, an act that shocks Lear.
Who is Kent?
It’s the name of the metaphorical object that determines the fate of the characters with each turn.
What is the Wheel of Fortune, or La Rota Fortunae?
Gwendolyn Brooks’s “My dreams, my works, must wait till after hell” adopts this poetic form, made popular first by Petrarch and then by Shakespeare.
What is the sonnet?
In the first few stanzas of “The Raven,” we find the narrator trying to ease his pain and grief at having lost Lenore--trying "to borrow . . . surcease of sorrow"--by consulting these.
What are books?
The lines “The plant of freedom upward sprung, / and spred its leaves so fresh and young-- / its blossoms now are blowing” are just a few examples of Dunbar’s use of agricultural themes in this poem.
What is "Ode to Ethiopia"?
At the end of Act III, Scene 2, this character delivers a monologue the describes the world as suddenly tipped upside down, in which “priests are more in word than matter” and “brewers mar their malt with water.”
Who is The Fool?
In Act I, Edmund declares his allegiance to Nature rather than this, describing it as a “plague.”
What is custom?
The stanzas of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” are organized around these three verbs. (“I know what the caged bird _____; I know why the caged bird ______; I know why the caged bird ______”)
What are "feels," "beats (his wing)," and "sings"?
In Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” “Houses and rooms are full of” these things. (hint: it rhymes!)
What are perfumes?
These are the two food items stored in “jars and cabinets” in Brooks’s “My dreams, my works, must wait till after hell”
What are honey and bread?
In Act III, Scene 6, Lear, Kent, Edmund and the Fool put this object on trial, which they mistake for Goneril.
What is a stool or chair?
It’s the name of the character who tells Gloucester in Act IV, Scene 6 that “A man may see how this world goes with no eyes; look with thine ears.”
Who is Lear?
In “My dreams, my works, must wait till after hell,” the ending words “bread / lid,” “will / hell,” “hurt / heart” are examples of this kind of rhyme, useful for creating tension in poetry
What is near rhyme?