ENGL 3311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Metaphysical Poets, Sestet, John Donne

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dhawk270

8 Jan 2023

School

Texas Tech University

Department

English

Course

ENGL 3311

Professor

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Document Summary

Metaphysical poetry death" by herbert: an ugly beautiful death. The poem, death by george herbert, delves into the topic of death which is a popular topic in metaphysical poetry. Although death might seem like a dark subject to write about, Herbert made death seem peaceful as if going into a deep sleep. The poem begins with the speaker discussing death as being a sad state of being. It seems to the reader as if there was nothing more that could be after death besides bones turning to dust. However, as the poem continues, the speaker begins to address death as something to almost look forward to. Through the course of the poem, herbert illustrates how death is not something to fear, and almost makes it something to revere. The imagery that herbert provides gives us the main conceit of the poem when he makes the statement, flesh being turned to dust, and bones to sticks (herbert).

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Read the text below (copied from your module)

Dear Shane,

Right now you are upstairs in your room thinking that life is completely and totally unfair. The whole world is against you because there is not a single person in it that understands you. You would say that you love your friends, but the truth is that you love them more on Facebook, Tweeter and Instagram than you do in real life. In real life, you can only handle spending so much time with them before they start to annoy you because, as I mentioned before, no one really understands who you are.

Your room is a mess. The clothes that you beg for me to buy you are crumpled in a heap in the corner. When asked to clean – when asked to do anything, really – you roll your eyes (not to my face, because you are smart enough at this point to know that will

set me off) because you have a thousand more important things to do like watch Our Beloved Summer or check your phone.

You are both obsessed with and terrified by boys. Some days you think you are pretty. Some days you are certain you are the ugliest person on earth. You are sure you are being left out of something. Some party, some conversation, some sleepover is happening and you were deliberately excluded because no one cares how you feel. You have every right

in the world to be moody because life is hard. Grade 11 is pointless. There isn’t a person alive who hasn’t been able to get into the college they wanted to because they got poor grades in Grade 10. Mostly though, life is just hard and complicated and difficult and confusing. Despite this, you are never given the credit you deserve for always knowing what’s what. You know what is best for you and there is nothing more irritating than someone else (like me) presuming that they know.

I realize that when I raise these topics with you, you will not hear me. Despite all appearances, you are not a small adult. You cannot reason like an adult and so it is impossible for you to understand that I am trying to help you and guide you and not, ruin your life. This privilege I exert does not necessarily come from biology, it comes from the fact that I have been exactly where you are and I have been navigating this life for a lot longer than you. It is true that everyone has a story, and everyone’s story is unique, but loss, pain, anger, confusion and sadness are universal. These feelings don’t separate you from the world, but rather they bind you closer to it. Someone out there is feeling the exact same way you do right now, including me, my dearest girl, and I am only a few feet away. There will never be and can never be another you, but you are part of a magnificent community of humans. Humanity at times can be brutal and petty and mean-spirited, but that’s never an excuse for you to be that way. You are so much more and so much better

than a bad day.

I am not your friend. I don’t care what you think about me. I am not aiming for popularity in our house. Most importantly, we are not equals. Think about it: how can we be equals if you depend on me for everything? If you’re going to ask for extra money for whatever you want to buy, then you have to take my rules. Some people call it parenting. Greedy me, I call it authority. When you don’t need me for things, only advice and counsel, then we can explore a friendship. When I ask you to do something right now, I am trying to teach you something about success. Procrastination is a dream killer. No one ever became a grand success by doing it later. You’re right, your room is yours. I am less concerned with the state of it than I am of your mind. Ever see a happy person on Hoarders? It sounds ridiculous to you, but a clean space makes it easier to be creative and productive. When you let your room slide, you are likely to let everything else slide too, like homework.

I am not a Tiger Mom. I am not interested in you getting straight A’s (though, of course, that would be great), I am interested in you doing your absolute best. Sometimes you do your best and you fail, and you need to learn to be okay with that, too. You must learn to be good AT school, so it will be easier for you to be good AT college and AT work. Yes, of course, it’s pandering to a system, but everyone, regardless of status has to work within a system, unless you’re becoming a hermit which let’s face it, is never going to happen. When you become overly concerned with pleasing your friends and making them happy it takes away from your focus, your job, which right now is school. The balance you learn to strike right now will carry you through your entire life where friendships can be vital. But, you cannot rely on a great friendship to buy you a house.

I don’t tell you often enough how beautiful you are. Even though you are stunning, I do guess I do this on purpose. Being beautiful should never be the most interesting thing about you. A girl who relies on her looks is setting herself up to be a woman lost at sea as she gets older. We live in a world where beauty can and will open many doors, but how you choose to open them and what you do inside becomes about character. Character, moral aptitude, empathy, grace- these are the traits that will carry on your beauty far after your looks are gone. You aren’t anywhere near understanding this right now, even though I am trying to lead this change by example. When you look at me all you see is old, and mom.

Unbelievably though, I was young (and not so long ago, I might add) once, and nothing you can say will shock me. In point of fact, if I was to over share and talk about some of the things I’ve done, or still do actually, on a pretty regular basis with your step dad, it is you that would be shocked. Don’t worry, I would never, because like I said, we are not friends. I promise you this, though: as long as you tell me the truth, you will never get into trouble, though I can’t promise I won’t be disappointed. Until you have children of your own, you won’t realize the depth in which I love you. I would do anything for you and it is the great irony of life that the person I love most, I get treated the worst by. I am your greatest cheerleader and your biggest fan. Sometimes you scream “Why do you hate me!” when I am doing my job as a mother. You don’t understand that if I indeed hated you, or felt a far more

heinous thing, indifference, I simply wouldn’t bother. I would let you get on with it and shrug my shoulders and not say a word. When I stand my ground and open myself up to your vitriol and disregard and general railroading, that, my dear, is love.

The most important thing for you to understand is though you may be convinced otherwise, whatever happens in this crazy, upside down life, you will never, ever be alone. So maybe, just once in a while, will you keep this in mind and be a little kinder to me.

Your ever loving,

Mom

You are Shane, make a personal reply on the letter for you by your mom. Note, you can use English, so long as it shows how you feels, its reflects who you are.

namdontask

Found Poem

Underline the words or phrases in the text that reveal the idea of silence and/or control

As his legal wife by the grandfather's proud, intensely Yankee family. So John's grandfather had built this room for her at the back of the house, where she could spend most of the day doing what interested her most: studying the curative properties of plants. The room also served as her refuge from the family's attacks. One of their first was to give her the nickname "the Kikapu," instead of calling her by her real name, thinking that this would really upset her. For the Browns, the word Kikapu summed up everything that was most disagreeable in the world, but this was not at all the case with Morning Light. To her it meant just the opposite and was an enormous source of pride. That is but one small example of the huge difference in ideas and opinions that existed between the representatives of these two very different cultures, a gulf that made it impossible for the Browns to feel any desire to learn about the customs and traditions of Morning Light. Years passed before they began to discover a bit of the culture of "the Kikapu," when John's great-grandfather, Peter, was very sick with a lung disease. His face was constantly purple from his fits of coughing. He wasn't getting enough air. His wife Mary knew something about medicine, since her father was a doctor; she knew that in cases like his, the body of the sick person is producing too many red blood cells, so it is advisable to perform a bleeding to counter this imbalance and prevent this excess of blood cells from causing an infarction or a thrombosis, either of which can sometimes cause the death of the patient. So John's great-grandmother, Mary, started preparing some leeches for bleeding her husband. As she worked, she felt quite proud of herself for being up-to date with the best scientific knowledge, allowed her to protect her family's health using an appropriate modern method-not like "the Kikapu" and her herbs! The leeches are placed inside a glass containing a half a finger of water and left there for an hour. The part of the body to which they will be applied is washed with lukewarm sugar water. Meanwhile, the leeches are placed in a clean handkerchief, which is folded over them. Then they are turned out onto the part of the body where they are to be attached, held down firmly with the handkerchief, and pressed into the skin so they don't pierce some other spot. To continue the bloodletting after the leeches have been removed, it helps to rub the skin with warm water. To control the bleeding

angelashely6

You will require at least 5 varied annotations per age with an exception of 3 annotations for the last page (commentary, summary per page, text connections, unknown words) and should identify a minimum of 5 figurative language / literary devices throughout the story. This means that you should have a minimum of 18 annotations.

You will use the cursor highlight and comment function to complete your textual annotations, being sure to clearly identify (IN ALL CAPS) what type of annotation you are doing (i.e. COMMENTARY, SUMMARY, TEXT CONNECTION, UNKNOWN WORD, LITERARY DEVICE) and then explaining why you identified it, what it means, and/or what the connection is.

About the Author: Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was a renowned feminist author of the late 19 th century. During this period, which was also known as the Victorian Era (1837-1901), women had very little control over their own hives, and many female thinkers like Chopin fought hard for social change

[1] Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing, Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near ber It was he who had been in the newspaper office whep intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's amm. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

[5] She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was cry ing his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaver.

She was young with a fair, calm facs, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but nether indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the skyy reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air

[10] Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will - as powerless as her twa white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered ward escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, "free, freel". The vacant stare and the look of tenor that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that beld her A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She lanew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him _ sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the lace of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strong est impulse of her being!