ENG 110 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Rhyme, Ontario, Quatrain
ENG 110
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Week one Lit Across Borders
My Papa’s Waltz Notes:
• My Papa’s Waltz is lyric poetry. Lyric poetry is considered by the Greeks to be an expression of a single
singer. Associated with emotional expression. You get a single unified impression by the end of the lyric.
• Lyric is a brief subjective poem. It is not a narrative poem and a story cannot be extracted. A lyric poem is
written in first person and that is how it is distinguishable from other poems.
• A personal expression of an emotion that is imaginatively delivered. Often short. Get a heightened sense
that things are happening in the present moment. Feels like there is an intimate connection between the
reader and the first-person voice. Sometimes the lyric poetry is addressed to another person. That is the
case in this poem.
• Today the lyric is one of most popular forms of poetry. It is intimate and personal which is why it’s
important in this age of individuality. It really engages with the world.
• A poems date is very important as it gives it context.
• The word My Papa’s signifies that is a personal experience and quite intimate. The word waltz is being
used ironically. Waltz is a dance but they use the word much differently. It is important to differentiate the
speaker’s voice from the persona. The persona of this poem is a child. The hint is my right ear scraped a
buckle.
• The child is being carried off to bed. It is past his bedtime and his mother is frowning and assessing the
situation. The father seems like he has had a couple drinks. This might be a negative connotation. It is hard
to cling to his father when he is clearly drunk. But the child seems to adore his father.
• This poem is also about social class. The father is the working class and seems to work with his hands.
Signifies the hardship with labour. Father needs the release that alcohol brings. Life is hard, and sad and
terrible. There will always be a need for release like drinking and dancing. The boy is clinging to his papa
out of love.
Week 2 Lit Across Borders
Blackberry Eating Galway Kinnell
• There is 1 stanza. It is a contemporary poem. There are few periods.
• Uses the style of enjambment. It is when lines of poetry runs into the next. Used by contemporary poets
when writing free verse.
• The poem is in the present tense. Eating blackberries is a continual action.
• There is a lot of rhythm in this poem as it uses the repetition of sounds and words. Uses alliteration to do
this.
• Uses similes. Like and as.
• Blackberries are a metaphor for words. Its as if the speaker is having trouble speaking. It is about a poet
making an art out of words. It is praising words and the art of writing and language.
• From the first line we are in the individuals experience in late September. In late September opens and
closes the poem. This phrase acts as a bookend.
• The second line is not smooth almost like a stutter. The poet is setting up a repetition of sounds. P, S, and
B.
• He is talking about a certain type of blackberries that are most delicious in the late harvest. He personifies
blackberries when they are prickly and a penalty. He is talking about his love for writing and how he is
stuck in his own head. As I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth.
• “Falls almost unbidden to my tongue” refers to how he does not know how certain words come to him. He
is describing the richness of eating blackberries which is a metaphor for the richness of language.
• Poem is organized around 3 parts. After breakfast, tongue, and September. The italicized words are
important as they stand out.
• He is talking about the joy writing brings him. The poem also plays on the senses.
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Sonnets
• Sonnet is very old from the 13th century, originating in Italy.
• There are 2 types of sonnets, Italian and English.
• Thomas Yatt introduced the Italian sonnet to England and modified the sonnet. Shakespeare used the
sonnet and it is now known as the Shakespearian sonnet.
• The sonnet is a lyric poem. They are subjective and personal. But they follow a strict form. Written in a
stanza that has 14 lines written in iambic pentameter. Also follows rhyme scheme.
• In the Italian sonnet there is the octave (8 lines) and the sestet (6 lines). 2 divisions. Follows rhyme
scheme and states a proposition or a question.
• In the English sonnet there is a single stanza composed of 3 quatrains composed of 4 lines each. These 4
lines each have their own rhyme scheme. Poem is finished by a rhyming couplet. Has iambic pentameter.
Rhyme scheme: Ab AB CD CD EF EF GG. The couplet often introduces something new.
• In Shakespeare’s hand this couplet is often profound. A distinctive shift. The sonnet has remained a
popular form of poetry, but is challenging. Based on the precision of expression.
Shakspeare’s sonnets
• He wrote a lot of sonnets (154), to different people. He refers to relationships with lovers. Sonnets 1 to 126
are written to a “young man.”
• Sonnets 127 to 154 are referred to the “dark lady.”
• Sometimes he seems to reference a rival poet.
• The young man and the dark lady betrays Shakespeare as they both have affairs.
• His sonnets were only numbered. The title is in brackets because the editor did so (Kelly Mays). Brackets
tell you this is an editorial intervention, but it doesn’t originate with Shakespeare.
• He uses language typical of his day.
Sonnet 60
• Sonnet 60 was written in 1609. This poem talks about the significance of life.
• In the first quatrain he is comparing the waves and the tide to the way time passes, moving closer to our
death.
• In the second quatrain he personifies time by capitalizing it. This charts the sun’s position throughout the
day which is a metaphor for our lives. From dawn, high noon, dusk, darkness. Linked to the way our lives
progress. Newborn, youth, adult, old age.
• In the third quatrain he talks about how time damages youth. It makes us age. He may be talking about his
lover the young man and how time changes his appearance. Time is unyielding and unrelentless like a tide.
There is no stopping it as it is nature’s way. The wrinkles on one’s brows will always show up.
• But he also acknowledges that time is a gift which has the element of sadness and loss. Time also becomes
a villain like a reaper with a scythe.
• The last couplet shifts. “Yet” signals a new direction. This is the first time the persona of the poem finally
acknowledges himself using “my.”
• “His cruel hand” is time. He does not capitalize time to make it seem less important. Because his worth and
the poem is more important.
• “Hope my verse shall stand” means his poem will outlast time which is true. Also the young mans worth
will continue despite time’s cruel hand.
• Before the couplet the poem’s tone is sad, bracing the inevitability of time and the shift at the end is a
positive outlook which is very refreshing.
Sonnet 130
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Document Summary
My papa"s waltz notes: my papa"s waltz is lyric poetry. Lyric poetry is considered by the greeks to be an expression of a single singer. You get a single unified impression by the end of the lyric: lyric is a brief subjective poem. It is not a narrative poem and a story cannot be extracted. A lyric poem is written in first person and that is how it is distinguishable from other poems: a personal expression of an emotion that is imaginatively delivered. Get a heightened sense that things are happening in the present moment. Feels like there is an intimate connection between the reader and the first-person voice. Sometimes the lyric poetry is addressed to another person. That is the case in this poem: today the lyric is one of most popular forms of poetry. It is intimate and personal which is why it"s important in this age of individuality.
