Woden’s Day, September 5: The Poetry of Paradox
EQ#1: What is “paradox,” and how is it an expression of and reaction to chaos?
EQ#2: What is a “sonnet,” and how is it an expression of and reaction to chaos?
 Welcome! Gather
pen/pencil, paper, wits!
 Reading/Freewrite:
Indeterminancy
 Lecture: Chaos and Paradox
from Chaucer to Shakespeare
 Literary Analysis: Sonnets
 Details of the Sonnet
 CLOZE/QUIZ:
Chaos, Paradox, Sonnets
 Ending Activities
o Project Journals
M. C. Escher, Order and Chaos. Lithograph, 1950.
ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop
ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text
ELACC12RL5: Analyze an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text
ELACC12RI5: Analyze and evaluate effectiveness of the structure an author uses
ELACC12RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text
ELACC12RI7: Integrate and evaluate multiple sources to address a question or solve a problem
ELACC12RI8: Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal British texts
ELACC12W2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas
ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience
ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames
ELACC12L1: Demonstrate standard English grammar and usage in speaking and writing.
ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases
Opening Freewrite – 100 words
I am not telling the truth right now.
Explain what this means.
If it’s hard to explain what this means,
explain why it’s hard to explain what this means.
Paradox
Greek “against the opinion of what is true”
A statement or situation which seems
impossibly contradictory,
but which is nonetheless true
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 1958
Chapter 2: The History of Quantum Theory (excerpted and adapted)
The origin of quantum theory is connected with a well-known
phenomenon: any piece of matter when it is heated starts to
glow, gets red hot and white hot at higher temperatures, and
shows those colors as it heats. The colour does not depend on the
surface of the material, and for a black body it depends solely on
the temperature. Therefore, the radiation emitted by such a black
body at high temperatures is a suitable object for physical
research; it is a simple phenomenon that should find a simple
explanation in terms of the known laws for radiation and heat.
But an attempt made at the end of the nineteenth century by Lord
Rayleigh and Jeans failed, and revealed serious difficulties…. To
put it simply, the application of the known laws of physics did
not lead to sensible results.
Albert Einstein, a revolutionary genius among physicists, was not afraid to go far away from the
old concepts about light in traditional physics: light could either be interpreted as consisting of
electromagnetic waves, according to Maxwell's theory, or as consisting of light quanta, energy
packets travelling through space with high velocity. But could it be both?
Einstein knew, of course, that the well-known phenomena of diffraction and interference can be
explained only on the basis of the wave picture. He was not able to dispute the complete
contradiction between this wave picture and the idea of the light quanta; nor did he even attempt
to remove the inconsistency of this interpretation. He simply took the contradiction as something
which could not be understood at the present time, and moved on. It was from this time on that
the physicists learned to ask the right questions; and asking the right question is frequently more
than halfway to the solution of the problem.
How could it be that the same radiation that produces interference patterns, and therefore must
consist of waves, also produces the photoelectric effect, and therefore must consist of moving
particles? Again and again one found that the attempt to describe atomic events in the traditional
terms of physics led to contradictions. Experiments seemed to contradict each other without any
possibility of compromise. I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature
possibly be as absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory starts from this paradox.
Chaos from Chaucer to Shakespeare
Don’t write anything yet; just look, listen, think
Politics: Long periods of chaos, with oases of stability
o 1400-1485: “Wars of the Roses” – 2 families fighting
over throne produces 9 changes of monarchy in 85 years
 Economic, political, cultural chaos
 Monarchy loses power, Parliament gains power
o 1485-1547: The Tudors
 Henry VII (1485-1509): Last king to win
crown fighting in the field; stabilized Britain
 Henry VIII (1509-1547): Tennis champion,
Wrote “Greensleeves,” Began the English
Church; Greatly expanded British power
 Royal Mess (1547-1558): 5 changes in 11 years
(incl. Lady Jane Grey, “The Nine Days Queen”)
o 1558-1603: Elizabeth I “The Virgin Queen”
 reasserted authority and stability
 patron of arts and sciences, incl. Shakespeare
 tremendously increased British power worldwide
Chaos from Chaucer to Shakespeare
Don’t write anything yet; just look, listen, think
Culture: In technology and belief, rapid and radical changes
Gunpowder (early 1500s)
o Knights become obsolete – anyone can throw a bomb or
shoot a gun, and both obliterate armor.
o Birth of Terrorism: Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot (1603)
 “Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
the Gunpowder treason and plot”
The Gutenberg Printing Press (1450)
o In Chaucer’s time books took months and were pricey
(the Oxford Cleric: 20 Books and a Starved Horse);
consequently, very few could read at all
o After Gutenberg, books could be produced quickly, cheaply
 As books spread, literacy spread
 New ideas can spread quickly and cheaply
 As literacy and ideas spread, individual power spreads
The Protestant Reformation (1517)
o In Chaucer’s time, one faith – Catholicism;
and one Bible – the Latin Bible approved in Rome.
o By Shakespeare’s time several “Christianities” –
Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Anabaptist, Presbyterian –
and some increased influence for Judaism and Islam;
and Bibles in every European language, sometimes
several, each with subtle differences
Chaos from Chaucer to Shakespeare
NOW take notes!
The “Megatrend” from Chaucer’s time to Shakespeare’s:
 away from centralized power based on
things outside of individual control
(social class, family, inheritance); and
 toward decentralized power based on things
within individuals’ control (reading, ideas).
People could “change their stars” after all.
To some, this is progress; to others,
Chaos
Greek “vast, disordered abyss”
A “disordered” situation;
ideas and things which in an ordered
system would be “true” seem meaningless
One way to make sense of chaos is to call it
Paradox
Greek “against the opinion of what is true”
A statement or situation which seems
impossibly contradictory,
but which is nonetheless true
and to make one’s peace with that –
existentially, philosophically, and artistically.
One art form that does this is the sonnet.
Sonnets: The Poetry of Paradox
Read and analyze the sonnets I give you. They are by
Edmund Spenser, and they are pretty typical of the
sonnet form – almost stereotypical, in fact. Analyze for:
 Style. What versification (poetic “sound tricks”)
predominates in both sonnets? Look at things like
number of lines, length of line, rhyme scheme, etc.
 Content. What are they both “about”?
Sonnet Analysis: Edmund Spenser, Amoretti
Sonnet from Edmund Spenser, Amoretti
Rhyme
scheme
Style and content
Sonnet 30
My love is like to ice, and I to fire;
How comes it then that this her cold so great
This poem is
_____ lines long.
Is not dissolved through my so-hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her intreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
How long is each line
(# of syllables)?
Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold;
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told
That fire which all things melts, should harden ice:
What is this poem
“about”?
And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.
Sonnet 64
Coming to kiss her lips, (such grace I found)
This poem is _____ lines long.
Me seemed I smelled a garden of sweet flowers,
That dainty odors from them threw around
For damsels fit to deck their lovers' bowers.
Her lips did smell like unto Gillyflowers,
How long is each line
(# of syllables)?
Her ruddy cheeks like unto Roses red:
Her snowy brows like budded Bellamores,
Her lovely eyes like Pinks but newly spread.
Her goodly bosom like a strawberry bed,
Her neck like to a bunch of Columbines:
Her breast like Lillies, ere their leaves be shed,
Her nipples like young blossomed Jasmines.
Such fragrant flowers do give most odorous smell,
But her sweet odor did them all excel.
What is this poem “about”?
Sonnets: The Poetry of Paradox

Developed by the Italian poet Petrarch in 14th century
o Italian word sonnetto, “little song”

A very formal style with rigid rules:
o 14 lines
o iambic pentameter
 du DAH du DAH du DAH du DAH du DAH
o Complex rhyme scheme – NOT COUPLETS!
 abba abba cde cde – octet/sestet
 abab cdcd efef gg – quatrains/couplet
 “Spenserian” variant: abab bcbc cdcd ee

Lyric Poem about thoughts/feelings of narrator
 The sonnet gives philosophical exploration of
emotional issues that are hard to express rationally.
Rhyme scheme sets up and resolves “problem”:
 Early lines “set up” or summarize the paradox
 Volta (“turning point”) – rhyme & ideas change
 Final lines resolve the problem
 A Sonnet Sequence tells a story using Sonnets.
Most follow a traditional romantic formula:
 Woman is a stereotypical beauty
 Man suffers heartache as she resists him
 Man woos, flatters her in stereotypical ways
 She resists, but finally gives in
Turn In Today*
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Opening Freewrite (100 words): “I am not telling the truth”
Heisenberg excerpt/freewrite (100 words [Reading Journal])
Spenser, Amoretti – sonnet analysis
CLOZE: Chaos, Paradox and Sonnets
*if not today, first thing tomorrow
CLOZE: Chaos, Paradox and Sonnets
1. The “megatrend” from Chaucer to Shakespeare was away from _______________ power
based on things like _________________________ which are _________________ of
individual control, and toward _________________________ based on things like
___________________________ which are _________________ of individual control.
2. Define: chaos
3. Define: paradox
4. The sonnet was invented by the ____________ poet ____________ in the ____ century.
5. The word “Sonnet” means ________________ _______________.
6. A sonnet is ______ lines long, and written in ______________ _________________.
7. It has a complex rhyme scheme – NEVER ___________________.
8. Write one of the two common sonnet rhyme schemes: ___________________________
9. The sonnet is a __________ poem, which means that it’s about the ________________ and
__________________ of a narrator. The sonnet form allows __________________
exploration of _______________________ that are hard to _______________________.
10. A sonnet _______ ____ and _____________ an emotional problem through its rhyme scheme.
11. The turning point, called the ___________, comes where the rhyme and ideas __________.
12. Most sonnet sequences follow a traditional romantic formula:
a. ________________________________________________________
b. ________________________________________________________
c. ________________________________________________________
d. ________________________________________________________