Literary Criticism
UIL Capital Conference
2016
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Explicating Poetry
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sweet Love, if thou wilt
Sweet Love, if thou wilt gain a Monarch's glory,
Subdue her heart, who makes me glad and sorry.
Out of thy golden quiver
Take thou thy strongest arrow
That will through bone and marrow
And me and thee
Of grief and fear deliver.
But come behind, for if she look upon thee,
Alas, poor Love, then thou art woe-begone thee.
Anonymous
After weeks of watching the roof leak
After weeks of watching the roof leak
I fixed it tonight
by moving a single board.
Gary Snyder
1
To Dianeme
Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
Which starlike sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours yet free;
Be you not proud of that rich hair
Which wantons with the love-sick air;
Whenas that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone
When all your world of beauty's gone.
Robert Herrick
Felix Randal
Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?
Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!
This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!
Gerard Manley Hopkins
What Is Our Life?
What is our life? The play of passion.
Our mirth? The music of division:
Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for life's short comedy.
The earth the stage; Heaven the spectator is,
Who sits and views whosoe'er doth act amiss.
The graves which hide us from the scorching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus playing post we to our latest rest,
And then we die in earnest, not in jest.
Sir Walter Raleigh
2
The Latest Decalogue
Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would tax himself to worship two?
God's image nowhere shalt thou see,
Save haply in the currency:
Swear not at all; since for thy curse
Thine enemy is not the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will help to keep the world thy friend:
Honor thy parents; that is, all
From whom promotion may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Adultery it is not fit
Or safe, for women, to commit:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When 'tis so lucrative to cheat:
False witness not to bear be strict;
And cautious, ere you contradict.
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Sanctions the keenest competition.
Arthur Hugh Clough
To a Painter
Conceal not Time's misdeeds, but on my brow
Retrace his mark:
Let the retiring hair be silvery now
That once was dark:
Eyes that reflected images too bright
Let clouds o'ercast,
And from the tablet be abolished quite
The cheerful past.
Yet care's deep lines should one from wakened mirth
Steal softly o'er,
Perhaps on me the fairest of the earth
May glance once more.
Walter Savage Landor
haiku
senryu
Water reflects sky
Summer of my soul open
Under the spell still
long commuter ride
a stranger discusses
his incontinence
Raymond A. Foss
Francine Porad
3
Arms and the Boy
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads.
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
Wilfred Owen
To Helen of Troy (N.Y.)
I sit here with the wind is in my hair;
I huddle like the sun is in my eyes;
I am (I wished you'd contact me) alone.
A fat lot you'd wear crape if I was dead.
It figures, who I heard there when I phoned you;
It figures, when I came there, who has went.
Dogs laugh at me, folks bark since then;
"She is," they say, "no better than she ought to";
I love you irregardless how they talk.
You should of done it (which it is no crime)
With me you should of done it, what they say.
I sit here with the wind is in my hair.
Peter Viereck
from
Childe Harold
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 cannot all conceal.
George Gordon, Lord Byron
4
Black Helicopters
Gather your families. Lift your eyes.
They'll take your daughters and your sons.
Black helicopters rule the skies.
The New World Order wants your guns.
They'll take your daughters and your sons
For schooling that is 'outcome based.'
The New World Order wants your guns
And getting them is just a taste,
For schooling that is 'outcome based' –
Condoms for kids instead of prayer –
And taking them is just a taste:
Look at the uniforms they wear!
Condoms for kids instead of prayer.
Soon there'll be nowhere left to go.
Look at the uniforms they wear!
What's further out than Idaho?
Soon there'll be nowhere left to go.
Dust clouds are rising on the road.
(What's further out than Idaho?)
Look to the heavens. Lock and load.
Dust clouds are rising on the road.
Gather your families, lift your eyes.
Look to the heavens. Lock and load.
Black helicopters rule the skies.
R .S. Gwynn
Pitcher
His art is eccentricity, his aim
How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,
His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance.
The others throw to be comprehended. He
Throws to be a moment misunderstood.
Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,
But every seeming aberration willed.
Not to, yet still, still to communicate
Making the batter understand too late.
Robert Francis
I slumbered with your sonnets on my bosom:
The net result of trying to peruse 'em.
X. J. Kennedy
5
Epilogue
"O where are you going?" said reader to rider
"That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder's the midden whose odours will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return."
"O do you imagin," said fearer to farer,
"That dusk will delay on your path to pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?"
"O what was that bird," said horror to hearer,
"Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease?"
"Out of this house"—said rider to reader
"Yours never will"—said farer to fearer
"They’re looking for you"—said hearer to horror
As he left them there, as he left them there.
W. H. Auden
Vacant Lot
Crouched in its giant green the Indian hid
And on the trapper sprang the ambuscade.
It was the wilderness to city kid,
And paradise to each pariah weed.
We'd give the slip to megaphone-voiced wardens
For atavistic field where memories blur,
As asters make their getaway from gardens
And scrape acquaintance with uncultured burr.
There among sunflowers, goldenrod and thistle,
We'd act the old drama of boys' strength,
Bloody each other's noses, blacken eyes, and wrestled
Till hustled home to bed by moon at length.
While April set up sprinting around the bases,
October chasing the eccentric ball, and faces
December sculpturing farcial forms,
It was chameleon stage containing all.
Dudley Randall
No matter how distinguished, when you're dead
you'll end up with a pigeon on your head.
Bruce Bennet
6
Siren Song
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.
I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song
is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique
at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.
Margaret Atwood
A Dead Statesman
I could not dig; I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Rudyard Kipling
I'll hide within my poems as I write them
Hoping to kiss your lips as you recite them.
Amareh, trans. Dick Davis
7
after minor surgery
this is the dress rehearsal
when the body
like a constant lover
flirts for the first time
with faithlessness
when the body
like a passenger on a long journey
hears the conductor call out
the name
of the first stop
when the body
in all its fear and cunning
makes promises to me
it knows
it cannot keep
Linda Pastan
Mondegreens
(thanks to J. A. Wines)
Donkey Hote
The Oranges and the Peaches
Old Louise and Able Heart
War on Peas
All's Well That Ends Well
Catch One in the Eye
Tess of the Doormobiles
Dangermouse Liaisons
"The Lady Ate Shallots"
Jason and the Juggernauts
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Non-exhaustive Listing of Literary Concepts Addressed during Explication
alliteration
allusion
anaphora
apostrophe
assonance
carpe diem
chiasmus
conceit
consonance
controlling image
couplet
elision
enjambment
envelope stanza
epigram
epilogue
epistrophe
eponym
eye rhyme
feminine ending
feminine rhyme
foot
haiku
heroic couplet
heteromerous rhyme
hyperbaton
hyperbole
iambic pentameter
iambic tetrameter
imagery
inversion
internal rhyme
leonine rhyme
macaronic verse
masculine ending
masculine rhyme
melopoeia
metaphor
meter
metonymy
octave
onomatopoeia
oxymoron
pantoum
paradox
parody
pathetic fallacy
persona
8
personification
ploce
polyptoton
pun
quatrain
rhetorical question
reification
resonance
rhyme scheme
rhythm
run-on line
scansion
senryu
sestet
sigmatism
simile
solecism
sonnet, Italian,
sonnet, English
sonnet, Miltonic
Spenserian stanza
spondee
sprung rhythm
stanza
syncope
synæsthesia
synecdoche
sigmatism
theme
tone
trochee
volta