Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
–from Ernest Hemingway's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech in 1954
Welcome back. Hope you've had a good week. Today we will continue discussing Week 1 poetry selections, including short stories by American writers Kate Chopin (1860-1904) and Ernest Hemingway (1899-1960), and by Frenchman Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893). "My Uncle Jules," and the some 300 other De Maupassant stories were models of the short story form and known by both Americans. The ones selected here for class focus on the trials of youth, how we grow up, and the influence of family.
I'll return your first written responses, submitted last week. I've also a couple of extra pieces, as requested, in which the horse is central. The first is a poem called "A Blessing," written by James Wright, about an encounter and epiphany among horses in a pasture:
We have already looked closely at poems that draw attention to the image and qualities of mountains. Often they speak of endurance and strength, deep time, godliness, what is remote, alluring, difficult, mysterious, powerful in its presence. We saw the contrast in the images of clouds and birds, airy, untethered, relatively impermanent. And what about the sea? It covers most of Earth's surface and the deepest areas of the planet too. What has "Neither Out Far Nor In Deep" to say of our relation to the sea?
Along with "Music of the Spheres," we'll read another poem set on a road–"In the Middle of the Road"– a symbolic representation of the human journey. Perhaps it suggests we push on in spite of "fatigued retinas" and that the "stones" we encounter may, perhaps, help us retain focus and remember what is important, at the middle or center of our lives.
We have the given, nature, society, our ideas and beliefs, our various experiences, and narrative and poetic art–what we make of it all verbally or linguistically, conceptually. That's the fun of reading literature!
-----------------------------For next week, read "The Walrus and the Carpenter." We'll see the peculiar, dark humor of author Lewis Carroll in this material. These kinds of works, like the prose novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, are typically set in fantastical places and feature strange creatures we wouldn't expect to meet in real life. Often the actions and speech are equally implausible and silly but the premium is on having fun and showing the irrational side of our being and imagination and all the flexibility and ambiguities of language. We have to let go for a time our reliance on strict logic and sense to play along. Nonsense works appeal to children and to the child in us all. And perhaps we may find something beyond age.
The Owl and the Pussycat by Edmund Lear (1812-1888)
I'll return your first written responses, submitted last week. I've also a couple of extra pieces, as requested, in which the horse is central. The first is a poem called "A Blessing," written by James Wright, about an encounter and epiphany among horses in a pasture:
We'll read it together before moving to last week's homework, which was to investigate the phrase "music of the spheres" and the symbolism of the sea.
We have already looked closely at poems that draw attention to the image and qualities of mountains. Often they speak of endurance and strength, deep time, godliness, what is remote, alluring, difficult, mysterious, powerful in its presence. We saw the contrast in the images of clouds and birds, airy, untethered, relatively impermanent. And what about the sea? It covers most of Earth's surface and the deepest areas of the planet too. What has "Neither Out Far Nor In Deep" to say of our relation to the sea?
Along with "Music of the Spheres," we'll read another poem set on a road–"In the Middle of the Road"– a symbolic representation of the human journey. Perhaps it suggests we push on in spite of "fatigued retinas" and that the "stones" we encounter may, perhaps, help us retain focus and remember what is important, at the middle or center of our lives.
We have the given, nature, society, our ideas and beliefs, our various experiences, and narrative and poetic art–what we make of it all verbally or linguistically, conceptually. That's the fun of reading literature!
-----------------------------For next week, read "The Walrus and the Carpenter." We'll see the peculiar, dark humor of author Lewis Carroll in this material. These kinds of works, like the prose novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, are typically set in fantastical places and feature strange creatures we wouldn't expect to meet in real life. Often the actions and speech are equally implausible and silly but the premium is on having fun and showing the irrational side of our being and imagination and all the flexibility and ambiguities of language. We have to let go for a time our reliance on strict logic and sense to play along. Nonsense works appeal to children and to the child in us all. And perhaps we may find something beyond age.
The Owl and the Pussycat by Edmund Lear (1812-1888)
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,’
O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’
Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
‘Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
Essay 2: Writing Assignment #2
Essay 2: Writing Assignment #2
As discussed in class, in 250-350 words or more, explore the
theme of freedom or its lack. You may
use any prose or poetry piece ( you are not limited, as I said in class, to
poetry) from the handouts given thus far, and may follow associated ideas,
whether of power, personal autonomy, independence, experimentation and
discovery and growth, peace, joy, or some opposite, as of obligatory work,
rules, discipline, confinement, deprivation.
Recall the range of responses given in class and President Roosevelt’s
Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom
of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear.
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