English 123 Notes 7/21/2008

"Everything worth learning is beside the point"
Teachers exist to help with the journey of going through a class compared to an online class.
In online classes things are shifted to the emphasize the end result, the middle part of the journey is missing. THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

A change of style is often a change of subject" - Wallace Stevens

VOCAB

• Dialectic- the art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion.

• Repetition- "dirty little secret of poetry"; to repeat something is to give it linguistic power.

FOUND POEMS

• The reason for found poems is to make poetry out of the world and to reveal the poetry that was already in the world.
• Nothing in the world is clear, direct, and obvious
• All language does not have to be clear, concise, and simple; we have been brainwashed to believe that.
  

Ironically, Shakespeare did not intend for his sonnets to be public because they were quite personal to him.

THE WINDHOVER- Gerard Manley Hopkins

• talking about Jesus by comparing him to birds and their descent
• he saw a falcon in the hair and began trying to find the words to describe the birds flight
• the bird then swoops down picking up its prey
• Hopkins then has an epiphany about the bird capturing its prey and begins to relate it to Jesus more directly.
• Jesus descended from heaven just as the bird descended from the sky to capture its prey
• the sonnet symbolizes death and rebirth along with redemption

DESIGN- Robert Frost

• we have not trained our eyes to see the divine acts of nature
• the spider is holding up a moth and the resolution is metaphysical

HOMEWORK

• do something that you will remember in 30 years
• on page 33 and 34 of Ex Libris underline the sentence talking about the Milton sonnet she read to her father. A copy of the sonnet is below. c

Milton Sonnet
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; But Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who beset
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."