Losen World Literature 2010-2011

 
While none of the sonnets below will be on the exam, this hand-out is intended to give students an idea of the origins of the sonnet.  A modern or contemporary sonnet or something that calls itself a sonnet (because it is being used ironically) will be on the exam. You will be asked to interpret it. That is in the essay part of the exam--worth 30 points. A modern or contemporary sonnet will differ from these old ones, but it will still have some things in common.

So here is a copy of the handout:

Courtly Love

Marriages between nobles were always arranged. Courtly love was also a reaction to the Church, which portrayed women as temptresses, incarnations of Eve, and the woman responsible for the fall.  The Virgin Mary represents divine womanhood, a standard no woman could possibly achieve. 

The knight serves his lady, obeying her every command. She is in complete control. He owes her his complete obedience. The knight’s love for the lady ennobles him. Because of her, he can perform valorous deeds. Even if the lady does not love him back, the very fact that he loves this lady makes him a better man.

Five Main Attributes of Courtly Love

1.      The participants must be aristocrats.

2.      There are various rituals and elaborate conventions of etiquette. The knight writes songs and poems for her.  He gives her flowers, jewelry, and anything else. In turn, she often reproaches him. She is in charge of the relationship. He is her servant.

3.      The relationship is secret, except perhaps for a few confidantes and go-betweens.

4.      The relationship is adulterous.  She is married.  He usually is not. 

5.      It is literary. The troubadours wrote songs about it.

A few thoughts from C. S. Lewis’ The Four Loves:

There are four types of love:

1.      Affection: often for the sub-human but for some people as well

2.      Friendship:  a select group of people

3.      Eros: Romantic love

4.      Charity: the kind of love that we are supposed to have for God—unconditional, obedient, and expecting nothing in return.

“Divine love is Gift-Love” (11). Lewis calls this “agape”—the kind of love that God gives to the humans that he created. It is complete and unconditional. Humans can never achieve that level of love but that they should strive toward it.

Another way to look at Gift Love is as “that love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family” (11).

In terms of love for that special “other,” Gift love is “really God-like; and among our Gift-Loves those are most God-like which are most boundless and unwearied in giving. All the things the poets say about them are true. Their joy, their energy, their patience, their readiness to forgive, their desire for the good of the beloved ….those who love greatly are ‘near’ to God. But of course it is ‘nearness by likeness.’ It will not of itself produce nearness of approach… Meanwhile, however, the likeness is a splendor. That is why we may mistake Like for Same.  We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods; then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred” (19-20).

Need-love arises from the fact that we are born as helpless infants, totally depending on an adult’s care. Some deem it as ‘selfish,’ but it is not, for we need it in order to survive (12-14). Need-loves are usually “not set up to be gods. They are not near enough (in likeness) to God” (20).

“Need-love cries…from our poverty; Gift-Love longs to serve, or even suffer….Need-Love says of a woman, ‘I cannot live without her’; Gift-Love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection—if possible, wealth; appreciative Love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all” (33).

Eros begins with “a delighted preoccupation with the Beloved—a general, unspecified preoccupation for her in her totality. A man in this state really hasn’t the leisure to think of sex. He is too busy thinking of a person. The fact that she is a woman is far less important than the fact that she is herself. He is full of desire, but the desire may not be sexually toned. If you asked him what he wanted, the true reply would often be, ‘to go on thinking of her.’ He is love’s contemplative” (133-134). 

Eros makes a man not just want a woman, but want a particular woman (135). Eros “obliterate[s] the distinction

between giving and receiving” (137).  Eros means that the lovers are willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of the other.

The biggest danger is “that of a soul-destroying surrender to the senses” (137). In other words, we start viewing the beloved as divine. “When natural things look divine, the demoniac is just around the corner’ (144-145).  The big danger with being in love is that it turns love into a religion. Humans are temporal beings.

Ever tried to break up a friend’s destructive relationship? It’s hard. “For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms” (150).

The Italian sonnets differ from English sonnets, not only in rhyme scheme and stanza design, but also in terms of narrators, audience, point-of-view, types of conceits, and humanist. Also, look at the specific diction and syntax.

Petrarch Sonnet #3

It was the morning of that blessed day[1]                             1

Whereon the Sun in pity veiled his glare                               2

For the Lord’s agony, that, unaware,                                 3

I fell captive, Lady, to the sway                                            4

Of your swift eyes: that seemed no time to stay                5

The strokes of Love: I stepped into the snare                   6

Secure, with no suspicion: then, and there                                    7

I found my cue in man’s most tragic play.                          8

Love caught me naked to his shaft, his sheaf,                    9

The entrance for his ambush and surprise                                   10

Against the heart wide open through the eyes,[2]               11

The constant gate and fountain of my grief:                      12

How craven so to strike me stricken so,[3]                           13

Yet from you fully armed concealed his bow!                   14                          

[1] In Sonnet 211 Petrarch gives the date as April 6, 1327, a Monday. Here too the day is apparently intended to be the day of Christ’s death (April 6) rather than Good Friday, 1327.

[2] The image of the eyes as the gateway to the heart had been a poetic common-place since pre-Dante days.

[3] With grief on commemorating the Passion of Christ.

Petrarch’s Sonnet #61

Blest be the day, and blest the month and year,                                                1

Season and hour and very moment blest,                                            2

The lovely land and place where first possessed                                                3

By two pure eyes I found me prisoner;                                                  4

And blest the first sweet pain, the first most dear,                           5

Which burnt my heart when Love came in as guest;                         6

And blest the bow, the shafts which shook my breast,                   7

And even the wounds which Love delivered there.                         8

Blest be the words and voices which filled the grove                       9

And glen with echoes of my lady’s name;                                             10

The sighs, the tears, the fierce despair of love;                                  11

And blest the sonnet-sources of my fame;                                          12

And blest that thought of thoughts which is her own,                     13

Of her, her only, of herself alone!                                                            14

1.       In the first stanza (lines 1-4), Petrarch repeats the word “blest.”  How is that word a conceit?

2.       One thing to note: Petrarch often uses eyes because they are “the windows to the soul.” They are the place where love enters and invades the heart. Explain the metaphor of the “blest” as it is juxtaposed against the lover’s status as “prisoner.”

3.       Fire and water purify. And Petrarch uses fire. How else does he use fire?

4.       What does the story of Echo and Narcissus have to do with this poem?

5.       In what ways is this poem emblematic of courtly love? Explain.

Petrarch Sonnet #90

She used to let her golden hair fly free                              1

For the wind to toy and tangle and molest;                       2

Her eyes were brighter than the radiant west.                 3

(Seldom they shine so now.) I used to see                         4

Pity look out of those deep eyes on me.                             5

(“It was false pity,” you would now protest.)                     6

I had love’s tinder heaped within my breast;                    7

What wonder that the flame burned furiously?                8

She did not walk in any mortal way,                                   9

But with angelic progress; when she spoke,                      10

Unearthly voices sang in unison.                                         11

She seemed divine among the dreary folk                         12

Of  earth. You say she is not so today?                               13

Well, though the bow’s unbent, the wound bleeds on.     14

Shakespeare’s Sonnet # 20

A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted                              1

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;                                  2

A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted                                     3

With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion;                            4

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,                         5          (rolling means straying)

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;                                            6

A man in hue, all hues controlling,                                                     7

Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.                     8

And for a woman wert thou first created,                                         9

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,                                 10

And by addition me of thee defeated,                                                11

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.                                     12

     But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,                 13

     Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.                      14

1.      What aspects of courtly love can be seen in this poem? Explain—using lines and words.

2.      List at least two conceits and explain why they are conceits.

3.      What Biblical or mythical allusions are there? Explain.

4.      What words are reminiscent of a Petrarchan sonnet? E xplain.

5.      Which words are ambiguous? Explain the ambiguity.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet # 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;                                        1

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;                                              2

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;                                3

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.                                4

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,                                       5

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;                                                 6

And in some perfumes is there more delight                                      7

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.                                 8

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know                                            9

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.                                        10

I grant I never saw a goddess go;                                                       11

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.                         12

     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare                                  13

     As any she belied with false compare.                                           14

1.      How is Shakespeare turning the Petrarchan sonnet upside-down?

2.      Why do you think he is doing this?

3.      Which words are ambiguous?  Explain the ambiguity.



 

I went through the process of writing an essay—actually two essays—myself, in order to get a handle on your experience and the level of difficulty of this assignment. Thus, I have included things I have done as examples of what might be done. This is not for you to copy, but to consider when rewriting your own essays. My writing is done in bold on this blog, in Arial on the handout.

The Introductory Paragraph and Thesis Statement
1. Make the introductory paragraph/thesis statement short and sweet. Take a stand. Do not be too vague by saying things like”
Eavan Boland’s “The Pomegranate” contrasts with Rita Dove’s “The Bistro Styx” but they also have things in common.

2. Include the names of the poets (not authors) and the names of the poems too.

3. Do not include “proof” in the first paragraph.

4. Everything, from the first paragraph on, should remain in the present tense.

Here is my entire first paragraph:
While the myth of Ceres and Persephone lies at the hearts of both Eavan Boland’s “The Pomegranate” and Rita Dove’s “The Bistro Styx,”1 one narrator finds a kind of redemption in the myth while the other feels the pangs of an irreparable loss.

Supporting Paragraphs
Topic Sentences
1. First, because I instructed you to compare and contrast two poems by first addressing one and then the other, start by using evidence from one of the poems. Follow the same process when examining the other poem too.

2. Have a clear topic sentence. You may use partial quotations in the topic sentence but do not use quotations as the topic sentence. Besides, one of the things that I hope to accomplish is to teach you how to write good topic sentences on your own.

3. Topic sentences should be somewhat transitional—that is, they should connect to previous paragraphs.

Here are four of mine from the body of my essay:

Boland’s narrator refers to the myth as “The only legend I have ever loved” (1).2
1 Note that the quotation marks go outside the commas. I have not cited yet. When I do, that will change.

Next, she ties the myth of Persephone to that of Eve: “She put out her hand and pulled down/ the French sound for apple” (34-35).

While Boland’s mother walks the earth, Rita Dove’s narrator takes one step into the Underworld in “The Bistro Styx.”

One way that the daughter holds onto her reign is to avariciously attack the grotesquely described food set before her.

4. Note that all topic sentences are in the present tense.

5. The sentences get to the point quickly too.

Including Examples and Analysis within Individual Paragraphs

1. When in doubt, turn to the text. Read and then reread for greater understanding.

2. Avoid using really long quotations; instead consider partial quotations.

3. Make the quotations part of your sentence.

4. Do not restate quotations.

5. Do not use the word “state.”

6. Do not say, “This quote means” or “In this quote,” etc. Just say it.

This is my complete second paragraph:

Boland’s narrator refers to the myth as “The only [italics mine] legend I have ever loved3 (1). By the third line, she has also “found and rescued” her child—and even herself. The mother, once “an exiled child in the crackling dusk of / the underworld” (11-12) understands and accepts the process. She got through it, and so will her child. That does not mean that it will be easy, however. The mother who watches “my child asleep beside her teen magazines, / her can of coke, her plate of uncut fruit” (27-28), reminisces about how she used to carry her safely “back past whitebeams / and wasps and honey-scented buddleias” (17-18). Though the mother considers making “any bargain to keep her” (16), she does not, for she knows that their fates are “inescapable” (22).

2 Note that the quotation mark is inside the sentence this time. That is because I cited a line from the poem.

3 Though I have added emphasis by italicizing one of the words, the quotation speaks for itself. I do not then need to explain a strong quotation. Note that I added that the emphasis was mine, however.

Do you see how I am not explaining the first quotation? That is because it speaks for itself. This is my complete paragraph #4, the first half of the part of the essay that addresses “The Bistro Styx”:

While Boland’s mother walks the earth, Rita Dove’s narrator takes one step into the underworld in “The Bistro Styx.” And it really is a different world, a continent away from her American home, in Paris. Time separates them as well. This Persephone is a young adult. It has been a long time since this mother watched her daughter sleeping. As such, this mother feels alarmed by her daughter, noting that she is “thinner, with a mannered gauntness” (1). She becomes more alarmed when they meet across the table. “My blighted child,” she notes, is also “this wary aristocratic mole” (14), in that sense, no longer her child but a woman capable of making her own decisions. “Are you content to conduct your life / as a cliché and, what’s worse, / an anachronism, the brooding artist’s demimonde?” (17-19) the mother thinks and we all know that she wants to say it. As if reading her mind, the daughter makes an awkward defensive move: “’Tourists love us. The Parisians, of course’” (26). In the nick of time, the meal arrives, taking the focus off the current encounter and enabling the daughter to consider her next move.

Conclusions

1. Do not start with “In conclusion.” It’s boring.

2. Write a new topic sentence, preferably one that also includes a transition.

3. Do not repeat your thesis statement.

4. Take the arguments that you have built and then bring them together.

5. Write a “zingy” conclusion—one that resonates, one that makes the reader think.

Here is my final paragraph:

One of the problems with comparing these two poems is that the daughters are in very different stages of life. Boland’s girl is still safe at home while Dove’s daughter, no longer a girl but a woman, is abroad and involved in an adult relationship. As children, we owe our loyalties to our parents. That changes when we make an alliance with a spouse or significant other. And it needs to change, for if it does not, the adult relationships do not work. I wonder if Boland’s analysis of the myth would be as generous ten years later, when her daughter has left the safety of life under the suburban stars and ventured out onto a journey to places unknown.

Here is my complete essay:
The Myth of Persephone in Eavan Boland’s “The Pomegranate” and Rita Dove’s “The Bistro Styx”
Cynthia Losen
While the myth of Ceres and Persephone lies at the hearts of both Eavan Boland’s “The Pomegranate” and Rita Dove’s “The Bistro Styx,” one narrator finds a kind of redemption in the myth while the other feels the pangs of an irreparable loss.

Boland’s narrator refers to the myth as “The only legend I have ever loved” (1). By the third line, she has also “found and rescued” her child—and even herself. The mother, once “an exiled child in the crackling dusk of / the underworld” understands that the natural process is just at work (11-12). She got through it, and so will her child. That does not mean that it will be easy, however. The mother who watches “my child asleep beside her teen magazines, / her can of coke, her plate of uncut fruit” (27-28), reminisces about how she used to carry her safely “back past whitebeams / and wasps and honey-scented buddleias” (17-18). Though the mother considers making “any bargain to keep her” (16), she does not, for she knows that their fates are “inescapable” (22).

Next, she ties the myth of Persephone to that of Eve: “She put out her hand and pulled down / the French sound for apple” (34-35). The story of Eve is that of another child exiled from a parent/god. Eve, along with her husband, Adam, choose to taste forbidden fruit, often depicted as an apple. That choice results in expulsion from the Garden of Eden and exile from God the father. It also means entering a world where they will no longer be protected from pain and suffering and loss. Knowing this, this mother of “The Pomegranate” considers warning her child, but ultimately does not. After all, the mother survived in an underworld where “the stars [were] blighted” (12). As a result, her daughter’s experience has not been as harsh. Now it is the artificial lights of suburbia, along with its “cars and cable television” that “veil” the stars (44-45). Resigned to their fates, the mother decides not to “defer the grief,” for the experience will ultimately be for the girl, a “gift” (49). “The legend will be hers as well as mine,” she says, followed with a triumphant, “She will enter it. As I have. / She will wake up” (50-52). Thus in the end, it is not a curse, not a real loss, no real exile, but an experience that will be shared.

While Boland’s mother walks the earth, Rita Dove’s narrator takes one step into the underworld in “The Bistro Styx.” And it really is a different world, a continent away from her American home, in Paris. Time separates them as well. This Persephone is a young adult. It has been a long time since this mother watched her daughter sleeping. As such, this mother feels alarmed by her daughter, noting that she is “thinner, with a mannered gauntness” (1). She becomes more alarmed when they meet across the table. “My blighted child,” she notes, is also “this wary aristocratic mole” (14), in that sense, no longer her child but a woman capable of making her own decisions. “Are you content to conduct your life / as a cliché and, what’s worse, / an anachronism, the brooding artist’s demimonde?” (17-19) the mother thinks and we all know that she wants to say it. As if reading her mind, the daughter makes an awkward defensive move: “’Tourists love us. The Parisians, of course’” (26). In the nick of time, the meal arrives, taking the focus off the current encounter and enabling the daughter to consider her next move.
One way that the daughter holds onto her reign is to avariciously attack the grotesquely described food set before her. Even in the end, when the mother anxiously asks, “’But are you happy?’” (67), the daughter takes evasive action not by biting into a pomegranate but into a fig, and changing the subject. On the battlefield between childhood and adulthood, the daughter has outwitted her adversary. And her mother knows it. “I’ve lost her, she realizes, though, in the end resigns to the loss for it is the mother who pays the bill.
One of the problems with comparing these two poems is that the daughters are in very different stages of life. Boland’s girl is still safe at home while Dove’s daughter, no longer a girl but a woman, is abroad and involved in an adult relationship. As children, we owe our loyalties to our parents. That changes when we make an alliance with a spouse or significant other. And it needs to change, for if it does not, the adult relationships do not work. I wonder if Boland’s analysis of the myth would be as generous ten years later, when her daughter has left the safety of life under the suburban stars and ventured out onto a journey to places unknown.