Literary Terms

Paradox: A statement that contradicts itself.
"A dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tale when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased and wag my tale when I'm angry."

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

"War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
"Ignorance is strength."

Periodic: A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended sytax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic climax. Contrast with loose sentence.

"Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed."

Confessionalism Poetry

Characteristics:

• emerged in 1950s and 1960s
• the poets use personal history for inspiration
• they choose to use their own lives for subject matter, often using personal trauma as fuel for literary or dramatic effect
• the theme of madness is used by many of the poets
• emphazises the intimate information about the poet's life
• explores personal details about the authors' life without meekness, modesty, or discretion
• poems about illness, sexuality, and despondence

Poets:

• John Berryman
• Allen Ginsberg
• Robert Lowell
• Sylvia Plath
• Theodore Roethke
• Anne Sexton
• William De Witt Snodgrass

"The Ball Poem" by John Berryman

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,

What, what is he to do? I saw it go

Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then

Merrily over—there it is in the water!

No use to say 'O there are other balls':

An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy

As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down

All his young days into the harbour where

His ball went. I would not intrude on him,

A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now

He senses first responsibility

In a world of possessions. People will take balls,

Balls will be lost always, little boy,

And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.

He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,

The epistemology of loss, how to stand up

Knowing what every man must one day know

And most know many days, how to stand up

And gradually light returns to the street

A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,

Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark

Floor of the harbour . . .I am everywhere,

I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move

With all that move me, under the water

Or whistling, I am not a little boy.

Modernist Movement Poetry

Modernist poetry puts emphasis on traditional formalism and diction. Most early modern poetry takes the form of short compact lyrics. It has two main features the first one being technical innovation through the extensive use of free verse and the second a move away from the romantic idea of an unproblematic poetic "self" directly addressing an equally unproblematic ideal reader or audience. The questioning of the self and the exploration of technical innovations in modernist poetry are intimately interconnected. Collage, found poetry, and visual poetry are used so the reader's mind can open up to questions regaurding the nature of the poetic experience and not be influenced by the author. Another important feature of much modernist poetry in English is a clear focus on the surface of the poem. Much of this focuses on the literal meaning of the words on the page rather than any metaphorical or symbolic meanings that might be imputed to them.

Authors:
Ezra Pound
T.S. Eliot
William Carlos Williams
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Robert Browning
Emily Dickinson
Gerald Manley Hopkins
A.E. Housman
E.E. Cummings
Robert Frost
Sylvia Plath

"Funeral Blues" or "Stop All the Clocks" by W.H. Auden

Her Kind

Sexton is comparing the witch to someone that does not fit in and is dfferent from everyone else. The women is explained in words that make her seem very powerful and strong. The witch is said to be possessed which is saying that she is looked at as being evil and different from everybody. Braver at night dreaming evil suggests that the girl feels more confindent at night. Night is typically a time of darkness and evil coming out. The second stanza is compared to mythical things. This can sybolize how the girl doesn't even feel real. The third stanza talks about a girl that seems to be determined and well known. "A women like that is not ashamed to die," this says how she feels important and as if she has done all that she could.

After Apple-Picking

In this poem I think Frost is talking about how time is passing by fast and how we should use every minute we have andd make the most of it. The idea of apple picking is setting the season to summer and when he is looking out the window it is winter time. The tree can symbolize the tree of life. The apples can symbolize all the opportunities life gives us. The empty barrel symbolizes how the reader did not make the most out of what he was given. The apples on the ground show that it was not hard to use and take in all opportunities that were pretty much handed to the reader. In the winter time he wishes there were more opportunities for him and is dreaming about the apples in the summertime. As the ladder begins to sway and apples are coming faster he is getting older and it is talking about how life throws so much at you at once. "Lift down, and not let fall" the reader is telling to pick off the fruit and don't let it fall which means to live life to the fullest and get everything you can out of it. "No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, went surely to the cider-apple heap," this is saying that no matter how big, small, or bad an opportunity you can still make the best out of it. Woodchucks sleep all through winter. The reader compares human sleep to woodchuck sleep. This could be saying how every winter he just keeps waiting for more and more apples and can't wait for the summer and wishes he could sleep through winter.

After the Attack

I think this poem is about a boy who is fighting death but lets go in the end. His perspective of death also changes when he looks at the painting unlike before when he had his backed turned to it. It tells how the boy is sick and still. "The bandage around his jaw reminds one of an embalming" which is a way to treat a corpse with preservatives to prevent decay. Also his spectacles are thick as a diver's which could symbolize being buried and going under the surface. These two statements show that he is on the verge of dieing and knows it.

But when he looks at the wheat field painting he feels the peacefulness of death. Wheat is a symbol of life and resurrection. When he sees the man in the field but can not see his face may be saying that he boy does not want to look death in the face. The picture begins to grow on the boy and have deeper meaning to him. He lets go and sees the light. The idea of the wheat head throwing off light as if to wake him up could symbolize resurrection because when the boy sees the light he has died but when they wake him back up he is resurrected. "He comes nearer" the man is coming closer to the boy meaning the boy is about to pass.

I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair

I think this poem is about a man who is deeply in love with a women not of his social status so they only can go out and see eachother at night, much like Romeo and Juliet's secret realtionship. But I think it is talking about the man searching for the women who did not show up one night. The man in this poem seems very attached to this women and by the time darkness comes around he can not wait to see her. "I prowl though the streets" suggests that in the night he is looking for her without being seen. The speaker talks about how the dawn disrupts him because then he can not be with the women. He can not stand to be with out her, but because of their statuses he has to wait to see her. So instead of actually being with her it sounds as if he just watches her through out the day. He notices every little thing about her and loves and strives for it. In the end the speaker talks again about searching for her in the night. He compares searching for her heart like a puma in the barrens of Quiltratue. This symbolizes a puma hunting for a deer in a dessert. The idea that the puma will not find the deer or survive in the desert symbolizes how the man can not find the women tonight and can't live with out her unless he moves on.