British Modern Poets T.S. Eliot and W. H. Auden

Monday, March 23English IV  This week at a glance: MondayResearch Papers Returned, Response due Thursday for 5 – 10 points Poetry of T. S. Eliot “Preludes” and “The Naming of Cats” TuesdayExcerpt from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness T. S. Eliot “The Hollow Men” WednesdayW.H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” Prepare for Open Note Quiz ThursdayOpen Note Quiz: Background notes, Mansfield, Woolf, Eliot, Conrad, Auden, Forster FridayA Room with a View Part Two

T. S. Eliot p “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” Style: imagery, colloquial expression, personification Most Influential Work: The Wasteland: expresses emotional pain and spiritual emptiness felt by post WWI generation The following excerpt is from T.S. Eliot’s “Preludes”: The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways, Six o’clock. As a class, mimic Eliot’s style in the following passage: The senior year _________________ With ____________of ______________ in ____________ June 5.

“Preludes” p – 1119  Preludes Preludes  Define Prelude, how is this a fitting title for the poem.  Stanza Separation in groups  Identify speaker, topic, tone, and figurative language Stanza I: Stanza II: Stanza III: Stanza IV: 39 – 47 The End: 48 – 51 Lines 48 – 51 might be read as an expression of hope that moral values and humanity have not disintegrated completely. Does the last stanza affirm or refute that hope?

“The Naming of Cats” p  From Broadway Musical Cats From Broadway Musical Cats  Pay attention to: juxtaposition, imagery, rhyme, tone  How does this poem DEFY the characteristics of modernist literature?  How many names does a cat have? What is the purpose of each?

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad excerpt  In the passage, Kurtz is rumored to be ill, which is one of the reasons that Marlow ahs been given the commission to travel up the Congo River. The preparations for the voyage and the trip itself have been complicated and have resulted in many delays.  Read (individually and quietly) p – 1173  Discuss (as a class)  Why is it safer for Marlow and the others to remain anchored on the river than to continue on toward the inner station?  What words are used to describe the cries of the Africans on the shore? What does this description suggest about Conrad’s view of Africa in contrast to what the ship represents?  Why does Marlow’s journey into the “heart of darkness” metaphorically represent? How does this connect with Modernist Philosophy?

“The Hollow Men” p  Kurtz reading “The Hollow Men” from film adaptation of Heart of Darkness called Apocalypse Now Kurtz reading “The Hollow Men”  Allusions: Dante’s Divine Comedy, “The Lord’s Prayer”, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”  Juxtaposition, symbols, imagery, paradox Stanza I Stanza II Stanza III Stanza IV Last Stanza: The world will not end “with a bag but a whimper” signifies that men will waste away as a result of their lack of substance and ability to act. The hollow men’s deaths differ very differently from their lives. DON’T BE HOLLOW

W. H. Auden p “The Unknown Citizen” p “A real book is not one we read, but one that reads us.”—W. H. Auden Style: irony, satire, imagery, rhetorical question In both lyrical and satirical poems, [Auden] communicated the anxieties and uncertainties people faced during the 1930’s—the time of the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, and the outbreak of World War II. “The Unknown Citizen” Discussion Questions  How does the speaker’s identity as well as his tone enhance the poem’s irony?  In what ways does the unknown citizen truly have anonymity?  The speaker asserts in line 20 that the unknown citizen had “everything necessary to the Mondern Man,” and, in the poem’s final lines, deems questions about happiness and freedom “absurd.” How is this ironic?

Open Book Quiz tomorrow  You may use your blue sheet or HANDWRITTEN NOTES. You may not simply print notes or power point from my webpage.  Format: 30 objective questions (2 points each), 2 OER (20 points each)  Powerpoint posted on webpage (on today’s date)  What do you need to know: authors’ style, literary themes, literary techniques, connections to modernism

Excerpts and Quiz Prep “Preludes” p His soul stretched tight across the skies/that fade behind a city block,/Or trampled by insistent feet/At four and five and six o’clock/…and eyes/assured of certain certainties, The conscience of a blackened street/impatient to assume the world. Personification, imagery, rhyme, onomatopoeia “The Hollow Men” p “Shape without form, shade without colour,/Paralyzed force, gesture without motion; Paradox Juxtaposes allusions of “Lords Prayer”, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry bush”, and Dante’s inferno to emphasize the eternal emptiness these hollow men endure eternally. Last stanza: This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Repetition, anaphora

Excerpts and Quiz Prep “The Naming of Cats” p The reason I tell you is always the same: His mind is engaged in rapt contemplation/Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: anapestic tetrameter = unstressed, unstressed, stressed x 4 per line Juxtaposes informal with nonsense, strict meter with whimsical subject “The Unknown Citizen” p Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. Irony, rhetorical question, satirical poem

Excerpts and Quiz Prep “A Cup of Tea” p Psychological fiction, irony, third-person limited point of view Rosemary turned. She saw a little battered creature with enormous eyes, someone quite young, no older than herself, who clutched at her coat-collar with reddened hands, and shivered as though she had just come out of the water. Detail, past participles, harsh diction “The Duchess and the Jeweller” p Psychological fiction, internal conflict, symbolism, diction, stream of consciousness. But was it real or false, the one he held in his hand? The Appleby cincture— hadn’t she sold it already? He would ring for Spencer or Hammond. “Take it and test it,” he would say. He stretched to the bell..He looked past her, as the backs of the houses in Bond street. But he saw, not the houses in Bond street..

Excerpts and Quiz Prep Joseph Conrad’s excerpt from Heart of Darkness The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a great human passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence—but more generally takes the form of apathy. Formal diction, third-person limited point of view, thematic statement E.M. Forster’s Room with a View Make connections to themes of modernism present in the film (I realize you have only seen one part).