1. Tekstanalyse og – historie (Spring 2009) Session Four: Poetry I

2. Agenda  What is Poetry? (According to Sylvia Plath)  Romanticism, Modernism, and American Poetry After 1945  Group Work: Sylvia Plath, ”Lady Lazarus”  Group Discussion

3. What is Poetry? (According to Sylvia Plath)  Taking ”Daddy” as your point of departure, define the genre of poetry  Find contrasts and similarities with other genres (narrative, drama)

4. William Wordsworth  Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility (“Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)

5. T.S. Eliot  There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse […]. But very few know when there is an expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. (”Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1921))

6. T.S. Eliot  Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to escape from these things. (”Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1921))

7. Romanticism, Modernism and American Poetry After 1945  The poem in relation to the moment of feeling: Temporal relations: emotion and composition (Wordsworth, Eliot)  The poem in relation to the nature of feeling: Relations of significance: public – private, universal – personal (Eliot)  The poem as an object: (in)completeness and (im)permanence (the New Criticism)

8. Group Work: Sylvia Plath, ”Lady Lazarus”  What did Plath mean by the remark, ”I cannot sympathise with those cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife. … I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrifying … with an informed and intelligent mind” (NAe, p. 2968)  Find examples of her ability ”to control and manipulate experiences”

9. Romanticism, Modernism and American Poetry After 1945  Frank O’Hara and the diary poem: ”A Step Away from Them” Who is a step away from whom in the poem? Who is O’Hara, the poet, a step away from Who is a step away from whom in the poem? Who is O’Hara, the poet, a step away from Why? Why? What does it mean to be a step away? What does it mean to be a step away? How is the poem a diary? How is the poem a diary? How is the poem a poem? How is the poem a poem?