MODERNISM: PART TWO

Monday Dylan Thomas

Tuesday William Butler Yeats

Wednesday James Joyce “Araby”

Thursday Finish Room with a View and Turn in.

THE IRISH QUESTION

Period The Irish Literary RenaissanceDates and Explanation(Including other Historical Events)

I. The Irish QuestionA. Irish had never accepted English rule and were torn when

Great Britain entered World War I: should they fight to defend an empire they hated?

B. Easter Rising of 1916 was met with a harsh British responseC. 1921: After a long struggle, the British split Ireland into two

self-governing dominions: The Irish Free State (later named the Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland.

D. Independence for all but Northern Ireland achieved in 1949.E. Ongoing outbursts of violence between Protestant and

Catholic factions in Northern Ireland escalated through the years until the 1990s.

 Defining Attributes/ Ideas/Values Irish writers wanted to create a literature that celebrated Ireland’s past and traditional culture.  

I. Language: The true Irish language—the language of history and folklore—was Gaelic. Few people in Ireland actually spoke Gaelic anymore.

II. Freedom: The Irish writers wanted to separate themselves from all things British, but if they wanted to be understood, they had to write in English.

A. The English language was too connected with the English culture.

B. In order to create authentically Irish literature written in English, Irish writers turned to the legendary accounts of the Irish heroes Cuchulain and Finn MacCool for inspiration and to the colorful speech of the Irish peasants who, to the writers, represented the truest link with Ireland’s past.

C. Others wrote about classical topics or accounts of modern life, but always with an ear for the lyricism of Irish speech and a sensitivity toward common themes such as spirituality and repression, often tinged with fatalism.

               

Major Authors and WorksArtist Genre-works Defining TechniqueJames Joyce

Novelist, short story writerUlysses, Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Stream of consciousness, descriptive details Naïve narrator

William Butler Yeats

Poet“Sailing to Byzantium”, “The Second Coming”, “When You Are Old”

Symbolism, Images, Metaphors Mysticism and the Supernatural

John Millington Synge

PlaywrightRiders to the Sea, The playboy of the Western World, Deidre of the Sorrows

lyrical dialects, folk tradition

Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory

playwright and director(cofounded Abbey with Yeats)

Her motto, taken from Aristotle, was "To think like a wise man, but to express oneself like the common people."

Douglas Hyde

poet became the first president of Ireland

DYLAN THOMAS P. 1182-1183- “When one burns one’s bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”

Style-Dylan Thomas has been described as a poet in whose work “sound and sense are exquisitely blended.”

 Excerpt:  Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay

  Consonance Assonance Alliteration

 A villanelle is an intricately patterned French verse form, planned to give the impression of simplicity (like a folk song).

“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” p. 1184

The 19 line poem is composed of 5 tercets (three line stanzas) followed by a quatrain. The first line is repeated as a refrain at the end of the second and fourth stanzas; the last line of the first stanza is repeated at the end of the third and fifth stanzas. Both lines reappear as the final two lines of the poem. The rhyme scheme is aba for each tercet and abaa for the quatrain; only two rhymes are used throughout the poem (these usually provide some sort of contrast).

Read, Rage, Respond in groups.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS P. 1190-1191

“I am weary of the weight of time.”

 Style: Highly influenced by mysticism and the supernatural, the symbols in Yeats’ poetry often convey major ideas about life, death, and rebirth.

 Excerpt:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

 Repetition Assonance Consonance Symbol

 ”Sailing to Byzantium”, “The Second Coming”, “When We are Old”

 Discuss common symbols: Seasons, Time, Cycle, Colors,  Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, Birds and Beasts

Led by Yeats, writers of the Irish literary revival vigorously explored the question of Irish identity.  

JAMES JOYCE P. 1198-1199

“How sick, sick, sick I am of Dublin.”

Style: Stream of Consciousness, Imagery, Detail, Epiphany

Excerpt: from “Araby”

Gazing up into the darkness I aw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

• How is the narrator naïve? What phrase on p. 1202 best expresses his infatuation?

• What signs foreshadow the end to the narrator’s idealistic dream?

• What is the epiphany at the end?

APRIL 6 - 10

Classwork Homework

Monday Elizabeth Bowen’s “Demon Lover” Phrase Part Two

Tuesday Literature as Social Commentary“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”

Phrase Part Three

Wednesday Sonnet Pair: “Dreamers” and “The Soldier”

Phrase Part Four

Thursday Phrases Due at end of periodReview for Modernism Quiz

Study for Quiz

Friday Modernism Quiz Two: The Irish Question

ELIZABETH BOWEN P. 1228-1229

“Ghosts seem harder to please than we are.”

“From the moment that my pen touched paper, I thought of nothing but writing, and since then I have thought of practically nothing else..[When} I have nothing to write, I feel only half alive.

Style: suspense, realism, evocative setting, sense of abandonment, themes of grief and lost innocence.

Excerpt: from “My Demon Lover”

A cat wove itself in and out of railings, but no human eye watched Mrs. Drover’s return.-ambiguity

• What conveys an ominous tone in the first 40 lines?

• What is ambiguous about the letter?

• What is ambiguous about the ending?

LITERATURE AS SOCIAL CRITICISM P. 1240-1241

• Social criticism = literature that addresses specific political, social, economic, cultural or religious issues.

• Writers of the 20th century used literary works as commentary on the effects of war, the deplorable conditions of poverty, the results of oppression, and the fight for civil rights.

• Characteristics: addressing an issue, directly or indirectly; sharp, often ironic, tone; focus on individual caught up in the context of larger world issues

“AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH”P. 1244

• Written by Yeats to commemorate Lady Augusta Gregory’s son.

• Notice structure: iambic tetrameter, rhyme scheme ababcdcdefefghgh, not a sonnet

• Repetition and parallel structure emphasize the speaker’s conflicted feelings about fighting (3-6)

• What reasons inspired the speaker to fight in World War II?

• What did NOT inspire him?

• What is the poet’s attitude toward World War I? Is he patriotic?

• Challenge: Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word or phrase of one line or clause to begin the next. Find this in the poem. What does it emphasize?

• Antithesis is a rhetorical term for the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses. Find an example of this at the end of the poem. Does it drive the point home?

SONNET PAIR P. 1246-1247(Sonnet: 14 line lyric poem with set meter—iambic pentameter– and rhyme scheme)

Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier”

Rhyme scheme? Shakespearean sonnet

Repetition, imagery, personification

Point presented in Octet?

Resolution in Sestet?

Tone:

Siegfried Sassoon’s “Dreamers”

Rhyme scheme? Shakespearean sonnet

Imagery, symbolism, harsh diction, alliteration, anaphora

Point presented in Octet?

Resolution shifts in Sestet?

Tone:

PHRASE SEARCH AND FIND

Definitions Examples

Gerund: -ing NOUN; this is a thing As usual, he strode through he shop without SPEAKING. (D&J)After UNEARTHING THE THIS TRUFFLE an that, still it . . . (D&J)

Participle: -ing/-ed ADJECTIVE, before or after noun it modifies. If at beginning, set off in ,,

Policies TAKEN OUT IN HIS NAME prove that (UC)Grave men who see with BLINDING sight (GN)TURNING AND TURNING in the WIDENING GYRE, the falcon cannot hear the falconer (SC)

Infinitive: to + verb He was found by the bureau TO BE one . . (UC)

Adjective Prepositional Phrase answers which one?

AGAINST WHOM there was no complaint. (UC)

Adverbial Prepositional Phrase answers when/how/why about a verb

He worked IN A FACTORY and never got fired. (UC)

Appositive Phrase: noun phrase renaming, usually set off in punctuation

When the tea table was carried a way a new being, A LIGHT, FRAIL CREATURE WHO . . (ct)

PREPARING FOR QUIZ: EDMODO

Background Information

Review Background Notes (The Irish Question) and Social Criticism

LiteraturePhrases and Techniques

Total Points on Quiz: 110

Format # Pts

True orFalse

5 x 2 10

MultipleChoice

1 4

Total 14

Format

# Pts

MC 10 x 4 40

Short Answer

2 x 10 20

Imitate 2 x 10 20

Total 80

Format # Pts

MatchingTechnique

5 x 2 10

MatchingPhrase

6 x 1 6

Total 16