Ode On the Grecian Urn

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
By John Keats

Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone. Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal---yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, For ever panting, and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"---that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Let's view Death of a salesman slideshow..

Arthur Miller's great classic masterpiece 'Death of a Salesman' tells the story of Willy Loman, a traveling salesman who "rode on a smile and a shoeshine" and now, facing the twilight of his life, must confront his failures and his family's struggles with success, integrity, and the ever elusive American dream. Winner of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Unfulfilled desire.. The Great America Dream.


Deep inside the deepest heart,
Deep inside the deepest soul,
I never want to let it go,
The greatest dream I ever know,
The beauties dream I always sold,
The luxuries dream I never hold,

I believe ever,
and I deem forever,
This dream the only future,
What ever it torture,
I still insist on that pleasure,
The passion to make it happen,
Bow and surrender like a servant,
I agree only appearance and fame,
The only chance for it present,

To be success in that desire

Embrace this dream my son,
Longing, craving, yearning, like death,
I urge, I beg, I claim and I curse youth..
This beautiful liar, lay restless
beneath every man,
Make an aver for what was written
On your forehead,

Read it in the absent eyes
The book of verity,
Listen it in the mute ears
The song of reality,
Watch! Slowly float in the sky of hope,
The hopeless illusion,
Still, I’m not a dime in a dozen,
This dream.. The Great America Dream!
I was a victim of my materialistic society.
Willy Loman.

Created by Monaliza Harun Chong.

Literary Works in English SKBE 2053

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares² we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest³ began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots⁴
Of tired, outstripped⁵ Five-Nines⁶ that dropped behind.

Gas!⁷ Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets⁸ just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime⁹ . . .
Dim, through the misty panes¹⁰ and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,¹¹ choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud¹²
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest¹³
To children ardent¹⁴ for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.¹⁵

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Do Not Go Gantle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas.

Dylan Thomas.

• Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his sonorous voice with a subtle Welsh lilt became almost as famous as his works. His best-known works include the "play for voices"Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father; do not go gentle into that good night.

• Dylan Thomas was born in the front upstairs bedroom at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, situated in the Uplands area of Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom on 27 October 1914. Uplands was, and still is, one of the more affluent areas of the city, which kept him away from the more industrial side of the city.
  

• His father, David John Thomas, was an English master who taught English literature at the local grammar school. His mother, Florence Hannah Thomas (née Williams), was a seamstress born in Swansea. Dylan had a sister, Nancy, eight years older than him. Their father brought up both children to speak English only, even though both parents also knew Welsh.

Do Not Gentle into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

First stanza:

Old age, says the poet, should be filled with passion in its struggle against death.

Second stanza:

Wise men know that death is inevitable and yet even they fight to prolong their lives so as to have more time to perform some great feat.

Third stanza:

Good men are not afraid to die because they will be going straight to heaven. But, says the poet, even they will fight against death because there is so much more that they could be doing in this life.

Fourth stanza:

Adventurous men, people who live life differently or who live carefree lives ("sang the sun in flight") also realize when it is too late that they could have done much more with their time on earth.

Fifth stanza:

Serious men who suddenly see ("blinding sight") that they have been blind and have not lived life to the full ("could blaze like meteors and be gay") will also fight against death.

Sixth stanza:

The poet now turns more particularly to his own father who seems to have withdrawn from the world and has distanced himself from those who love him ("there on the sad height").

Literary Devices

The form on the poem is a villanelle, with a rime scheme alternating “night” and “day.”

“Good night” is a metaphor and a pun. “Dying of the light” is a metaphor.

“Old age should burn and rave” in line two is a combination of metonymy and personification. “Close of day” is a metaphor.

“Burn” in that same line is used metaphorically, as is “dark” in line four. In line five “their words had forked no lightning” is metaphorical.

Line eight “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay” employs personification and metaphor.

Line ten “Wild men who sang the sun in flight” is exaggeration and metaphor.

Line 11 “they grieved it on its way” is also exaggeration and metaphor.

Line 13 “Grave” is a pun; “blinding sight” is an oxymoron.

Line 14 “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors” is a simile.

Line 17 “Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray” is a paradox.

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

Mother to Son

By Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

In Langston Hughes’ poem, “Mother to Son,” the mother is speaking to her son; her message is that her life has not been easy, but she has not let herself stop trying. The speaker uses a “stair-way” metaphor to represent her life.

She first tells her son that “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” A crystal stair represents an imaginary path of ease—the crystal makes the climb smooth and comfortable. The stair this mother has ascended has had difficulties—“tacks” and “splinters”—it has had not had carpet which would also make the walk easier on the feet.

And as in life, there are twists and turns, the stairway the mother has climbed his had turns. But she makes the point that she never gives up, regardless of the difficulty: “I'se been a-climbin' on.” And she is rewarded for her effort by reaching landings and turning corners; these places on the stairway represent real achievements she has made by her vigilant struggles.

Don’t Give Up

She advises her son, “So boy, don't you turn back / Don't you set down on the steps.” She has been through darkness on her climb up the steps, but she warns him that just because things can be hard, he must let the challenges dishearten him to the point of ceasing the struggle.

She repeats three times that she has never given up the struggle to meet life’s challenges: “I'se been a-climbin' on,” in line 9, “For I'se still goin', honey,” line 18, and “I'se still climbin',” line 19. She also repeats the line that establishes the metaphor: “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair,” in the second and last lines.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud (William Wordsworth)

William Wordsworth

• William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth in Cookson. His sister, poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year. All of his siblings were destined to have successful careers. His elder brother Richard became a lawyer in London; John Wordsworth rose to the rank of Captain on a merchantman of the East India Company; and the youngest of the family, Christopher, became Master of Trinity College at Cambridge.Cumberland. The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann.

• After the death of their mother in 1778, their father sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for another nine years. His father died when he was 13.

• Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for his first two summer holidays, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790, he took a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and also visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy. His youngest brother, Christopher, rose to be Master of Trinity College.

• William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced: but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed- but littla thought
What wealth the snow to me had brought:

Foe oft when on my couch lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

First stanza:

The poet describes a time when he walk over the valleys and hills, "lonely as a cloud." Finally, he came across a crowd of daffodils stretching out over almost everything he could see, "fluttering and dancing in the breeze".

Second stanza:

The poet describes more detail about the daffodils. They reminded him of the Milky Way, because there were so many flowers packed together that they seemed to be never ending. The speaker guesses that there were ten thousand daffodils, which were "Tossing their heads in sprightly dance".

Third stanza:

The poet compares the waves of the lake to the waves of daffodils and decides that even though the lake is "sparkling," the daffodils win because they have more "glee." He then comments that he could not help but be happy "in such a jocund company." He looked at the scene for a long time, but while he was there he was unable to understand what he had gained from the experience.

Fourth stanza:

The poet describes what he gained from the experience. Afterwards, when he was lonely or feeling "pensive," he could remember the daffodils, seeing them with his "inward eye," and be content.