1. The Cycle of LIFE
The Cycle of life can be divided into 5 stages. In your opinion, what are the five stages? What would you use to symbolize each stage? What emotions, ideals, or connotations do people associate with each stage? Why do these stages apply to all cultures and all people?

2. Romanticism & The American Dream
Poetry Notes
Romanticism & The American Dream

3. Poetry People and their Profound Poetic Prayers
Narrative Poetry: tells a story (ballads, epics, verse romantics)
Dramatic poetry: presents the speech of more than one character
Lyric poetry: expresses the thoughts/feelings of a single speaker (sonnets, odes, elegies, haikus)

4. Poetic Theme
Cycle of LIFE and DEATH

5. Terms to know Alliteration: SOUND DEVICE Catalogue poetry: TYPE
Metaphor: FIGURATIVE LANG
Mood: LIT TERM
Onomatopoeia: SOUND DEVICE
Personification: FIGURATIVE LANG
Refrain: SOUND DEVICE
Repetition: SOUND DEVICE
Speaker: LIT TERM

6. Authors we’ll look at
Edgar Allan Poe
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman

7. Romantic and Poe
Poe wrote mainly with a Gothic style. Gothic style is characterized by the following elements:
The story is set in bleak or remote places.
The plot involves macabre or violent incidents.
Characters are in psychological and/or physical torment.
A supernatural or otherworldly element is often present.
How does this fall under the “romantic umbrella”?

8. Analyzing 1. 1. Mood(first highlighter)
Feeling the reader gets
2. Onomatopoeia (second highlighter)
Words that imitate sounds
3. Alliteration (third highlighter)
Repetition of initial consonant sounds
4. Speaker (write out)
Who is talking in the piece
5. Refrain (box)
Lines that are repeated in verse

9. The Bells
Edgar Allan Poe

10. We’re going to look for the following:
Alliteration (highlight color 1)
Onomatopoeia (highlight color 2)
Refrain (boxed)
Theme (written)
Mood (written)

11. Stanza I

12. Stanza II

13. Stanza 3

14. Stanza IV

15. (Adapted from) How Death is Handled in Various Cultures
Charlotte Kuchinsky  

16. Death and Cultures
Why do all cultures have clear identifiable rituals for handling death? What does this tell us about all humans? Does this prove that Poe was right with his poem?

17. Compare/Contrast Poe’s theme of “Death Triumphs over Life” to one of the cultures’ view of death.

18. Dickinson
Recluse; odd insight to life and death; odd energy and intensity
7 poems published pre-death
Self conscious; asked her family to destroy them at her death---why?

19. Lyric Poem
It expresses the feelings of a single speaker’s journey to death…
Similar to Poe? How?

20. Analyzing Speaker Mood Alliteration Metaphor Personification:
A comparison not using like or as
Personification:
giving human characteristics to something non human

21. Because I could not Stop for Death—
HE kindly stopped for me.

22. The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality

23. We slowly drove—He knew no haste
  And I had put away
  My labor and my leisure too,
  For his Civility—

24. We passed the School, where Children strove 10 At Recess—in the Ring—

25. We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—

26. We passed the Setting Sun—
Or rather HE passed us—

27. The Dews drew quivering and chill—

28. For only Gossamer, my Gown— My Tippet—only Tulle —

29. So…

30. We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice —in the Ground—

31.   Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
  Feels shorter than the Day
  I first surmised the Horses Heads
  Were toward Eternity—

32. Which view of the cycle of life and death do you identify with the most—Poe’s or Dickinson’s? Explain.

33. Catalogue Poem Read the following poem and… Write an appropriate title
Explain what the poem “lists” and if it is effective.

34. School handouts, two weeks overdue. Three rubber bands.
Six Yu-Gi-Oh cards.
Chewing gum wrappers.
School handouts, two weeks overdue.
Three rubber bands.
A five-inch-tall stuffed dog.
Four small blood stains.
Two smooth, gray rocks.
Fourth-grade intrigue.
Four pencils with no lead and no eraser.
Righteous indignation.
Stories.
Avril Lavigne.
Asthma inhaler.
A feather.
Fourteen pale pink ribbons.
Playground news.
Someone's phone number scribbled on a Heath Bar wrapper.
Eight secrets.
Head lice, once.
Plans of her own.

35. Whitman
Focus on life rather than death; specifically in the American Culture
Problem: only focused on ONE type of culture

36. Analyzing Speaker Mood Catalogue Poetry—Poem using lists
Repetition—using the same words

37. Mechanics

38. Carpenter

39. Mason (Bricklayers)

40. Boatman and Deckhand

41. Shoemaker and Hatter

42. Wood-cutter and Plowboy

43. Mother, Young Wife, & Girl at work

44. Thinking… What do these occupations have in common?
What type of jobs are they?
Do they still apply today?
What other occupations in today’s culture could you add?

45. Whitman, Poe and Dickinson
Whitman’s poem: Celebrates life
Dickinson’s poem: Romanticizes death
Poe’s poem: Sees death as inevitable triumph over life
What does it tell us about the individual in American Romanticism?

46. America or more
All three poems apply to America—but can they be applied culturally?
Dickinson—embrace death (Native American)
Poe—respect and fear death (Jewish)
Whitman—celebrate life (Irish)