RVP, Week Four Poetry-reading techniques: rhyme schemes Wordsworth

Technique: Rhyme scheme Like any other element of a poem, can be read as a deliberate choice about how to organize information Deviation and extreme regularity can, alike, be read

Possibilities: rhyme schemes A: sets out a thought or idea then A: idea returns—consistency or B: new idea—alternating This can continue for as long as stanza allows

A Contrast Pope, Essay on Man Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, Shakespeare, “Sonnet XVIII” Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

———A simple Child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death? I met a little cottage Girl: She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair; —Her beauty made me glad. … “But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!” ’Twas throwing words away; for still The little Maid would have her will, And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

Techniques so far and exercise Close-reading techniques polyvalence and the OED basic scansion/rhythm Unusual sentence structure Repetition Occasion implied addressee ideal recipient

Towards context I: Isolation “…as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the household woods, Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone.” (“Tintern,” 19-22) WHERE ELSE?

Towards context II: City, House, Country So he took me thro’ a stable, and thro’ a church, and down into the church vault, at the end of which was a mill. Thro’ the mill we went, and came to a cave. Down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as a nether sky appear’d beneath us, and we held by the roots of trees, and hung over this immensity. Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees; But silently, by slow degrees, My spirit I to Love compose, In humble trust mine eye-lids close, With reverential resignation No wish conceived, no thought exprest, Only a sense of supplication; A sense o'er all my soul imprest That I am weak, yet not unblest, Since in me, round me, every where Eternal strength and Wisdom are. --Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10 These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses. What might we say about “setting?”

PERFORMANCE Oral presence Are speeches hard, or even impossible, to say out loud? Do the speeches arrange speech in particular ways? Is there a rhythm to the words, or some other oral ordering? Embodiment Does the poem intend that any particular sort of person say the poem? Does the poem describe a speaker, and if so that speaker’s body?

“Tintern Abbey” out loud What is the rhythm of the poem, noticed in oral presentation? Where is it regular, where is it not? Where does this amplify the poem’s meanings; where might it challenge them