1. Form / Content

2. all content has a form – they are inseparable and of course the form shapes the content

3. Form / Content all content has a form – they are inseparable and of course the form shapes the content BUT content also shapes form: we use pitchers or glasses for water because plates don’t work

4. Form / Content Love songs – the same content the world over and across time: you are awesome, handsome, pretty, smart, funny, made for me, me for you, two halves of a whole, blah-blah- blah I really dig you and we should be together forEVER, m’kay? but the forms change

5. Form / Content from Medieval love lyrics For I love you so much, truly, that one could sooner dry up the deep sea and hold back its waves than I could constrain myself from loving you … and so on…

6. Form / Content to today: I belong with you You belong with me You’re my Sweetheart… and so on…

7. Form / Content When form and content match, you get something good When form and content don’t match, well …

8. Form / Content When form and content match, you get something good When form and content don’t match, well … Good Match: AWKWARD – this word is awkward this is an auk (nothing to do with awkward)

9. Form / Content When form and content match, you get something good When form and content don’t match, well … Bad Match: PULCHRITUDINOUS this word is not pulchritudinous

10. Pulchritudinous

13. “The Platonic Blow” W. H. Auden (1965)

14. Plato Greek philosopher 427-347BCE homosexuality = Greek love Platonic as adjective = without lust or desire Platonic Forms, ideals, perfection Platonic brings us closer to The Good

15. “The Platonic Blow” content? Formal Qualities word choice – how do the words sound? what do they evoke? tone – clinical, passionate, detached, breathless? rhythm – fast, slow, variable, staccato, sustained? sentence length – short, long, variable, …? punctuation, syntax – lots of full-stops, or flow? how is the reader addressed/situated? do the form and content work effectively together or are they disjunctive?

16. from Macho Sluts : “A Dash of Vanilla” Pat(rick) Califia (1989) possibly the best title of all time what is the content?

17. from Macho Sluts : “A Dash of Vanilla” Pat(rick) Califia (1989) mouth, eating, oral

18. from Macho Sluts : “A Dash of Vanilla” Pat(rick) Califia (1989) mouth, eating, oral

19. from Macho Sluts : “A Dash of Vanilla” Pat(rick) Califia (1989) Formal Qualities? Point of View/Perspective Where is the reader in all this? voyeur participant subject? object? both? ~~~

20. from Macho Sluts : “A Dash of Vanilla” Pat(rick) Califia (1989) Put differently, How does this piece construct its reader?

21. from Macho Sluts : “A Dash of Vanilla” Pat(rick) Califia (1989) and, How does it construct its narrator?

22. “Figs” D. H. Lawrence (1920)

23. Biblical precedent (sin, Fall, sex, lust, unnatural conduct) Eve covers her “shame” with a fig leaf, so the fig is the fruit on the branch

24. “Figs” D. H. Lawrence (1920) fruit fecundity nature – remember Roman de la Rose? women/fruit/vagina/womb orality, tongue, penetration, juicy, pleasure

25. “The Flea” John Donne (1670) Sexy, right?

26. “The Flea” John Donne (1670) blood, bodily fluids shared intermingling of them brings shame, loss of honour blood = honour, lineage, quality of person blood = life, vitality, force, potency also shedding of blood as deflowering double trick: the flea hasn’t really taken our vitality – symbolic only same goes for honour, then – symbolic only

27. “The Flea” John Donne (1670) Formal Qualities word choice – how do the words sound? do they rhyme? what do they evoke? assonance, alliteration, sibilance, onomatopoeia, euphonia, cacophany tone – clinical, passionate, detached, breathless? rhythm – fast, slow, variable, staccato, sustained? sentence length – short, long, variable, …? punctuation, syntax – lots of full-stops, or flow? how is the reader constructed? speaker? listener? do the form and content work effectively together or are they disjunctive?

28. “The Flea” John Donne (1670) IS IT EROTIC?

29. Goblin Market Christina Rosetti (1859) Victorian era – 1835-1901 strait-laced, reserved, prudish childhood, the unconscious, imagination, dreams What is the content?

30. Goblin Market Christina Rosetti (1859) sublimation | repression | displacement FREUD! cigar  (no, really)

31. Goblin Market Christina Rossetti (1859) YOUR MISSION: pair up and choose 5 line passage (5 mins) individually identify THREE formal elements (5 mins) pair up and consolidate (5 mins) we’ll discuss and relate to content blushing, awkward laughing, etc. to follow…

32. Next Week: Smooth Bits, Foldy Bits, Hairy Bits Readings: “Creamy Breasts” “The Penis” “The Female Genitals” from Les Guerillères from Amores “Obscur et Froncé” Humour – “Anglo-Saxon Riddle”