Metaphysical Poetry

This week we are working with Metaphysical Poetry of the 17th Century. HERE is the poetry packet for the week.

HERE is the lecture you all had today about John Donne and metaphysical poetry.

Weekend Homework

This weekend we pivot to the Metaphysical poets. More on that definition next week. Your homework this weekend is to read and annotate the John Donne poem (Sonnet XIV, "Batter My Heart") and the short analysis of the poem by Camille Paglia. If you were absent, get a copy on Monday.

Get pumped! John Donne is a favorite!

Homework This Weekend (Due Nov. 2nd)

Study your VOCAB! (see link on the right) -- no definitions or sentences, but understand how to apply these terms to real poems

Read and annotate 3 of the modern/contemporary poems in your packet.


Some reminders about sonnets:

Italian:

14 lines

Octave/Sestet (volta)

Rhyme: abbaabba/cdecde or cdccdc

NO RHYMING COUPLET

Early English Sonnet

14 lines

Octave/Sestet (volta)

Rhyme: abbaabba/cddc ee

RHYMING COUPLET

Shakespearean Sonnet

14 lines

Octave/Sestet (volta)

Rhyme: abab cdcd efef gg

RHYMING COUPLET & NEW RHYME SCHEME

Italian Sonnets

Today we began our study of sonnets. HERE is the packet you picked up. We will use this packet for the next two weeks.


This afternoon we discussed Petrarch and looked at his Sonnet 13. HERE is the poetry lecture (we covered slides 16-21).

Petrarch looking lonely :(

Study Poetry Vocab (Quiz Monday)

Here are the key terms for this week:

Scansion

Meter

Qualitative Meter

Metric foot

dimeter

trimeter

tetrameter

pentameter

caesura

end-stopped

enjambed

iamb

trochee

spondee


You DO NOT need definitions and sentences this week. Just study these terms and know how to apply them to a poem.

Poetic Scansion

Yesterday we began our glorious (or maybe dreaded?) poetry unit. We had a great discussion about scansion. HERE is the note-sheet from yesterday. HERE is the PowerPoint. So far we have covered through slide 15.

Today we will continue our exploration of poetic meter with some activities around syllable stresses (iambic, trochaic, etc.) HERE is the note-sheet for today.

"This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin

We had a great conversation today about Larkin's poem and the connections with our tragedy unit. Here are the group annotations we created:

5th Hour:

6th Hour:

Wednesday, Sept. 9

If you missed today, please see me about taking the poetry pre-test!

Today everyone took a poetry annotation/analysis pre-test. I will score this but the score WILL NOT count toward your grade. This is to give us a baseline. 

We read and annotated Philip Larkin's "A Study of Reading Habits." 

Homework (due tomorrow): Read and annotate Maya Angelou's "The Reader as Artist"

As always, I expect you to annotate, keep notes and engage deeply with texts I assign. We will discuss!