We will read and discuss short poems in English, including many from England and some from Scotland, Ireland, America and other English-speaking places. We will pay attention to the musical qualities of verse and recognize song lyrics as poetry. We will discuss lyrics we know by heart. Students will have a chance to introduce poems or songs that they love or hate. We might, if the spirit moves us, write some lyrics of our own.<\/p>\n
William Shakespeare<\/p>\n
TOUCHSTONE: Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.<\/p>\n
AUDREY: I do not know what “poetical” is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?<\/p>\n
TOUCHSTONE: No, truly, for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.<\/p>\n
Alexander Pope<\/p>\n
Poets, like painters, thus, unskill’d to trace
\nThe naked nature and the living grace,
\nWith gold and jewels cover ev’ry part,
\nAnd hide with ornaments their want of art.
\nTrue wit is nature to advantage dress’d,
\nWhat oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d,
\nSomething, whose truth convinc’d at sight we find,
\nThat gives us back the image of our mind.
\nAs shades more sweetly recommend the light,
\nSo modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.
\nFor works may have more wit than does ’em good,
\nAs bodies perish through excess of blood.<\/p>\n
William Wordsworth<\/p>\n
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, similar to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.<\/p>\n