Poem of the Week--#3

Siren Song

BY MARGARET ATWOOD 

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don't enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

Poem of the Week--#1

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;


Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;


And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.


Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;


And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale 1920

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, was a science fiction writer who produced his most famous works in the 1950s.  What makes him most significant was his ability to predict the effect that (as yet uninvented) modern technology would have on human society.  

As Tim Kreider says in an opinion editorial for The New York Times called "Uncle Ray's Dystopia," Bradbury saw that modern communications technology would come with a price of its own:  "Mr. Bradbury didn’t just extrapolate the evolution of gadgetry; he foresaw how it would stunt and deform our psyches."

Summer Poetry Assignment

Exciting news, AP Literature and Composition has its very own summer assignment (in addition to the required reading).  Please go to the course web page to download the three documents (including a sample/model) necessary to complete the assignment.

Reading and Understanding a Poem

Fridge Poetry

From the University of Wisconsin--Madison:


Some people like poetry.  Many people fear poetry.  But they fear it for the wrong reasons because it is difficult to understand.  But poetry is not designed to instantly give up its meaning like a novel or a magazine article. Poems are highly compressed works of literature.  Meaning that a lot of meaning is packed into as little a space as possible.  Understanding a poem requires careful reading and re-reading to extract that meaning from the carefully structured words.


This site from the University of Wisconsin's Writing Center provides a good approach to reading and understanding poetry. Here is a summary of their approach:

Poem Analysis Guide:

i. Read a poem with pencil in hand. Jot down questions.ii. Read a poem several times.  Read it aloud at least once.

1. Who is the poem’s author?  What are his birth and death (if applicable) years?
2. What is the author’s country of origin?
3. Are there any difficult words?  If so, look them up and record them.
4. Consider the title carefully.  
1. What is it implying?  
2. How does it connect to the poem?
5. What is the poem's subject and situation?
1. Who is talking?  To whom are they talking?
2. What are the poem's circumstances?  What happened in the poem?
3. Is something tangible being described?  Something intangible?
6. What figurative language, if any, is used?
1. Is the poem built upon a comparison or analogy?  
2. A simile or metaphor?  
7. What is the author's attitude toward the subject of the poem?
8. Are there divisions within the poem?  
1. How is the poem ordered?
2. Are there stanzas?  What size?
9. Is there any consistent pattern of words?  Look for examples of an author's intentional word choice.  Why did they choose one word over another?
10. Ask yourself the following question about the poem, "So what?"  What purpose does the poem have?  

Intro to Literary Theory

Comic from XKCD:


AP English Lit is mainly a survey of British (and some European) literature.  What that means is that we will be engaging in literary criticism about major works of literature from England.  The course is a "survey" because it covers select works of literature from England and those works are selected from the most influential and periods of British lit.


The term "literary criticism" is somewhat harder to define.  Google tells me that it is "The art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary works."  Which is true, but doesn't capture the complexity of the field.


The Purdue "Online Writing Lab" (OWL) provides a more complete overview  of literary theory at this link.  We will be using some of these approaches to analyze the works that we will be reading in AP Lit.


A brief timeline (from OWL) of the major fields of literary theory can be found inside this post.

What's the difference between Lit and Lang?

One of the questions we get most in the English department is "what's the difference between AP English Literature and Composition and AP English Language and Composition?


The short answer is that AP Lit focuses mainly on analyzing fiction and drama, and that AP Lang focuses mainly on analyzing non-fiction and on making effective arguments.


The longer answer comes in when you ask about the AP English exams and what the difference is between the AP English exams and the exams for almost every other subject?