Teaching Robert Frost: a Common Core Close Reading Seminar
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Robert Frosts Poetry: the Duality of the Senex
ROBERT FROSTS POETRY: THE DUALITY OF THE SENEX SONJA VALČIĆ UDK: 820(73).FROST, R. Filozofski fakultet u Zadru Izvorni znanstveni članak Faculty o f Philosophy in Zadar Original scientific paper Primljeno. 1999_10_12 Received The senex archetype in Frost's poetry is used extensively, it serves him to portray three antithetical aspects of human condition, aspects characterized by both positive and negative categories. These categories are not portrayed as static divisions, but as poles dinamically and complexly interrelated. This paper examines three of Frost's works "Mending Wall", "An Old Man's Winter Night" and "Directive" as examples for the study of the paradoxical senex consciousness. While the archetypal senex figures in the "Directive" and "An Old Man's Winter Night" represent primarily the antithetical aspects of the nature of humans, the senex protagonists in the "Mending Wall" reflect the inherent binary oppositions and ambivalence within the contradictory and paradoxical world of humankind. Thus, we can say, that Frost's portrayal of the archetype of the senex acknowledges the symbolic paradigm of the human condition. I. Robert Frost has long been considered the "Wise Old Man" of American twentieth-century poets, not simply because of his public persona, or mask, but because, as I shall explore in this paper, so much of his poetry and the characters in his poetry manifest the temperament, nature, principles and ordering qualities of the senex archetype. Senex is the Latin word for old man (or old woman). Personifications of the archetype appear everywhere in Frost's work as the guide, judge, father, mentor, philosopher, literate farmer, king, ruler (President and Governor), preacher, hermit, outcast, exile and ogre. -
“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost
FROST POETRY ANALYSIS DIRECTIONS: Complete the TP-CASTT analysis chart for your group poem. You only need one paper per group, but you are all responsible for presenting your poem to the class. You each must speak and contribute to the presentation. TP-CASTT –an acronym for title, paraphrase, connotation, attitude, shift, title (again), and theme—is designed to help you remember the concepts you can consider when examining a poem. This is not a lockstep sequential approach, but rather it is a fluid process in which you will move back and forth, among the various concepts. For example, in examining connotations of a line, you may also notice a shift, which in turn may give you an insight into theme. Title (before reading) Although titles are often keys to possible meanings of a poem, students frequently do not contemplate them either before or after reading poetry. As a first step in the analysis of a new poem, look at the title and predict what the poem may be about. Paraphrase Another aspect of a poem often neglected by students is the literal meaning—the “plot.” Frequently, real understanding of a poem must evolve from comprehension of “what’s going on in the poem.” Try to restate a poem in your own words, focusing on one syntactical unit at a time—not necessarily on one line at a time. Another possibility is to write a sentence or two for each stanza of the poem. Connotation Although this term usually refers solely to the emotional overtones of word choice, here it indicates that you should examine any and all poetic devices, focusing on how such devices contribute to the meaning, the effect, or both of a poem. -
Birches & Mending Wall King’S Word Academy BIRCHES When I See Birches Bend to Left and Right Across the Lines of Straighter Darker Trees
Literature Birches & Mending Wall King’s Word Academy BIRCHES When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees. I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay 5 As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. 10 Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load. 15 And they seem not to break: though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 20 Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter of fact about the ice storm, I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows- 25 Some boy too far from town to learn baseball. Whose only play was what he found himself. Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father’s trees By riding them down over and over again 30 Until he took the stiffness out of them And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. -
The Road Not Taken
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN John Scales Avery October 27, 2020 Introduction1 Decision trees During each human life, a child starts with many possible destinations. He or she then makes decisions, and each decision more closely defines who the person is and what it is possible for the person to become. The choice of a vocation defines who a person is, as does the choice of a husband or wife. Often chance plays a role. The decision to take a holiday at a particular place may lead to a chance meeting with a life partner. In a human life, we can observe a treelike pattern, similar to the decision tree of a person traveling through a landscape. At each forking of the path, a decision has to be made, and that decision determines more and more closely the traveler’s ultimate destination. Analogously, in a human life, a tree-like series of decisions or external influences more and more closely define the person’s identity and destiny. Each decision is a positive step, since it helps to define a person’s character. But there is sadness too. As we step forward on the road ahead, we must renounce all other possibilities. Although we might embrace our destiny, we sometimes think with regret on the road not taken, and wonder what might have been if we had chosen other paths. Pathfinding The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser. They received the prize for discover- ing the histologically observable structures in the brains of mammals which are used to remember pathways, for example the pathway through a maze. -
1 Robert Frost Poems Robert Frost (1874-1963) Was an American Poet
1 Robert Frost Poems Robert Frost (1874-1963) was an American poet most associated with the characters and cadences of New England. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times and became the most well-known poet of the twentieth century in America. He read his poem “The Gift Outright” at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. His collections include A Boy’s Will (1913), North of Boston (1914), and Collected Poems (1931). Birches (1916) When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10 Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20 But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. -
The Road Not Taken" As a Modernist Expression of Isolation Lynn Marie Houston, California State University, Chico
Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice Winter 2008 (2:1) Closing the Hallmark Card: Teaching Frost's "The Road Not Taken" as a Modernist Expression of Isolation Lynn Marie Houston, California State University, Chico Teachers of Robert Frost often contextualize his poetry in terms of his regionalism, realism, and his debts to Romanticism, such as his attention to nature and his celebration of the working class. Many teachers, though, neglect a discussion of the context of modernism when teaching Robert Frost's poetry, a little noted vein of theoretical interest especially among more recent Frost scholars. Understanding the modernist context in Robert Frost's work, and teaching it successfully to students, allows for new insights into the meaning of such poems as "The Road Not Taken" and transforms Frost's image from Hallmark-card material to edgy criticism of American individualism and isolationism. These new insights are essential for including the work of Robert Frost in college courses on modern poetry where his work frequently appears juxtaposed to that of the high modernists. Teaching techniques that can push students to consider this perspective, especially in "The Road Not Taken," hinge on developing their attention to word definitions and connotations, on instructing students to avoid the common mistake of referring to this poem by an incorrect title, and on providing them with a visual map of the geography of Frost's text. Traditionally, Frost has been viewed as a romanticist rather than a modernist. The Romantic elements of his work position him among a pantheon of poets like Wordsworth and the fireside poets (William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Longfellow). -
Chapter - IV CHAPTER-IV
Chapter - IV CHAPTER-IV THE FROST UNIVERSE: A STUDY IN MAJOR IMAGES AND SYMBOLS "Pipes in hands": Early Phase (1913 - 1916) His (Frost's) primary artistic achievement, which is an enviable one, in spite of shortcomings, rests on his blending thought and emotion and symbolic imagery within the confines of the lyric. It would seem to be an essential part of both his theory and practice to start with a single image, or to start with an image of action, and then to endow either or both with a figurativeness of meaning, which is not fully understood by the reader until the extensions of meaning are found to transcend the physical. Thompson, Lawrance. Robert Frost. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959. 38. ... [I]n Frost the symbol, presented (mite casually as an image, opens outward upon a vista of meaning. The vista does not have any definite terminus and in the farthest distance ifades into vague areas of suggestion. Lynen, John F. The Pastoral Art of Robert Frost. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960. 27. Frost's firstAolume, A Boy's Will (1913), "the Record of a Phase of Post- adolescence"', begins with a sonnet "Into My Own". It opens up the nexus of Frostian imagery wedded to the dark woods. Since Frost's poetic being has been shaped and reshaped by the woods, and the woods and the poetic being are almost 71 inseparable in Frost poetry, the study of this chapter hence begins with our observations on woods imagery: One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as't were, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. -
Poetic Conception of Robert Frost
International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 4, Issue 7, July 2016, PP 113-117 ISSN 2347-3126 (Print) & ISSN 2347-3134 (Online) http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2347-3134.0407018 www.arcjournals.org Poetic Conception of Robert Frost Ch.Aruna V.Beulah Rani Lecturer in English, Hindu College, Guntur Lecturer in English, Hindu College, Guntur [email protected] [email protected] Abstract: Robert Frost’s life, like his poetry is filled with curious contradictions. He wrote poetry using traditional theories and practices of versification. Frost said there is striking analogy between the course of a true poem and that of a true love, each begins as an impulse, a disturbing excitement to which the individual surrenders himself. This kind of inspiration is no way related to what words worth had in mind when he referred to emotions recollected in tranquility. The first kind of recognition which Frost suggests a part of poetic impulse may be seen by examining his stopping by woods on a snowy evening. Speaking about the relationship between the poem and the reader, Frost says the poem is twice blest once by the poet and then by the reader. Frost’s poetry is the poetry that never pretends it is the poetry of conversation and playing style. It sums up the past and enlivens the present for happy and wise future. It transcends time and space. It is universal in its appeal. It is powerful enough to express both things and thoughts. It is symbolic it plays on modern technique of contrasts and suggestions. -
Litcharts-Mending-Wall-1.Pdf
Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com Mending Wall POEM TEXT 42 Not of woods only and the shade of trees. 43 He will not go behind his father's saying, 1 Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 44 And he likes having thought of it so well 2 That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, 45 He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours." 3 And spills the upper boulders in the sun; 4 And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 5 The work of hunters is another thing: SUMMARY 6 I have come after them and made repair 7 Where they have left not one stone on a stone, There is some force that doesn’t like walls. It causes the frozen 8 But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, ground to swell underneath a wall, and the wall's upper stones 9 To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, then topple off in the warmth of the sun. This creates gaps in the wall so big that two people could walk through them side- 10 No one has seen them made or heard them made, by-side. And then there are the hunters who take apart the 11 But at spring mending-time we find them there. wall—that’s something different. I often have to come and fix 12 I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; the spots where hunters haven't left a single stone in place, as 13 And on a day we meet to walk the line they tried to flush out the abbitsr that hide in the wall in order 14 And set the wall between us once again. -
Investigation of the Musical Devices Used by Randall Thompson to Compose Works on the Text of Robert Frost
M~ INVESTIGATION OF THE MUSICAL DEVICES USED BY RANDALL THOMPSON TO COMPOSE WORKS ON THE TEXT OF ROBERT FROST A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Jerome C. Maxwell, B.S. The Ohio State University 1966 Approved by Departme Music ACKNOWLEDGEME1~ The writer wishes to thank Dr. Wayne Ramsey and Prof. Dale Gilliland for their guidance in the preporatio~ of t~is study. The writer also wishes to thank his wife, Emmy, for her invaluable aid and encouragement. ii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION _P_u_r~p;..o_s_e__o_f .~ study The purpose of this study was to analyze the musical set tings by Randall Thompson of seven poems of Robert Frost. The poems were studied from the standpoint of providing the conductor comprehensive understanding essential to a performance of these choral works. Too frequently the conductor performs choral compositions with little understanding of the significance of many musical and poetic factors involved in a choral setting. Posing such questions as the following would appear to be basic for gaining a comprehensive understanding of the music. 1. What is the meaning of the poem? What poetic devices have been used in develo~inG' this mcn!.1inc? 2. Does the musical setting seem to be appropriate to this meaning'? 3. What kinds of compositional devices has the composer used to enhance the text? 4. What problems regarding interpretation are evident from study of the score? 5. What technical problems are involved in the performance of the compositions? Answers to the above questions are pertinent to gaining 1 3 students if they are to gain some comprehension of music they are performing. -
Translating Mimesis of Orality
Translating mimesis of orality: Robert Frost’s poetry in Catalan and Italian Marcello Giugliano TESI DOCTORAL UPF / ANY 2012 DIRECTORS DE LA TESI Dra. Victòria Alsina Dr. Dídac Pujol DEPARTAMENT DE TRADUCCIÓ I CIÈNCIES DEL LLENGUATGE Ai miei genitori Acknowledgements My first thank you goes to my supervisors, Dr. Victòria Alsina and Dr. Dídac Pujol. Their critical guidance, their insightful comments, their constant support and human understanding have provided me with the tools necessary to take on the numerous challenges of my research with enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Dr. Jenny Brumme for helping me to solve my many doubts on some theoretical issues during our long conversations, in which a smile and a humorous comment never failed. My special thanks are also for Dr. Luis Pegenaute, Dr. José Francisco Ruiz Casanova, and Dr. Patrick Zabalbeascoa for never hiding when they met me in the corridors of the faculty or never diverting their eyes in despair. Thank you for always being ready to give me recommendations and for patiently listening to my only subject of conversation during the last four years. During the project, I have had the privilege to make two research stays abroad. The first, in 2009, in Leuven, Belgium, at the Center for Translation Studies (CETRA), and the second in 2010 at the Translation Center of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to my tutors there, Dr. Reine Meylaerts and Dr. Maria Tymoczko respectively, for their tutoring and for offering me the chance to attend classes and seminars during my stay there, converting that period into a fruitful and exciting experience. -
University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati Date: 1/31/2011 I, Andrew S Collins , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of Doctoral of Musical Arts in Conducting, Choral Emphasis. It is entitled: Poetic Structural Devices as a Consideration When Analyzing and Interpreting Choral Scores Student's name: Andrew S Collins This work and its defense approved by: Committee chair: Earl Rivers Committee member: Donald Bogen Committee member: Kenneth Griffiths 1295 Last Printed:2/22/2011 Document Of Defense Form Poetic Structural Devices as a Consideration When Analyzing and Interpreting Choral Scores A document submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in the Ensembles and Conducting Division of the College-Conservatory of Music by Andrew S. Collins B.M., Concordia College, 1997 M.M., Boston University, 2002 March 2011 Committee Chair: Earl Rivers, D.M.A. ABSTRACT This study focuses on the connection between poetry, choral composition, and choral performance, specifically how an understanding of the constructive elements of poetry can influence the interpretation of a choral score. The focus is on secular, English-language, accentual-syllabic poetry written in the United States and set to music by composers from the United States; free verse is not included in this document. Most studies of the interconnectedness of poetry and choral music have focused on either the meaning of the text or on “text painting.” By contrast, this study focuses on poetic constructive devices such as meter, form, and punctuation, and the implications such devices can have for choral performance, especially in regard to tempo, phrasing, articulation, and dynamics.