Renaissance Poetry

1. Renaissance Poetry Ms. Rivers English IV CP

2. EQ: Standard December 1, 2009

3. What does quote mean? “That man who dwells upon himself, ….rests in his true centre.” John Donne When a man knows himself well, he is focused and centered.

4. The focus of this unit is Renaissance Poetry which reflects humanistic thinking.

5. Influences on Renaissance Poetry • Humanism – belief in the central importance and dignity of human beings. • A new interest in ancient Greek and Roman Writings, including drama and poetry • Italian verse forms, including the sonnet • Powerful patrons of the arts, such as Elizabeth I. • Read pages 267- 268 for further explanation.

6. Ask yourself • How did the rediscovery of classical literature shape Renaissance Poetry? • Classical literature provided Greek and Roman themes; Renaissance poets emulated patterns, line length, and rhyme schemes of ancient poets. • How did people use poetry during the Renaissance? • Renaissance people wrote poetry to entertain friends. Upper-class men and women learned to write and sing poetry to be respected and admired. During Elizabeth’s reign, her court celebrated poetry with music and drama.

7. Important Vocabulary • Humanism • Rhyme scheme • Sonnet • Iambic Pentameter • Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet • Turn • All of are in handouts that were distributed on 11/30

8. What does Renaissance Poetry celebrate? • Individuals • Their relationships • Their natural surroundings

9. Sir Thomas Wyatt • Courtier • Diplomat • Ambassador to Henry VIII. • May have been in love with Anne Boleyn (mother of Queen Elizabeth) • Works may have been written in her honor. • Works were not published, just shared among friends. • Works were published 15 years after his death.

10. Key Vocabulary for Wyatt’s poems • Speaker • Drawing Inferences • Sonnet – what is its structure?

11. Whoso List to Hunt

12. Whoso List To Hunt by Wyatt Summary • The poem uses a hunt metaphor to describe a man pursuing a woman, who he compares to a deer. • The speaker is tired of the chase, and he invites others to take it up. • He uses classical allusion to warn others that their prey (probably Anne Boleyn), like Caesar’s deer, is claimed by a powerful ruler (probably Henry VIII). • The speaker ends by warning that this woman is wild although she looks tame.

13. Real World • Are there any contemporary songs or poems that are similar to Wyatt’s “Whoso List To Hunt”? • Do men and women still write about the “chase” of one another?

14. Essential Questions Are themes of Renaissance Poetry still present in our contemporary literature and music? If yes, what does this tell you about people, relationships, and society of the Renaissance? If no, what themes are present in our contemporary literature and music? Standards: E4-1.3 Evaluate devices of figurative language (metaphor, oxymoron, pun, and paradox). E4-1.1 Compare/contrast ideas within and across literary texts to make inferences. E4 -5.6 Compose effective pieces of writing to respond to prompts. Day 2 December 2, 2009

15. Edmund Spenser • One of the most influential poets of his day. • Attended Cambridge as a “sizar” or poor scholar. • Dedicated The Shepheardes Calendar to Sir Philip Sydney (a poet and his friend). • Wrote The Faerie Queene while living in Ireland. • Died in London and was buried next to Chaucer in the Poet’s Corner at the Westminster Abbey. • Wrote sonnets to his wife, Elizabeth, about their courtship.

16. Sonnet 30 by Spenser • Speaker compares his love for a woman to fire and her rejection to his love to ice. • Sonnet develops a paradox, concluding that in the case of love, the rules of nature are suspended. Definition: Contradictions that are actually true. Example: Ice and fire coexisting without changing properties.

17. How does the final couplet of the poem explain the feelings between the speaker and the loved woman? “Such is the power of love in gentle mind, That it can alter the course of kind.” The obstinate love of the speaker and the equally obstinate rejection by the woman seem to be evidence that love is so powerful that it can alter physical laws.

18. Sonnet 75 • Spenser uses the image of the sea and its eternal tides to emphasize the critical nature of life and the immortality brought by his poetry.

19. Speaker describes writing his beloved’s name in the sand and seeing the waves wash it away twice. When she protests that it is futile (hopeless) to try to immortalize anything mortal, he promises to make her name and their love live forever through his verse. Sonnet 75 by Spenser

20. Why does the woman complain the speaker is vain? • She believes it is vain to transform an ephemeral (temporary) thing into something permanent. What image does the author use to represent loves impermanence? • Spenser uses the image of waves washing away the name of his beloved from the sand.

21. Essential Questions With 220,000 people throwing their sewage in the street every day and no garbage collectors, what do you think the city smelled like? How might these facts of life in London have made a pastoral setting appealing to the reader of the day? Standards: E4-1.5 Analyze the effect of the author’s craft (including tone and the use of imagery, flashback, foreshadowing, symbolism, motif, irony, and allusion) on the meaning of literary texts. Day 3 December 3, 2009

22. Agenda: • Take out the vocabulary handout that I gave you on Tuesday so that I can give you a homework grade. 2. Answers to vocabulary handout 3. Pastoral Poetry • Background • Marlowe • The Passionate Shepard to His Love • Raleigh • The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepard

23. How might these facts of life in London have made a pastoral setting appealing to the reader of the day?

24. Christopher Marlowe – the Rebel • Playwright, poet, brawler, and spy • Began espionage in 1587 for England, but arrested in 1593 for scandalous speeches • Days before court he died of stab wound sustained from a brawl • Some believe he was assassinated since his assailant was acquitted.

25. Summary of PSTHL • A shepherd describes the beauty of life in the country to his beloved to persuade her to go live with him. • Repetition of line 1 of the 5th and last stanza make is more pleasant and songlike. Creates rhythm and emphasizes the speaker’s urgency to have his beloved go with him.

26. Essential Questions How do movies, books, or music of our day attempt to portray ideal romantic escapes? Are they accurate? Why or Why not? E4-1.5 Analyze the effect of the author’s craft (including tone and the use of imagery, flashback, foreshadowing, symbolism, motif, irony, and allusion) on the meaning of literary texts. Day 4 December 4

27. Agenda: • Answers to Passionate Shepherd questions. • Key vocabulary • Pictures of country/pastoral life • Raleigh • The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepard

28. Inverted word order • In your notes, you must write what word over is. • What does inverted word order remind you of? Yoda!! Example from “Passionate” Come live with me and be my love And we will all the pleasures prove…” And we will prove all the pleasures

29. Key vocabulary • Pastoral poetry – poem depicting country life in idealized terms; passionate shepherds and beautiful nymphs live in harmony with nature absent of harsh and gritty images of rural labor. • Anti pastoral poetry – mocks the pastoral poetry’s idyllic (peaceful), idealistic (unrealistic) depictions of rural life. • "nymph" comes from the Greek word that means "young woman" • Shepherd – someone who tends his flock

31. Sir Walter Raleigh • Handsome, arrogant, dashing • Favorite of Queen Elizabeth • Seafarer, courtier, soldier • Imprisoned after Elizabeth’s death • Beheaded because he and his men attacked a Spanish settlement.

32. Summary of “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” • A nymph ridicules a shepherd’s promises of love by painting a realistic view of the effect of time on passionate love.

33. Essential Question How might Donne’s contrasting life experiences have influenced and enriched his writings? Standards E4-1.1 Compare/contrast ideas within and across literary texts to make inferences. E4-1.3 Evaluate devices of figurative language. Day 5 December 7

34. Agenda: • Important vocabulary • John Donne • A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

35. Important vocabulary • Metaphysical poetry-written in a difficult and abstract style; intellectual, detached, obscure imagery; verbal wit; rough sounding meter • Imagery- vivid language that creates a mental picture • Meter- a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. • Hyperbole- extreme exaggeration • Metaphysical conceit – elaborate clever figure of speech that makes connection between 2 things that are startling different.

36. John Donne • Studied at Oxford at age of 12, but was not allowed to have a degree because of his religion – Catholic. • Studied law in London • Completed 2 naval expeditions • Appointed secretary to Thomas Eggerton – lord keeper of great seal. • Married a 17 year old girl, Anne More, without her father’s consent. • Imprisoned. • Struggled after his release and lived off of friends. • Wrote poetry against the Church of Rome. • Big supporter of Church of England. • James I encouraged him to become a clergyman • His sermons were a huge success • Became the DEAN of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

37. Summary • Speaker urges his wife to behave with dignity when they part. The couple’s love is described as a union of souls that cannot be broken by distance.

38. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning • Why is this line a metaphysical conceit? “Like gold to airy thinness beat” It compares human souls to gold that is beaten into a thin sheet. The poet uses an unusual extended comparison to show that the lovers’ souls aren’t harmed by their separation.

39. A Valediction: • What makes the use of the word circle in the final two lines such a perfect word choice at the end of this poem? “Thy firmness makes my circle just,” Like perfect love, a circle has no beginning and no end. It is continuous and everlasting. The circle evokes not only the compass image but also the orbit of the heavenly bodies, which Donne refers to earlier.

40. Essential Question How might Donne’s contrasting life experiences have influenced and enriched his writings? Standards E4-1.1 Compare/contrast ideas within and across literary texts to make inferences. E4-1.3 Evaluate devices of figurative language. Day 6 December 8

41. Day 6 December 8 • Agenda: John Donne – “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” open book quiz John Milton – Intro to Paradise Lost – page 350 From Paradise Lost “The Fall of Satan”

42. Essential Questions How does Milton use characteristics of a sonnet in Paradise Lost? Standards E4-1.3 Evaluate devices of figurative language. E4-1.5 Analyze the effect of the author’s craft on the meaning of literary texts. Day 7 December 9

43. Agenda • Key vocabulary • Style • Diction • Blank verse • Epic similes • EPICS – oral, primary, and literary • John Milton background • Introduction to Paradise Lost • “The Fall of Satan”

44. Vocabulary • Style – way writers use language to express their ideas • Diction – word choice • (pick or choose?) Which would you use? • Blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter (like Shakespeare) • Epic Similes- extended comparisons that draw parallels between dissimilar things. • Oral or Primary Epic – performed by generations of storytellers (ex: Beowulf) • Literary Epic – product of an individual writer (ex: Paradise Lost)

45. John Milton • Talent for languages