Pink Floyd & Carpe Diem Learning Packet
Carpe diem is a Latin expression that means "seize the day." Carpe diem poems have the theme of living for today.
Read the following lyrics from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon record. Answer the questions in the boxes:
Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour) 7:06
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.
Metaphysical Poetry, Conceits, & Fleas
To understand metaphysical poetry, a historical perspective is essential. The term metaphysical poetry is used to describe a certain type of seventeenth century poetry because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved.
Metaphysical poetry was a revolt against the romantic conventions of the Elizabethan love poetry and especially the typical Petrarchan conceits like rosy cheeks, eyes like stars, etc. The metaphysical verse by Donne often sounds rough in comparison to the smooth conventions of other poets.
Poets also used these techniques:
repetition – repeating a phrase or word for emphasis and to provide structure to the poem
conceit - an image or metaphor likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. Poets often use a far-fetched simile or metaphor comparing very unlike things. Example: Donne's 'The Flea', in which a flea-bite is compared to a marriage, and like most conceits, the extended comparison is more notable for its invention than its believability.
Paradox - a statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements but upon closer inspection might be true. Example: Ghost House
by
Robert Frost
I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago
The result is that these poems used a rugged irregular movement that seems to suit the content of poems. In addition to challenging the conventions of rhythm, the metaphysical poets also challenged conventional imagery.
Their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. There can be conventional ideas, where there are expected metaphors:
The Flea
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;
'Tis true, then learn how false fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
-John Donne (1573-1631)
Respond in complete, well written sentences that reflect the question:
- Why does the speaker say the flea's action is not "a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead"?
- What is maidenhead?
- Why might the flea's action be considered by some as a sin or shame or loss of maidenhead?
- At the end of the first stanza, the speaker says, "And this, alas, is more than we would do." What do his words reveal about the speaker's relationship to the implied audience?
- Who or what is the implied audience and what does the speaker want from her?
- How is the flea theoretically a marriage bed? A marriage temple?
- What is implied about the speaker's view of the value of sexual intercourse
Attitudes Toward Death Handout
Read “A Song on the End of the World” (Milosz) & p.441, “Holy Sonnet 10” (Donne)
Take marginal notes on the copy of “A Song on the End of the World”
- Analyze each poem separately, apply the SOAPSTONE principle attached, and then
- Write a one page analysis comparing the attitudes toward death in both poems.
Song on the End of the World
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A Fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through fields under their umbrellas
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet,
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world there will be,
No other end of the world there will be.
Warsaw, 1944
Tools for Analysis: S.O.A.P.S.Tone
SOAPSTONE / “Song of the End of the World” / “Holy Sonnet 10”Speaker:
Is there someone identified as the speaker?
Can you make some assumptions about this person?
o What social class does the author come from?
o What political bias can be inferred?
o What gender is the speaker?
P.S. Be sure to understand the difference, if any, between author and speaker
in the passage.
Occasion:
Immediate occasion
o What may have prompted the author/speaker to write this piece?
o What event led to its publication or development?
Larger occasion
o The bigger idea behind the piece; the broad issue
o The center of ideas and emotions in the work
Audience:
Does the speaker identify an audience?
What assumptions can you make about the audience? Is it mixed in terms of
race, politics, gender, social class, religion, etc.?
Does the speaker use language that is specific for a unique audience?
Does the speaker evoke Nation? Liberty? God? History? Hell?
Does the speaker allude to any particular time in history such as ancient times?
Purpose:
What is the speaker’s purpose?
In what ways does the author convey this message?
How is the speaker trying to spark a reaction in the audience?
How is this document supposed to make you feel?
Subject:
What is the subject of the piece? How do you know this?
How has the author presented this subject?
Tone:
What seems to be the emotional state of the speaker?
What is the speaker’s or author’s attitude toward the subject?
What words or phrases reveal the speaker’s tone?
How else does the writer reveal that attitude? (i.e. images, metaphorical
language, sentence structure)