Love, Death, and Time

“Love, Death, and Time”

Renaissance Poetry Assignments

You will be responsible for reading and presenting on one of the poems listed; in addition, you need to know the biographies and styles of each of the poets.

Poet

1. Any of Shakespeare’s sonnets not covered in class

1. The Lie, Nature that Washed her Hands in Milk,

1. Whoso List to Hunt,

1. Sonnets: 1, 34, 37, 54, 64, 65, 67, 68, 74, 75, 79

1. The Apparition, The Relic, Holy Sonnet 1, The Undertaking, Love’s Alchemy, Air and Angels

1. Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women

1. Still to be Neat, Queen and Huntress

1. From Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: Number 16 and number 40

1. The Flower, Death

1. His Farewell to Sack, Corrina’s Going A’maying, , Upon Julia’s Clothes

1. The Mower Against Gardens

You will also be responsible for the definitions and applications of the following literary terms. You may find these terms in the text and on the Internet.

Poetry Annotations & Presentations: The student will be responsible for reading, researching the background, and thoroughly understanding their assigned poem. The teacher will try to supply time in the media center for this. Then, each student will present their poem to the rest of the class, teaching the poem and leading students in a good annotation of the text. The presentations must include the following:

an excellent oral reading of the poem

either a PowerPoint or a hand out to teach the rest of the class

(Power Points must be brought to class/handouts must be copied before class)

good, strong visuals and color are essential to achieving a high score

see the rubric for more details

Poetry Presentations

Each presentation should include each of the following components. You must read, research, and dig deep to get at an understanding of these poems. Use the print sources in the Media Center, your textbook, and the Internet. You may organize the information in whatever way you like, but be sure to be thorough. We will model in class several poems before you begin.

Background: What background information does one need in order to understand this

poem? Be sure toread a biography of your poet to understand his motivation in writing the poem. Many of these poems have an interesting story behind them or some information from another realm altogether that help the reader make sense of the poem. Read the information in the text; find commentary and criticism to help you.

Speaker/ Audience: Who is the speaker? Who is the audience? Knowing this is

essential to an understanding of any poem.

Key Words: What are the strong words in the poem? Which words seem to jump out at

you? Are there puns or repetitions of certain words? What are the connotations of the key words? Look for words that may have several different meanings. Make sure that your presentation makes these words clear. KNOW THE DEFINTIONS & PRONUNCIATIONS OF ALL WORDS! LOOK UP ALL ALLUSIONS IN THE POEM.

Form: What is the form of this poem? Does it have some natural division, and, if so, what

is it? Is there a clear pattern in this poem? Check the rhyme scheme; study the way verses are divided. How does the meaning change from one part of the poem to the other?

Paraphrase: Be able to paraphrase each section of the poem. Change the poetic word order to

regular word order, and find the subject and the verb. Poetry is often condensed, and a few

words carry a great deal of meaning. Do you need to add some words to make this make

sense?

Literary Devices:What literary devices does the poet use? Explain how the technique is applied. (Don’t just say, “The poet uses symbolism”; say instead, “The poet uses the symbol of a rosebud to represent youth and beauty.”) Why is the imagery appropriate? What does each image suggest beyond itself? Are the images linked in some way? Do the images change as the poem develops?

Essential Question: After analyzing the formal qualities of the poem, articulate what

essential question the poet is addressing. Essential questions are not questions that

have a clear answer; they are not objective, academic questions that you can get right or wrong on a test. Instead, they are life questions; they are the kind of questions that you will ponder continually, questions that have preoccupied poets and philosophers for all of history. Addressing essential questions is the primary business of the poet, and it is this focus that makes poems immortal, that brings a reader of a poem back time and again to a particular poem.

Summary and Reflection: You may express your feelings about the poem. Is the poem

effective? Is the essential question it addresses relevant today? What about the poem is

arresting or appealing? Why is it still read today?