Hasnul Djohar LPDP Talk

Galway Kinnel’s Sound in Eating Blackberry

In his poem “Blackberry Eating” Galway Kinnel uses the sound and rhythm of each line to reflect the motion of a woman eating blackberry soundly, and then swallowing smoothly.  Especially when read aloud, “to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty” (4-6) create a sense of the woman’s chewing in her mouth, slowly and soundly, which shows how delicious the blackberries are and she really enjoy eating them when he was working.

                The first stanza is constructed to depict how the manwho loves to eat blackberries, especially passionate to wait for the month when the blackberries ripe.  He can not wait to eat blackberries for breakfast, and blackberries make him feel comfortable and peace.  Even though it is hard to grab them because of its stalk, he is still enjoy it after trying to get it.  He depicts: “I love to go out in late September, among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries” (1-2).

                  The second stanza is built to describe how the man loves to write poems, especially when he eats blackberries.  His words will easy to produce after he eats blackberries, or it is easy to create sentences while blackberries accompany him.  He describes, “many lettered, one syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, quench open, and splurge well”  (11-12).  Here, he shows that without blackberries his words hard to construct, his idea is stuck.  But, when he eats blackberries, his job is running smoothly as smooth as he is eating the blackberries.

The Moor’s Irony in Shakespeare's Othello

I will round unvarnished tale deliver
Of my whole course of love – what drugs, what charms
What conjuration, and what mighty magic
(For such proceeding am I charged withal)
I won his daughter
            (Shakespeare’s Othello)

Readers of Othello who have fallen in love before will believe that the central theme of Shakespeare’s Othello is about a tragic love because they feel empathy and pity for both Othello and Desdemona.  However, if we read the play through a formalist perspective as Ann B. Dobie recommends when she says, “some of the main elements that call for attention are form, diction, and unity, as well as the various literary devices they subsume” (41), we will see that the major theme is not only a tragic love but also the irony that Othello must face so many difficulties in claiming his true love, and after he attains it, he does not believe that it is real, making it possible for him to destroy his love with his own hands. 

Othello and Desdemona’s love must struggle to survive from beginning, when it is challenged by her father and they both must declare it to be true to the Duke and senators in order to be married.  At midnight, they go to a church outside Venice.  The fact that they elope demonstrates Othello’s underlying belief that the marriage is some how unreal.  At the same time, Iago and Roderigo try to wake up and provoke Barbantio saying that, “Zounds, sir, y’ are robbed! For shame, put on your gown! Your heart is burst; you have lost half your soul” (1.1.86).  This provocation continues the conflict of Othello keeping his true love.  Even though he has married Desdemona and declares: “my parts, my title, and my perfect soul” (1.2.31).  The sound of ‘my and my’ echoes Othello’s need to reiteratethis love to himself in order to make it real and convince himself. 

The outward difficulties of the marriage continue, as Othello has to go to fight the Turks of Cyprus, fulfilling his duties as a general of Venician military.  Desdemona begs the Duke to follow him, saying: “that I did love the Moor to love with him, my downright violence, and storm of fortunes” (1.3.247).  She is willing to live on the ship with the soldiers and and conflict.  Even the image of “storm” does not frightened her will to live with her true love.  It is ironic that despite her repeated  demonstrations of devotions her true love killed her tragically in the final scene. 

Othello is destined to kill Desdemona when he receives evidence from Iago and says, “that handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee thou gav’st to Cassio” (5.2.48).  The handkerchief here is  a symbol, not only the symbol of their love, but also the symbol of the betrayal that Othello believes that Desdemona has committed.  The symbolic meaning of the handkerchief helps the play become real when readers can see the meaning of the handkerchief change from love to betrayal.  Othello gave it as a symbol of love, but in his mind it becomes a symbol of his cuckolding and the ironic instrument of the tragic end of their love.  So all the formalist elements in this play are ironic, just as Othello himself is an ironic character.   

There are many indications in the play that show how much Othello loves Desdemona, but it is difficult for him to win her love through so many challenges,  especially that her father will never agree to their love, since there are so many differences between them, including blood and religion.  Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, even implies that their love is the result of trickery, “For I’ll refer me to all things of sense, If she in chains of magic were not bound” (1.2.65).  For Brabantio, magic is Othello’s tool to achieve his goal.  But in fact, Desdemona truly loves Othello, initially because he has huge stories and adventures in his life.  But, even after Othello defends and proves his love and it is accepted by the Duke and senators, a part of him does not truly believe it.  The images of magic are in Othello’s awareness, as well, and  ultimately, he accepts the unreality of her love for him as if it had been based on magic all along, finally allowing him to kill it with her.

From the Formalist perspective, the images, symbols, sounds, and character elements of the play, it can be seen that Shakespeare’s Othello has a central theme, that both Othello and Desdemona’s loves are ironic.  On Othello’s side, he fights for his true love but kills it after he wins it.  On Desdemona side, she betrays her father’s expectation by marrying a man who is completely different from her, but eventually, after she proves her love, ironically, it is her love which kills her.

How to Read Poetry like Professor

A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the—not always greatly hopeful—belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense are under way: they are making toward something.

~Paul Celan

Understanding and Explicating Poetry

Perhaps the most challenging material you will have to read in college is poetry.  While the message of some poems may be fairly simple—”Enjoy your youth while it lasts,” for instance—the way poets put words together often makes this message elusive.  Writers don’t write this way just to annoy you; rather, their sophisticated vocabulary and complex syntax help them to write with precision, to tease out the subtleties of nature and the human mind, and to create certain effects.  When you read a poem, you should begin by trying to figure what the poet is saying on the surface: the content of the poem.  When you can summarize this content in a few sentences, examine the way the poet conveys this content; in other words, analyze the poem’s form.  Finally, determine how the content and form work together to create the poem’s meaning.  Think of a poem as an equation: form + content = meaning.  The term for analyzing a poem in this way is “explication.” Here is a step-by-step method you might find useful when you explicate, or interpret, a poem:

1.  Find a quiet place, such as a study room at the library, where you will not be distracted or interrupted.  Put the following items on the table in front of you: your text book, your class notebook opened to a blank page, a pencil or pen, a hardback dictionary, and a subject encyclopedia such as Benet’s Readers’ Encyclopedia. Anything else on the table might distract you. Remove it.

2.  Take a deep breath and relax.  Read the poem once slowly aloud without writing or marking anything.  Don’t stop until you finish the poem, even if you don’t know the meaning or pronunciation of a word.  When you have finished, reflect for a moment on any words, images, and characters that caught your attention.  Jot down these items in your notebook, along with one sentence in which you try to summarize the poem.

3.  Now read the poem again silently.  When you come to a word you don’t know, look it up in the dictionary.  In your notes, write the word, its pronunciation, the meaning or meanings of it in this poem, and a clue to help you remember it.  Often information in the word’s etymology, or history, will give you a clue to remembering it.  Write a synonym for the word right above it in your textbook.  When you come to a proper noun, such as the name of a person or event, look it up in the literary reference work and record key details in your notebook, just as you did when you looked up unfamiliar words.  Concentrate on learning these words and allusions because many of them will appear again and again in literature, and you want to be ready for them next time.

4.  Rephrase sentences you don’t understand.  Almost every poem you will find in your text books is made up of complete sentences with subjects and verbs and, in many cases, objects, prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and other syntactical elements.  Even if you don’t know what a prepositional phrase or appositive is, you know how to read and understand them.  In fact, you do it all the time when you read ordinary sentences in newspapers, magazines, and textbooks.  The problem is that most poets don’t write the way reporters and textbook authors do.  Even though they write complete sentences, they change the order of words—placing, for example, the object, the thing receiving the action, before the verb instead after it, where we ordinarily put it in speech and prose.  This change in word order is called an “inversion,” and it is common in poetry, especially poetry written before 1900.  In the following passage, which comes from John Donne’s poem “The Sun Rising,” the word “season” is an object of the verb, even though it comes before the verb: “Love, all alike, no season knows.” We would say: “Love, all alike, knows no season.”  Rephrasing sentences so that they sound more like speech or at least prose will help you figure what the poet is saying.

5.  Identify the literal meaning of figurative language.  The other practice that distinguishes poets from writers of nonliterary prose is their heavy use of metaphors, personification, symbols, hyperboles, apostrophes, and many other forms of figurative language.  Figurative language does not mean exactly what it says; rather, it suggests meanings.  In the phrase quoted above, Donne does not literally mean that love is unfamiliar with spring, summer, fall, and winter.  As a thing, love cannot know anything at all; only people can know something—that is, be conscious of it.  Thus, Donne is personifying love, giving it human qualities. The figurative language in poetry helps us to understand new or complex concepts.  Thinking of love as a person who treats all seasons in the same way helps us to appreciate the universality of love.  Once you have completed the steps above, you may not understand every word or even every sentence, but you should have a fairly good idea of the poet’s overall message, or the content of the poem. Now you are ready to begin interpreting and analyzing it.

6.  Analyze the poet’s use of language.  You already have looked closely at the poet’s use of language as you were trying to understand the poem’s content.  Now you want to ask yourself what this use of language—the inversions, symbols, and so on--contribute to the poem’s meaning.  Why, for example, did the poet choose to compare his love to a “red, red rose” instead of tree or a bird?  One trick that will help you in this step is thinking about associations: we tend to associate roses with beauty, tenderness, passion, and love, but we also know that a rose bush has thorns that can be painful.  Not all of these associations may be appropriate for a particular poem, but many of them probably will.  Make a note of these associations in your notebook and jot down some ideas about what they contribute to the poem’s meaning.

7.  Scan the poem.  Scanning poetry is different from skimming it.  To scan a poem means to identify the rhythm, which in English poetry comes from the alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables.

i).  Begin by looking at the polysyllabic words—the words of more than one syllable. Say each word aloud and try to determine which syllable you stress.  If you are unsure, look up the word in the dictionary, where you will see an accent mark either before or after the stressed syllable.  In The American Heritage College Dictionary, for example, the accent appears before the stressed syllable.  If you are using another dictionary, look up “pronunciation” in the dictionary’s guide to reading entries.  In your textbook, place an accent mark (/) over each stressed syllable and a horizontal line over the unstressed syllables (-).

ii).  Now look for all the one-syllable structure words—words that have little or no meaning, but rather serve to connect other words and show their relationships.  Structure words

include articles (a, an, the), conjunctions (and, or, but), prepositions (of, in, on, to, etc.), and auxiliaries (have, may, do, will, etc.).  Mark these words as unstressed.

iii). Mark one-syllable nouns and verbs as stressed.

iv).  Read the poem aloud, using your marks as a guide to which syllables to stress. Look for one of the following patterns: iambic (- /), trochaic (/ -), anapestic (- - /), and dactyllic (/ --).  Most English poetry that has a regular rhythm is iambic.  If you don’t see one of these patterns, try to change a few of the marks on the one-syllable words.  If you see a pattern now, write the name of the rhythm in your notebook.  You probably still will notice a few anomalies, places where the rhythm changes from the regular pattern, but ignore these anomalies for now.  If you still don’t see a pattern, count the number of stressed syllables in three consecutive lines.  If these lines do not have the same number of stressed syllables, the poem probably does not have a regular rhythm; in other words, it probably is written in free verse.

v). Draw vertical lines around each instance of a pattern.  Each one of these units is called a “metrical foot” or simply a “foot.”  For example, if the line you scanned has the markings - / - / - / - / - /, you would recognize the iambic pattern and mark the line this way: - / | - / | - / | - / | - /.  Count the number of units in each line.  In most cases, this number will be the same for every line of the poem.  In the previous example, you would count five units, or five feet. Use the following terms to identify the number of feet in the lines: dimeter (2 feet), trimeter (3 feet), tetrameter (4 feet), pentameter (5 feet), and hexameter (6 feet).  You now have identified the overall pattern of rhythm in the poem. In our example, the rhythm is iambic pentameter.

vi).  Now look back at the anomalies, the places where the rhythm changes.  A unit with two stresses is called a spondee, and a unit with two unstressed syllables is called a pyrrhic foot.

 Try to determine what role these anomalies play.  For example, many times spondees call attention to important words, images, or ideas. Jot down your ideas in your notebook.

8.  Look for rhyme.  Look at the final words in the first and second lines.  Do they rhyme with each other or any other final words?  If so, the poem probably has a rhyme scheme, a pattern of rhyme.  To label the rhyme scheme, place the letter “a” at the end of the first line.  If the final word in the next line rhymes with this word, label it “a” also; otherwise, label it “b.”  Continue this process, identifying rhyming words with the same letter.  Now look at the words that rhyme.  Are they similar in meaning, or are they contrasting words?  In your notebook, note any places where the rhyme is significant and suggest a way this rhyme contributes to the poem’s meaning.

9.  Finally, read the poem one more time aloud.  Practice using pauses and stress to make the poem’s meaning come alive in your recitation. In your notebook, make any final comments on the way the poem’s content and form work together to create meaning.

With thanks to: http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/markport/best/study/poetry.htm

And to my great Professor: Prof. Desmond Harding for this great lecture.

Nora’s Decision: A Revolt for both Women and Human Oppression

The topic of this paper is the pursuit of feminist autonomy in a marital relationship.  It will also raise the issue of whether feminist oppression in marriage is unique or is representative of other forms of human oppression.   The objective is to analyze, using feminist theory and other approaches, Ibsen’s A Doll House in order to come to some conclusions about depictions of gender expectations and the marital relationship. The research focuses on Nora’s psychological paradox in Ibsen’s A Doll House: an irreconcilable conflict between the individual’s need for autonomy and the emotional and social expectations of motherhood and marriage.  The questions on this aspect of this paper are the following: 1) how is Nora depicted initially in the play? 2) what are the forces that affect her? 3) what is the nature of her choice to leave?  Nora is depicted as passive and dependent and behaves as a good wife.  But Nora’s husband is an angry and self-absorbed man who is unkind to her and whom she believes will not change, and therefore her behaviors as a good wife cannot achieve a happy marriage for her.  This is the source of her irreconcilable conflict.  Ultimately, she “buys” her autonomy by sacrificing her relationship with her children.

In addition, this paper will include a discussion of the extent to which Ibsen’s play can be read on more than one level as being about feminist oppression or about human oppression.  Nora can be understood as a woman fighting against patriarchal oppression, or she can be understood as a representative of a broader class of victims of human oppression, whether male or female.  Do other victims of human oppression face similar paradoxes as Nora face? And do they have to make equally tragic decisions.    

Poetic conflicts in Julia Alvarez’s “Dusting”

            In her poem “Dusting” Julia Alvarez uses the poetic forms and different words to expose variations in repetition of each line to emphasize her conflict between her mother and herself. Particularly when she states, “practicing signatures like scales, while Mother followed squirting” (5-6) she wants to show that event though she has emotional problems with her mother, she keeps mapping her identity through her works.  

The second stanza continues shows that there are some contradicted principles between her mother and herself.  For example, “she erased my fingerprints from the bookshelf and rocker” (9-10), this exhibits that there is no harmonization between the mother and her daughter.   The other line, “scribbled with my alphabets” (12), shows that the mother intensely erases for whatever the daughter creates.

Eventually, for what the mother does exhibits that there are strong opposite attitudes between the two women, mother and daughter.  The daughter is searching her identity through writing, while, on the other hand the mother creates her identity through dusting.  This can be seen from the expression: “My name was swallowed in the towel with which she jeweled the table tops” (14).  This statement improves that the mother keeps dusting for whatever the daughter does.  While, on the other hand, the daughter keeps creating her painting ignoring for whatever the mother does.  Briefly, this poem shows the complexity emotion between her, a daughter, and she, a mother. The complexity comes from the way she call a mother till she change into she. 

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”: Robert Herrick’s Urgent Advice

            Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” uses strong diction and tone to address young women to choose marriage create clear meanings.  The “carpe diem” meaning promotes marriage as the goal for women of a certain age.  Also, the traditional and patriarchal meaning believes that women should get married if they want to be truly women and be happy. 

Moreover, the speaker looks at the virgins like they are flowers, sensitive and fragile, and urges them to act quickly because “tomorrow will be dying.”  He uses other clear diction to indicate what the virgins should do: “gather ye rose-buds while ye may” (1). In addition to this case, he asserts that for the virgin’s time will be taken away if they do not use it wisely: “But being spent, the worse, and worst” (10). 

Eventually, after describing his deep concerns to the virgins, the speaker reminds the virgins how to use their time to avoid regrets and depresses in the rest of their lives: “for having lost but once your prime” and ”you may nor ever tarry” (15-16).  As the same time he suggests strongly that these virgins are vulnerable, wonderful and have a very short time to seize their happiness; therefore, he advises all virgins to marry soon if they do not want to feel regret.  Based on this advice, the poet’s tone seems so subjective because he thinks that marriage can guarantee the virgins’ happiness.   

Clearly, the speaker chooses words that suggest the speaker is saying that the virgins are vulnerable and fresh.  For example, the poet uses the traditional metaphor of “rose-bud” to metaphor that the virgins are like “rose-buds,” which are not only love and romance, but also young and fragrant.  Also, the diction in the third line seems to personify the flowers can smile and laugh just like a human or a virgin: “And this same flowers that smiles today” (3).  Here, the virgins are a metaphor in the diction, “rose-bud” and “flowers,” to emphasize that the virgins are very sensitive and very young.   The tone of the poet in this first stanza seems that he is worry.  He is worry of the situation of the fragile of the virgins who lack of knowledge to understand about life because they are very young and sensitive.

In the next stanza, the speaker still focuses on some specific diction that emphasizes the speaker is stating that the virgins’ time is wonderful when they can get their soul mates.  For example, the poet invokes: “The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun” (4) as a metaphor that for the sun is a sparkling lamp in heaven, just like the virgins are a sparkling woman in a world.  Also, in this stanza, personification in the line: “The sooner will his race be run” (6) wants to personify the sun can run and race like a human.  The speaker continues to remind the virgins to use their time quickly till they get their loves: “And the nearer he’s to setting” (8).  Therefore, the poet’s tone reminds the virgins to use their time well when it comes to choosing a male to accompany them in spending the rest of their life and do not let the wonderful time passed away. 

The urgent tone of the second stanza continues, the speaker tries to give advice to the virgins that they must take the advantage of their golden time and do not let it becomes distraught. For example, the poet tells us: “when youth and blood are warmer” to emphasize that youth and blood are life, whereas the cold is related to death.  It means that the virgins are in a new and warm life just like a fresh food, so that they must eat their supper soon because soon it will be cold. The poet continues to select strong words to stress his attitude toward the virgins should not let their time becomes severe without any spouse in their life: “But being spent, the worse, and worst” (9).  Based on these strong dictions, the poet’s tone seems to remind the virgins that they have a very short time and should not let it become useless. 

Concisely, the speaker continues to use strong diction to convince the virgins.  He states his other important suggestions to the virgins; how to behave in their short time, and how to avoid their crying because of their faults.  For example, the speaker promotes the words “then be not coy, but use your time” (12) to make the virgins aware to not be shy because they will lose their chance to seize their loves, just be open minded and try to welcome every love that comes to them.  Again, in the next line, the speaker tries to continue to convince the virgins to get marry soon:  “and while ye marry, go marry” (13).  Also, the speaker claims that the virgins must be aware of their youth, which they have only once: “For having lost but once your prime.”  Here, the speaker retells the virgins that their time will never come twice.  Therefore, he wants to make sure that the virgins will not feel lonely and lament in their future life.   The speaker’s attitude toward the virgins is that they should not be shy and must get married to seize their happiness if they do not want to feel regret.  

In short, the poet’s tone toward the virgins is care and concern.  For example, the images of “coy,” “lost,” and “tarry” show the speaker’s care toward the virgins’ time and attitude.  He really cares to the virgins by reminding them that they should not be shy to seize their own happiness.  Also, they should not be lost their valuable chance to grab their truly love.  Other examples, the images of “marry,” and “prime” show the speaker’s concern to the virgins’ lives.  He thinks being married will make the virgins happier than being a single.  He also thinks that the prime time is the only time to get a man. Therefore, the virgins should not be late to get their men when they are in the peak time.  He really cares and concerns on the virgins lives, so he gives them some advice how to make their young, old, and future lives happier.