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2. THE LONG SCHOOLROOM: PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS IN W. B. YEATS'S POEM 'AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN'.
- Author
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Nutbrown, Graham
- Subjects
- *
LITERARY criticism , *POETRY (Literary form) , *IDEALISM - Abstract
In the mid-1920s the poet W. B. Yeats was pleased to discover contemporary philosophers, Giovanni Gentile and A. N. Whitehead, whose metaphysical and educational philosophies seemed to coincide with his own commitments. Whitehead shares with Gentile a sense of reality as activity and an understanding of knowledge as constructed from abstractions that are open to evaluation and imaginative reconfiguration. Yeats was a Senator of the Irish Free State and took an interest in schooling. Soon after visiting a Montessori-inspired girls' school in Waterford, he began his poem 'Among School Children". (The text of the poem is printed at the end of this paper.) I argue that an awareness of the philosophical ideas Yeats had recently encountered should encourage restless rather than fixed interpretations of the poem and that this sense of restlessness and imaginative reconfiguration reflects the approach to education the three writers, at that time, shared: that at best our modes of apprehension provide only glimpses of reality and therefore each child's understanding and learning must be kept moving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Native Foreigners: Migrating Seabirds and the Pelagic Soul in The Seafarer.
- Author
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Warren, Michael J.
- Subjects
- *
OLD English poetry , *ORNITHOLOGY , *BIRDS in literature , *ECOLOGY & literature , *OLD English manuscripts , *POETRY (Literary form) , *LITERARY criticism - Abstract
In this paper I apply current ecologically centred methodologies in the humanities to explore the familiar image of the bird-soul in The Seafarer in close relation to the real seabirds that are one of the most striking aspects of the maritime environment of the poem. Far from appearing as mere background incidentals, the poet's treatment of the seabirds we first encounter resonates with contemporary ornithological knowledge, and suggests that they feature specifically as species that best convey the ascetic trials and endeavours of the sea-going speaker who observes, listens to and names seabirds. The curious essence of seabirds as creatures that are always at home on the seas, and yet journeying to a home elsewhere, establishes them as what I term "native foreigners", a paradox that highlights the seafarer's conflicting yearnings and reflects the difficult earthly/celestial dynamic in the poem's perceptions of the soul's journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. 'I lov'de thee best': London as Male Beloved in Isabella Whitney's 'The Manner of her Wyll'.
- Author
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Gleed, Paul
- Subjects
- *
POETRY (Literary form) , *LITERARY criticism , *LONDON (England) in literature , *IRONY in literature , *MASCULINITY in literature - Abstract
This paper reflects on the role of London as male Beloved in Whitney's 'Last Wyll and Testament'. Such a characterization of the city, the paper argues, has two consequences. First, it complicates and provides an important challenge to the ubiquitous personification of London as female in early modern England. Second, this dynamic between female speaker and male Beloved encourages a reconsideration of Whitney's agency in the poem - often celebrated as forceful - as more consciously ironic (although, ultimately, all the more compelling and effective because of it). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] - Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. 'Ozymandias,' or De Casibus Lord Byron: Literary Celebrity on the Rocks.
- Author
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Mozer, HadleyJ.
- Subjects
- *
LITERARY criticism , *POETRY (Literary form) , *ENGLISH sonnets , *POETS in literature , *ROMANTICISM in literature , *19TH century English poetry - Abstract
Though rarely discussed in such terms, 'Ozymandias' represents a monumental moment in the so-called Shelley-Byron 'debate' or 'conversation.' Noting the failure of source studies to account convincingly for the origins of the facial features of Ozymandias, this paper argues that the pharaoh's 'frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command' are suspiciously Byronic, evoking the physiognomy of the Byronic hero and of Byron himself as portrayed in the widely circulated portrait of 1814-15 by George Henry Harlow. In other words, this paper argues that Ozymandias is a portrait - or rather a word-bust - of that early-nineteenth-century literary colossus known as 'Byron.' By depicting that colossus decapitated and in ruins, Shelley, who felt dwarfed by the genius and celebrity of Byron, prophesies the day when the sun would finally set on the literary empire of the poet whom he despaired of rivaling. Long a routine stop on the grand tour of British Romantic literature, 'Ozymandias' now asks to be revisited as a de casibus poem - i.e. a poem 'on the falls' of the mighty - that does not merely warn despots about the vanity of their pride and ambition but that also lectures Lord Byron on the vanity of his literary celebrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Transplantations.
- Author
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Bergam, Marija
- Subjects
- *
LITERARY criticism , *POETRY (Literary form) , *PLANTS in literature , *PLACE (Philosophy) in literature , *CARIBBEAN poetry - Abstract
The aim of this paper is to disclose the nexus of dislocation and ecology in the work of two Caribbean poets, Derek Walcott and Lorna Goodison. It shows how they deal with the founding experiences of the wider Caribbean community, such as diaspora and the process of creolisation, by drawing on the vegetation imagery. The concept of transplantation is central to this reading, as it refers to the history of forced removal, while also celebrating the biological and cultural hybridity of the region. Arguably, the shared preoccupation with island vegetation can be associated with the importance of naming for the Caribbean writers – hence the constant references to language in their representations of local plants. If geographic dislocation caused linguistic dislocation, it is only through the repossession of language that the poet is able to enact a return to her/his homeland. In Walcott and Goodison, however, this aim is pursued through further dislocation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Tomlinson's A Rose for Janet.
- Author
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Weisman, Karen A.
- Subjects
- *
POETRY (Literary form) - Abstract
Claims `A Rose for Janet' by Charles Tomlinson is one of his most felicitous acknowledgments in verse of the poet's anxiety over mimetic representation. The comparison of the rose of nature with the poem describing it; The `ink-and-paper rose' tantamount to the rows of ink on the paper; Tomlinson's reminder of death of mutable objects in nature also a reminder of human mortality.
- Published
- 1992
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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