Daily Log

Monday, March 14

We continued to explore the question "What is poetry?" and specifically focused on the idea that "poetry is what is lost in translation" (Robert Frost) -- that how things are said is central to poetry as well as what.

We read a passage from Alexander Pope's "Essay on Criticism," making and illustrating the proposition that in poetry "the sound must be an echo to the sense."

We then moved on to our first of Walt Whitman's poems, his very popular but very atypical "O Captain! my Captain," an elegy for Abraham Lincoln. We began to analyze its metrical form, reviewing terminology in the process.

HW due Tuesday (1st, 2nd, 3rd pers.) or Wednesday (4th per.):
Be sure you have begun your outside reading book and come to class prepared to supply CD.s from what you have written. Be sure to bring the book as well; you will have a few minutes to read from it in class.