North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District



William Butler Yeats Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Dublin to a middle-class Protestant family with a strong connections to England. The young Yeats spend his childhood in the west of Ireland, a region that remained a profound influence on his work. Yeats began as a playwright and wrote several plays celebrating Irish cultural tradition. His early plays earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. By 1912, he had turned to writing poetry. Profoundly influenced by the poetry of William Blake, Yeat’s work reflects Ireland’s rich mythology and a fascination with the occult. “A Prayer for My Daughter” reflects the uncertainties of an aging father raising a daughter in a tumultuous world.1. What contrasts does the opening stanza establish? Consider the setting inside and outside, as well as the speaker’s frame of mind. 2. What are the values the speaker wants his daughter to embrace? Which ones does he want her to avoid?3. What is the effect of the repeated construction “May she” (ll. 7, 41, 47)? What difference would it have made if Yeats had written “I hope she”?4. Why is this poem entitled “A Prayer”? What elements of prayer are embodied here?“A Prayer for My Daughter” Once more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on. There is no obstacleBut Gregory's wood and one bare hillWhereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,5Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;And for an hour I have walked and prayedBecause of the great gloom that is in my mind.I have walked and prayed for this young child an hourAnd heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,10And under the arches of the bridge, and screamIn the elms above the flooded stream;Imagining in excited reverieThat the future years had come,Dancing to a frenzied drum,15Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.May she be granted beauty and yet notBeauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,Being made beautiful overmuch,20Consider beauty a sufficient end,Lose natural kindness and maybeThe heart-revealing intimacyThat chooses right, and never find a friend.Helen being chosen found life flat and dull25And later had much trouble from a fool,While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,Being fatherless could have her wayYet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.It's certain that fine women eat30A crazy salad with their meatWhereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earnedBy those that are not entirely beautiful;35Yet many, that have played the foolFor beauty's very self, has charm made wise,And many a poor man that has roved,Loved and thought himself beloved,From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.40May she become a flourishing hidden treeThat all her thoughts may like the linnet be,And have no business but dispensing roundTheir magnanimities of sound,Nor but in merriment begin a chase,45Nor but in merriment a quarrel.O may she live like some green laurelRooted in one dear perpetual place.My mind, because the minds that I have loved,The sort of beauty that I have approved,50Prosper but little, has dried up of late,Yet knows that to be choked with hateMay well be of all evil chances chief.If there's no hatred in a mindAssault and battery of the wind55Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.An intellectual hatred is the worst,So let her think opinions are accursed.Have I not seen the loveliest woman bornOut of the mouth of Plenty's horn,60Because of her opinionated mindBarter that horn and every goodBy quiet natures understoodFor an old bellows full of angry wind?Considering that, all hatred driven hence,65The soul recovers radical innocenceAnd learns at last that it is self-delighting,Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;She can, though every face should scowl70And every windy quarter howlOr every bellows burst, be happy still.And may her bridegroom bring her to a houseWhere all's accustomed, ceremonious;For arrogance and hatred are the wares75Peddled in the thoroughfares.How but in custom and in ceremonyAre innocence and beauty born?Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,And custom for the spreading laurel tree.80Langston HughesLangston Hughes (1902-1967) grew up in the African American community of Joplin, Missouri. He spent a year at Columbia University and became involved with the Harlem movement, but was shocked by the endemic racial prejudice at the university and subsequently left. Hughes traveled for several years, spending time in Paris before returning to the U.S. He completed his BA at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University in 1929, after which he returned to Harlem for the remainder of his life. Hughes’ output was prolific in verse, prose, and drama. His first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926. This collection contained “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” perhaps his most famous poem. His first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930), won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature. He is remembered for his celebration of the uniqueness of African American culture, which found expression in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926), published in the Nation, and in the poem, “My People.” He also wrote children’s poetry, musicals, and opera. This poem, “Mother to Son,” expresses a mother’s advice to her son with its famous refrain, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”1. What is the overall message the mother is trying to convey to her son?2. Based on the details in the poem, how would you characterize the mother?3. How old is the son being addressed? Does he seem to be at some sort of crossroads? Cite specific textual evidence to support your viewpoint. 4. Even though the poem is presented without stanza breaks, there are “turns,” or shifts. What are they? Try reciting the poem; where would you emphasize pauses? How do these breaks influence or emphasize meaning?“Mother to Son”Well, son, I’ll tell you:Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters,And boards torn up,5And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare. But all the timeI’se been a-climbin’ on,And reachin’ landin’s,10And turnin’ corners,And sometimes goin’ in the darkWhere there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn your back.Don’t you set down on the steps15‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.Don’t you fall now—For I’se still goin’, honey,I’se still climbin’,And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.20Theodore Roethke1. How does Roethke use diction and rhythm to depict this moment with his father?2. Manuscripts show that Roethke started writing this poem as a portrait of a daughter and her father. Explain why you think having a girl at the center of this poem would or would not affect your response to it. 3. What is the effect of the regular rhyme scheme and rhythm scheme of the poem? In what ways does it mimic a waltz? My Papa's WaltzThe whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy.We romped until the pansSlid from the kitchen shelf;My mother's countenanceCould not unfrown itself.The hand that held my wristWas battered on one knuckle;At every step you missedMy right ear scraped a buckle.You beat time on my headWith a palm caked hard by dirt,Then waltzed me off to bedStill clinging to your shirt.Mary Oliver1. Why do you think Oliver chose to address readers directly as “You” in the opening lines of her poem? What effect does this have on your reading of the poem?2. Even in the absence of a regular rhyme scheme or rhythm, the language of this poem seems to have an incantatory or hypnotic quality. How does Oliver achieve this effect?3. How do you interpret the line “the world offers itself to your imagination” (l. 14)?Wild GeeseYou do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 5Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.10Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --15over and over announcing your placein the family of things. ................
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