The Argument of Poetry

Booker T. and W.E.B.

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois

By Dudley Randall

"It seems to me," said Booker T.,"It shows a mighty lot of cheekTo study chemistry and GreekWhen Mister Charlie needs a handTo hoe the cotton on his land,And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,Why stick your nose inside a book?"

"I don't agree," said W.E.B."If I should have the drive to seekKnowledge of chemistry or Greek,I'll do it. Charles and Miss can lookAnother place for hand or cook, Some men rejoice in skill of hand,And some in cultivating land,But there are others who maintainThe right to cultivate the brain."

"It seems to me," said Booker T.,"That all you folks have missed the boatWho shout about the right to vote,And spend vain days and sleepless nightsIn uproar over civil rights.Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,But work, and save, and buy a house."

"I don't agree," said W.E.B."For what can property availIf dignity and justice fail?Unless you help to make the laws,They'll steal your house with trumped-up clause.A rope's as tight, a fire as hot,No matter how much cash you've got.Speak soft, and try your little plan,But as for me, I'll be a man."

"It seems to me," said Booker T.--

"I don't agree,"Said W.E.B.

Booker T. Washington

Claims

Diction/Tone

W.E.B.

Claims

Diction/Tone

With whom does the poet agree? Explain your answer using evidence from the poem.

If We Must DieClaude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Mother to Son

by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:Where there ain't been no light.Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.So, boy, don't you turn backIt's had tacks in it,Don't you set down on the steps.And splinters,'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.

And boards torn up,Don't you fall now

And places with no carpet on the floorFor I'se still goin', honey,Bare.And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on,And reachin' landin's,And turnin' corners,And sometimes goin' in the dark

SOAPSTone Analysis for Poetry

For the assigned work, complete the following chart to the fifth slash.

Who is the Speaker? Remember to look beyond the poet for the answer.

What is the Occasion? The text should dictate this response.

Who is the Audience? Think specifically, then broadly, then globally.

What is the Purpose? These answers should be parallel to the audiences identified.

What is the Subject? Unlike the theme statement, this can be a one word response.

What is the Tone? Should include two contrasting, yet complimentary tones.

The Unknown CitizenW. H. Auden,1907-1973

(To JS/07 M 378This Marble MonumentIs Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a

saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.5

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasnt a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,10

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.15

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,20

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,25

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his

generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their

education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen,18931918

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots5

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;10

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundring like a man in fire or lime.

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,15

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin;20

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest25

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

After completing a SOAPSTone analysis of the argument of this poem, respond to the following questions in your journal.

1. The Latin quotation, from the Roman poet Horace, means It is sweet and becoming to die for ones country. What is the poems comment on this statement?

2. List the elements of the poem that seem not beautiful and therefore unpoetic. Since literary texts are almost always more complex than we might initially think, are there any elements of beauty in the poem?

3. How do the comparisons in lines 1, 14, 20, and 23-24 contribute to the effectiveness of the poem?

4. What does the poem gain by moving from plural pronouns and the past tense to singular pronouns and the present tense?

The Passionate Shepherd to

His Love by Christopher Marlowe (1599)

Come live with me and be my love,And we will all the pleasures proveThat valleys, groves, hills, and fieldsWoods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks,Seeing the shepherds feed their flocksBy shallow rivers to whose fallsMelodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of rosesAnd a thousand fragrant posies,A cap of flower, and a kirtleEmbroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest woolWhich from our pretty lambs we pull;Fair lined slippers for the coldWith buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,With coral clasps and amber studs;And if these pleasures may thee move,Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and singFor thy delight each May morning:If these delights thy mind may move,Then live with me and be my love.

The Nymph's Reply to

the Shepherdby Sir Walter Raleigh (1600)

If all the world and love were young,And truth in every shepherd's tongue,These pretty pleasures might me moveTo live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;And Philomel becometh dumb;The rest complain of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fieldsTo wayward winter reckoning yields;A honey tongue, a heart of gall,Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,Thy coral clasps and amber studs,All these in me no means can moveTo come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,Had joys no date nor age no need,Then these delights my mind might moveTo live with thee and be thy love.

Which speaker has the more valid argument? Explain your answer.

Compare and contrast the appeals each speaker employs in his or her response.

http://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/201/marlowe/shepherd_&_notes.htm

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ; Men reckon what it did, and meant ; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love Whose soul is sensecannot admit Of absence, 'cause it doth remove The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined, That ourselves know not what it is, Inter-assurd of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two ; Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run ; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.

Donne, John. Poems of John Donne.Vol I. E. K. Chambers, Ed. London, Lawrence, & Bullen, 1896. 51-52.

Some Poems for the Study of Argument

Title

Author

To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time

Herrick

To His Coy Mistress

Marvell

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Marlowe

The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd

Raleigh

Loving in Truth and Fain

Sidney

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day

Shakespeare

My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun

Shakespeare

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

Donne

Death Be Not Proud

Donne

The Flea

Donne

The Pulley

Herbert

When I Consider How My Light Has Spent

Milton

To Althea, From Prison

Lovelace

To Lucasta, On Going to Wars

Lovelace

Dover Beach

Arnold

To An Athlete Dying Young

Housman

Mending Wall

Frost

The Road Not Taken

Frost

Dulce et Decorum Est

Owen

Mother to Son

Hughes

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

Thomas