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"E. A. Robinson had already been employing the sharp epithet, the direct and clarifying utterance which was to become part of our present technique. His sympa

thetic studies of men whose lives were, from a worldly standpoint, failures, were a sharp reaction to the current high valuations on financial achievements, ruthless efficiency, and success at any cost."

Do you think these poems reveal Robinson's ideals as they are expressed in the passage above? "Petit, the Poet"..

"Lucinda Matlock". "Anne Rutledge".

(Refer to Preface, page 14.)

Masters (p. 83)

Masters (p. 83)

Masters (p. 84)

"Yet had Masters dwelt only on the drab disillusion of the village, had he (as he was constantly in danger of doing) overemphasized the morbid episodes, he would. have left only a spectacular and poorly balanced work. But the book ascends to buoyant exaltation and ends on a plane of victorious idealism."

Can you discover the traces not only of disillusionment, but of victorious idealism in the above extracts from "Spoon River Anthology”?

"Mending Wall"

"The Tuft of Flowers"

(See Preface, page 15.)

.Frost (p. 111)

.Frost (p. 112)

"Loving above everything else the beauty of Fact, Frost shares with Robinson and Masters the determination to tell not merely the actual, but the factual truth. Frost, a less disillusioned though a more saddened poet, wears his rue and his realism with a difference. Where Robinson is downright and definite, Frost diverges, going roundabout and, in his speculative wandering, covering a wider territory of thought. Where Masters is violent and hotly scornful, Frost is reticent and quietly sympathetic.

Where Robinson, in his reticent disclosures and reminiscent moods, often reflects New England, Frost is New England."

Can you justify any statement in the quotation from the preface by referring to the poems? What is the idea back of "Mending Wall"? Why did the poet say first in "The Tuft of Flowers":

And I must be, as he had been,-alone,
"As all must be," I said within my heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."

and then later in the poem:

"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."

"The Return"...

.Kipling (p. 262)

"Kipling pierced the coarse exterior of seemingly prosaic things-things like machinery, bridge-building, cockney soldiers, slang, steam, the dirty by-products of science -and uncovered their hidden glamour. 'Romance is gone,' sighed most of his contemporaries,

'and all unseen

Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.'"

Can you justify this statement also in "The Return"? Notice how much meaning is condensed in the refrain:

"If England was what England seems," etc.

Select other lines in which much is said in few words. Select lines which suggest pictures to your mind.

"Rounding the Horn".

(Refer to page 223 of the Preface.)

. Masefield (p. 301)

"Synge proclaims: 'the strong things of life are needed in poetry also . . . and it may almost be said that before verse can be human again, it must be brutal.'

"Masefield brought back to poetry that mixture of beauty and brutality which is its most human and enduring quality."

Do you like this extract from "Dauber"? Read the whole poem and see what kind of man this was who held in spite of his terror. Whose

"... soul, body, brain,

Knew nothing but the wind, the cold, the pain."

Find traces of "beauty" and of "brutality" in this poem. Why are boys attracted toward a sailor's life?

LAUREATES OF THE HOME.

"The Monk in the Kitchen"......Branch (p. 99) Select the lines in the poem which seem to you to glorify humble, home-keeping acts.

Compare this poem with "Autumn" by Jean Starr Untermeyer. Which poem do you think would appeal most to a young home-maker?

Try reading both poems to your mother, or some other experienced housekeeper. Read them to some careless housekeeper you happen to know. Try to get opinions from both.

"Domestic Economy".

.Wickham (p. 333)

Here you have an English woman's reaction to the duties of a housekeeper. Do you know of any other poems which deal with the same general topic as the poems in this group?

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. "Columbus"

.Miller (p. 38)

Do you see why this poem should be included in the Social Conscience group? Would this story be as effective in prose as in verse? Which lines appeal particularly to you?

"The Man with the Hoe".......Markham (p. 52) (See Preface, page 12.)

...

"This poem . . . caught up, with a prophetic vibrancy, the passion for social justice that was waiting to be intensified in poetry. Markham summed up and spiritualized the unrest that was in the air; in the figure of one man with a hoe, he drew a picture of men in the mines, men in the sweatshop, men working without joy, without hope. To social consciousness he added social conscience."

In "The Man With the Hoe," select the lines which make you see most clearly the possibilities of greatness in man. Which make you feel most keenly "man's inhumanity to man"? Is there a note of hope in the poem? Where? How does the poem illustrate the statement that Markham had a social conscience?

"Caliban in the Coal Mines". Untermeyer (p. 163) "Summons" Untermeyer (p. 164) "On the Birth of a Child"...Untermeyer (p. 165) "Prayer" Untermeyer (p. 166) Look for the germ-thought in each poem.

Which lines most arouse your sympathy in "Caliban"? What glimpse does "Summons" give you into the heart of a boy? Which lines in "Summons" reflect the theme of "Prayer"? Do you see any connection between the thought in "Summons" and that in "On the Birth of a Child"?

"Invictus"

(See Preface, page 219.)

. Henley (p. 237)

"Art, he knew, could not be separated from the dreams and hungers of man; it could not flourish only on its own

essences and technical accomplishments. To live, poetry would have to share the fears, angers, hopes, and struggles of the prosaic world."

Do you detect the sympathy with struggling humankind in the poem? Compare it with Markham's "The Man With the Hoe" in regard to its appeal. Has this poem any special appeal for boys?

VAGABONDIA.

"A Vagabond Song".

"Hem and Haw".

"Daisies"

Carman (p. 64)

Carman (p. 65)

Carman (p. 66)

How is the vagabond spirit expressed in each of these poems? Compare one of these poems with one of Richard Hovey's to discover why these two men enjoyed writing together.

"At the Crossroads"
"Unmanifest Destiny".
"A Stein Song".

"Sea Fever"

(See Preface, page 10.)

.Hovey (p. 68)

Hovey (p. 70)

.Hovey (p. 71)

Masefield (p. 301)

"Restlessness was in the air and revolt openly declared itself with the publication of Songs from Vagabondia. In the very first poem Hovey voices their manifesto:

...

Off with the fetters

That chafe and restrain

Off with the chain!

Here Art and Letters,

Music and Wine

And Myrtle and Wanda,

The winsome witches,
Blithely combine.

Here is Golconda,

Here are the Indies,

Here we are free

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