Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in jay_dacosta's LiveJournal:

Monday, December 5th, 2005
4:02 pm	Elegies I will have to agree with my fellow students when they said that the elegies read in class were not appealing.  So using the trust PoemHunter Website I searched for a new elegy to write about, and I came across an elegy by Friedrich von Schiller.  Nothing particularly interesting stands out about his life, aside from the fact that he is a huge fan of philosophy, and he is known to write extremely philosophical poetry.  Philosophy is one of my passions so I was happy to look into this poets work.   The elegy I have decided to look at is called “Elegy on the Death of a Young Man”.  Unfortunately, this particular poem doesn’t get into the philosophical stuff that von Schiller is known for, but it does touch include some other interesting things.  The following is a portion of Friedrich von Schiller’s Elegy on the Death of a Young Man.   Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man   Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers, Echo from the dreary house of woe; Death-notes rise from yonder minster's towers! Bearing out a youth, they slowly go; Yes! a youth--unripe yet for the bier, Gathered in the spring-time of his days, Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear, With the flame that in his bright eye plays-- Yes, a son--the idol of his mother, (Oh, her mournful sigh shows that too well!) Yes! my bosom-friend,--alas my brother!-- Up! each man the sad procession swell! Do ye boast, ye pines, so gray and old, Storms to brave, with thunderbolts to sport? And, ye hills, that ye the heavens uphold? And, ye heavens, that ye the suns support! Boasts the graybeard, who on haughty deeds As on billows, seeks perfection's height? Boasts the hero, whom his prowess leads Up to future glory's temple bright! If the gnawing worms the floweret blast, Who can madly think he'll ne'er decay? Who above, below, can hope to last, If the young man's life thus fleets away? … Dark and silent bearers draw, then, nigh! To the slayer serve the feast the while! Cease, ye mourners, cease your wailing cry! Dust on dust upon the body pile! Where's the man who God to tempt presumes? Where the eye that through the gulf can see? Holy, holy, holy art thou, God of tombs! We, with awful trembling, worship Thee! Dust may back to native dust be ground, From its crumbling house the spirit fly, And the storm its ashes strew around,-- But its love, its love shall never die! Friedrich von Schiller     Above are the first two stanzas, and the final stanza of Schiller’s elegy.  Overall, the entire elegy uses complex images and words that successfully convey emotion.  The first stanza paints a vivid image of what appears to be the young mans funeral.  You almost picture his coffin lowering into the ground, surrounded by people crying and mourning his death.   The second stanza is by far my favourite part of this entire poem.  To me, the poet is talking about the young man as a hero.  Personally when I read this the first thing that came to my mind was the ancient Greek hero, and son of the Greek god Zeus, Hercules.  Particularly the references to the Greek god Zeus, such as “thunderbolts to sport”, and “graybeard” emphasize this idea.   The final stanza is an excellent way to close this elegy, as it doesn’t mourn the young man’s death, but instead praises his life.  He says, “Cease, ye mourners, cease your wailing cry!”  he tells people not to cry over this young man’s death.  This further emphasizes the idea that this young man is a hero.  Current Mood: blank (3 Comments |Comment on this)
2:47 pm	Story Telling Poetry This week we discussed poetry that tells a story, using examples of poems written in a grand epic style, specifically the poem Beowulf. I found this week’s topic to be particularly fascinating, not because I am drawn to the poetry discussed, but because I loved the little history lesson on Anglo-Saxon England. Professor Kuin painted a vivid picture of this time period in England, with the centre hall, giant fire pit and horned helmets, making it possible to put Beowulf in its proper setting. One particular technique often associated with this type of poetry is the use of kennings. A kenning is a stock image that takes a place of the original word. For example, in class we used the term “Whale Road” to substitutes for the word “Ocean”. I thought a good exercise to go with this week’s lesson would be to find examples of kennings from Homer’s Iliad, since we already drained Beowulf for all the Kennings it had. The example I found is taken from the time when Atrides accuses Odysseus of being a coward when he says: “First you are, when you hear of feasts from me, when Achaeans set out banquets for the chiefs. Then you’re happy enough to down the roast meats and cups of honeyed, mellow wine-all you can drink. But now you’d gladly watch ten troops of Achaeans beat you to this feat, first to fight with the ruthless bronze before you!” Homer, Iliad; Book 4:The Truth Erupts in War. Lines 398-404 The kenning in this example is the substitution of the word “army” for “Ruthless Bronze”. Ruthless referring to the army’s actions and attitude, and bronze is a reference to their physical armor. Ultimately, the kenning is used to make the text a little more interesting and articulate. Current Mood: lethargic (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
10:38 pm	Trying to make sense of the Sestina In a past blog regarding the complexity of poetry I was given the advice of looking up a form of poetry called the “Sestina”.  The Sestina is an extremely complex form that is usually unrhymed.  The effect of rhyme is taken over by a fixed pattern of end-words, which demands that these end-words in each stanza be the same, though arranged in a different sequence each time.  The poem consists of six six-line stanzas (or twelve six-line stanzas in the case of a “Double Sestina”), and a conclusion of three lines.   Initially the concept was hard to grasp, until I looked at an example of a Double Sestina by Sir Phillip Sidney called Ye Goathered Gods. (Page 208 in the Norton Anthology of Poetry)   My explanation of the Sestina, using Sir Phillip Sidney’s Ye Goathered Gods:   The first stanza will have the numbers 1-6 representing the end-word of each line.   Ye goatherd gods, that love the grassy mountains,                   1 Ye nymphs which haunt the springs in pleasant valleys,             2 Ye satyrs joyed with free and quiet forests,                              3 Vouchsafe your silent ears to plaining music,                             4 Which to my woes gives still an early morning,                          5 And draws the dolor on till weary evening.                               6   Each stanza in the poem uses the following pattern, by using the end words from the stanza that precedes it: ·        the end-word from the last line for the end-word for the first line. ·        the end-word from the first line for the end-word for the second line. ·        the end-word from the fifth line for the end-word for the third line ·        the end-word from the second line for the end-word for the fourth line ·        the end-word from the fourth line for the end-word for the fifth line. ·        the end-word from the third line for the end-word for the sixth line. Therefore, the next stanza looks like this:   O Mercury, foregoer to the evening,                                        6 O heavenly huntress of the savage mountains,                          1 O lovely star, entitled of the morning,                                       5 While that my voice doth fill these woeful valleys,                     2 Vouchsafe your silent ears to plaining music,                             4 Which oft hath Echo tired in secret forests.                               3   This pattern continues for each stanza. For example, the third stanza in Sir Phillip’s poem looks like this:               I, that was once free burgess of the forests,                              3 Where shade from sun, and sport I sought in evening,               6 I, that was once esteemed for pleasant music,                            4 Am banished now among the monstrous mountains                   1 Of huge despair, and foul affliction’s valleys,                              2 Am grown a screech owl to myself each morning.                      5     I think this form of poetry is used more for its ability to show a poet’s skills rather than their artistic ability.  Even though the poem above is a great poem, there is no real appeal to the repetition of words.    What confused me about the Sestina was the conclusion of the poem.  So instead of attempting to explain it, I hope someone who reads this, and who knows more about this than I do, can explain what makes up the conclusion of a Sestina.  Thanks!   Jay (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 9th, 2005
11:59 pm	Blog 3 Apparently the last blog I posted didn’t quite make the site for the week (since it was put under private by mistake), but I finally got the hang of this thing.  So hopefully everything is good and visible.   This week’s topic of prose poetry was an interesting one.  The prose poem I looked at was one that we received in class, by Charles Baudelaire.   Charles Baudelaire, “Be Drunk”   You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."     This poem is an excellent example of Prose Poetry.  It uses brilliant complex sentences and good vocabulary.  The thing that stands out in this poem is Baudelaire’s use of symbolism.  He takes the state of being ‘drunk’ to represent, in my opinion, passion.  In tutorial we had a tough time defining this word, and actually came up with several definitions.  The definition I am referring to is passion as intense emotion.  You can substitute the word ‘drunk’ with ‘passion’, and the poem will still make sense. “You have to be always [passionate]. That's all there is to it--it's the only way.”  Without passion, you are merely ‘the martyred slaves of time’. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 29th, 2005
10:09 pm	Blog 2 I found this week’s topic, bad poets, to be an amusing one. I looked into the poetry of some of the bad poets listed on the page of links given in class, and the one poet that shined above the rest (which in this case is not a good thing) was Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. Her poem, ‘Nature’s Cook’, might be the best bad poem I have ever read. I realize that we did touch upon this in the lecture, but I still found it interesting enough to talk about in this blog. At first I looked at the poem, and made a list of what was actually bad about it. The first point I made was regarding the content. A poem about the many ways to die was the most bizarre topic I have ever read. This in itself is not the fault in the content, since I am usually drawn to things that are unusual and unique. It was the choice of words in the content that made this poem a horrible one. Words like ‘flegme’, ‘guts’, and ‘ulcers’ made me cringe. If her goal in this poem was to make people uncomfortable and grossed out she definitely succeeded. There is nothing appealing about “A Hodge-Podge of Diseases” tasting well. The second point I came up with involved the mechanics of the poem. Each line in the poem consists of 10 syllables and there is a rhyme scheme, though she stumbles near the end of the poem discarding the whole notion of rhyming words. Apparently ‘scal’d’ and ‘salt’ rhyme. The rhyme scheme in the poem, minus its mistakes, seems too simple. The A B A B rhyme has a very ‘beginner poet’ sound to it, making the poem worst to read than it already is. Based on this, one could say that a good poem should be universally appealing. Margaret Cavendish’s poem could be considered successful if it was suppose to be occasional poetry for Halloween. Unfortunately, there is no indication of that being the case, so instead it is just tasteless. Obviously the second characteristic of good poetry would be proper mechanics and complexity. The dullness of this poem emphasizes this point. I guess that does it for this one. Bye for now! (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 25th, 2005
11:54 pm	First Blog Hey everyone, This is my first blog entry (EVER) so I hope it all goes well. The whole process is still a little confusing to me, but I will get the hang of it eventually. My name is Jason Da Costa and I am a first year Communications and English major at York University. I am looking forward to this year, especially this internet blogging thing (yet another way to E-whore it up). This week’s tutorial focused on why people dislike poetry. Many ideas were argued during the tutorial, but the strongest and most obvious reason to why people dislike poetry is its difficulty. Interesting enough, out of the people in my survey who said they enjoyed poetry, a large portion said that they enjoyed it for the exact reason that many people dislike it. People like to be challenged, and therefore are drawn to the sometimes complex language evident in poems. One point discussed in lecture was the changes of language overtime, which makes historical poetry more difficult to understand, ultimately making it a huge turn off to people who dislike the complexity of poetry. Personally I find that this complexity is what draws me to historical poems. This different language we are faced with, for example the Shakespearean language, forces you to be involved in the poetry. It keeps attention high, and makes you take in the detail that so many people can overlook. I like the feeling of reading something historical, and actually understanding it. You almost feel like you accomplished something great. You become one of the select few people (today) who have been given the honor of experiencing history. We also discussed one poem in particular, a poem from a hallmark card that talked about love. I won’t pretend that I am a poetic genius. In all honesty meter and rhythm are incredibly new to me, so I can’t defend the faults of this poem based on the mechanics. The only thing I can argue about this poem is the fact that it looks like something I would write in grade school when I couldn’t afford to actually go out and buy my girlfriend a present. Who is to say that this wasn’t the intent of the author though? Since greeting cards are usually associated with feelings, maybe the author wanted you to think of past foolish love, when it use to be innocent and free from all of the glitches that keep you up at night. The poem is lame enough to be cute. That is all for now. Jay Current Mood: mellow (1 Comment |Comment on this)