Today, we considered poems as a story off shifting emotions. I gave you a list of terms that could be used to describe emotional tone. I asked you to circle those terms which might be appropriate to the following scenario: an older an remembering his first unsolicited but welcome first kiss. Once you had the terms circled, I asked you to apply them to a color and gradation of that color. "How completely insane," many of you thought. Perhaps so. However, the reason I wanted you to do this is so you would start to think creatively, and in a more nuanced fashion about emotion overall.
Clearly, it worked, because when you heard Kay Ryan reciting James Leigh Hunt's poem "Jenny Kissed Me," you were convinced she had it all wrong.
Jenny Kissed Me
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that wealth and health have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
In fact, you thought her recitation was completely off. Too bitter and sad for a happy memory, you said! Too vindictive! According to you, this is a melancholy man seeking warmth at the fading fire of a memory, but her reading seemed not to acknowledge the happiness of the memory itself. Well, right on!
I asked you to think of three specific questions about all three of the poems that you chose last night:
1. What is the speaker's attitude towards the poem's subject (the speaker in the poem itself)?
2. Under what circumstances is the speaker speaking?
3. What emotions is the speaker experiencing?
You should use the list of tone words to help you.
Of the three poems you have chosen, the poem for which it is easiest to provide substantive answers for is the poem you should use.
Your homework for tonight is to:
1. Write sentences on the wikispace for the new words.
2. Memorize the first 4 lines of your poem, as well as the poet's name and the poem's title.
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