TyroCity: Major English Notes

Zeroing in on Science Friction

Major English XII Notes — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:41:42 +0000

Background: From Physics to Fiction

As a physics major in the 1960s, Goshgarian and a few friends were drawn to their English professor, the late James Hensel, whom he calls “the teacher of all teachers.” Goshgarian named a character in Elixir for Hensel, and another is named for former WPI president Harry P. Storke.

“We were literature geeks in an otherwise science geeky kind of place,” Goshgarian says. “In the afternoon, after classes were out, we would meet up in Jim Hensel’s office to talk about everything from Charles Dickens to Tolstoy to Albert Einstein.” The young Goshgarian put his writing talents to use as an editor of Tech News and the Peddler, and started an offbeat humor magazine called Absolute Zero.

“I was reading science fiction by the pound,” he says. By his sophomore year, Goshgarian knew that he would work with words rather than atoms. “I liked words. I could see them and manipulate them. I could not see atoms, didn’t quite believe in them.” After earning a master’s degree and doctorate in English, he joined the English faculty at Northeastern University.

In the early 1970s Goshgarian’s department head challenged him to create a new elective to boost enrollment. He saw his chance to teach quality science fiction as a reputable literary form. Some 30 years later, his courses are popular and well-respected, although parents occasionally balk, “My child is taking what?” In addition to science fiction, Goshgarian teaches a detective fiction class and has developed courses in horror fiction and modern bestsellers. He also offers a graduate-level creative writing seminar.

Required reading for Goshgarian’s classes ranges from Edgar Allen Poe to Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark and Dean Koontz. A centerpiece of the science fiction curriculum is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Discussions are supplemented with movies and guest speakers, which have included best-selling authors Stephen King, Tess Gerritsen, Robert B. Parker and Michael Palmer.

Goshgarian wants his writing students to learn “the ability to look at another person’s writing the way a carpenter looks at a house–to study the architecture of it, the freshness of the language, the narrative thrust that keeps the story going. And to see that the bones have flesh on them, that you have characters who are interesting and aren’t cardboard cut-outs.

“My goal is to make them better readers, too. That’s the secret of good writing. We do a lot of close reading. That’s what Jim Hensel taught me, way back at Worcester Tech.”

A Day in the Life of "Salaryman"

Major English XII Notes — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:41:42 +0000

A Day in the Life of “Salaryman”
– John Burgess

Background (With the compassion of 2 different stories)

A slave is a person who works extremely hard under a horrible condition. He also needs to work for a long time but with very limited benefit. In George Orwells Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell says that the dishwasher is a slave. However, is not salary-man in A Day in the Life of Salary-man by John Burgess also a slave? Actually, the answer is no. In my opinion, dishwasher is a slave, but salary-man is not.
First of all, their working hours are distinctly different. According to Orwell, George works from seven in the morning until a quarter past nine at night for six days a week. Sometimes he has to go to work on his off day too. Differently, salary-man only works from ten past nine in the morning till seven in the evening for only five days, and he does not need to work on his off days. The lunch break of Salary-man and dishwasher are different too. As George says, This was our slack time-only relatively slack, however, for we had only ten minutes for lunch, and we never got through it uninterrupted (Orwell 64). In contrast, salary-man has much more time than dishwasher during the lunch break. The salary-man does more things during this break than the dishwasher does. Over lunch, they talk of their passion, golf At lunch, salary-man sometimes manages to stop into a driving range on the roof of a building near his company (Burgess 255). Moreover, salary-man and dishwashers lives after work are totally different. For dishwasher, he has nothing to do after work because he has only few hours left and not even enough for sleeping. Nevertheless, the salary-man has a good life after work. He may have been included in a dinner at a nearby restaurant and enjoy his moment.

And the writer thus, compares and tabulates a single day life in the story by giving the following distinct background in the lines that follows.

The Penalty of Death

Major English XII Notes — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:41:42 +0000

The Penalty of Death
by H.L. Mencken

Analysis

At last, a writer who fully understands that all society wants from the justice system is “a healthy letting off of steam” (Mencken). In his satirical essay The Penalty of Death, H.L. Mencken, through use of humor, exaggeration, and mocking euphemisms and anecdotes, satires America’s use of capital punishment. His essay attacks in particular the purpose of the death penalty and the public’s light treatment of “hanging a man (or frying or gassing him)” (Mencken). Mencken’s informal essay is persuasive in the sense that it is satire and uses irony to support his thesis.

Should The Penalty of Death be taken literally, the thesis would explicitly be: “What I contend is that one of the prime objects of all judicial punishments is to afford the same grateful relief (a) to the immediate victims of the criminal punished, and (b) to the general body of moral and timorous men” (Mencken). As a satire however, Mencken ridicules this statement as he supports it, and therefore his thesis is implicit, expressing his criticism of the American treatment of the death penalty. Mencken speaks satirically in the essay as an upstanding citizen patriotically supporting his country’s justice system while, also patriotically, offering helpful suggestions to improve it. The syntax is kept simple and many colloquialisms and clichés are used to give the speaker a personal, conversational voice. Mencken writes mainly for the pro-death penalty audience, as this “patriotic” perspective is exaggerated to the point where it mocks these advocates. This tone is achieved through exaggeration, such as the first “argument against capital punishment” that is discussed, saying “that hanging a man…is degrading to those who have to do it and revolting to those who have to witness it” (Mencken). Mencken does not mention the obvious arguments against the death penalty, such as a person’s right to life, instead exaggerating the American priority on a person’s own comfort. Also contributing to the sarcastic, mocking tone is euphemism, such as the repeated use of “katharsis” as a blatant replacement for “revenge”.

The essay is structured at first in a problem-solution form. Mencken wastes no time refuting the two “arguments against capital punishment” that open the essay, and offers his satirical thesis about “grateful relief” as a solution to the problem of the death penalty’s apparent uselessness. The “grateful relief” solution is, of course, ironic; it implies that that absurd goal is the only real reason that American uses the death penalty. Through example, he supports his argument of katharsis until arriving at the issue of a prisoner’s lengthy stay on death row. Here, Mencken’s true intentions start to emerge as he begins sympathize with the condemned criminals. He describes how it is unjust that “a murderer, under the traditional American system, is tortured for what, to him, must seem a whole series of eternities” (Mencken). Now that the criminal is being viewed as human again, the Mencken’s moral argument of whether the death penalty is right becomes apparent. This ends the essay with the message that all people should be treated ethically, which is effective after the completion of four or five paragraphs that claim the death penalty is not ethical. The essay’s abrupt end, without any sort of conclusion, may be jarring to the reader but also ensures that the reader is actively thinking about Mencken’s final message when the essay is put down.

In these final paragraphs, Mencken uses strong imagery such as being “tortured…a whole series of eternities” as an appeal to pathos and ethos, stimulating the reader’s emotions and sense of ethics. While this appeal to pathos closes the essay on a serious note, the rest of the satire appeals mostly to ethos and logos. Logos is present everywhere, particularly in Mencken’s refute of an executioner’s misery and his introduction of katharsis as a reason for the penalty, which he, in sarcasm and irony, supports heavily. As the essay is a satire, ethos is called on in nearly every point Mencken makes, as he suggests “you’re not anything like the people I’m mocking, are you?”

The Penalty of Death is very effective in its delivery of Mencken’s opinions. Mencken’s sense of humor makes it clear from the beginning what he intends to discuss and how he will do it, and his detailed support of his satirical thesis “katharsis” makes his message enjoyable as well as informative. His satirical voice is believable as pro-death penalty American, but his meaning is clearly driven home when the essay, like the life of a doomed prisoner, is ended before its natural close. As Mencken suggests, maybe the judicial system needs a new “healthy letting off of steam”.

The Little Girl Saw Her First Troop Parade

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Carl Sandburg

Summary and Critical Analysis

When the little girl saw the troop marching, she asked the speaker what they were. H e replied that they were soldiers. Then she asked what soldiers are for. He replied that they are for war and that they fight and try to kill as many of the other side as they can. Then the girl remained silent and thought seriously. After a while she said that she knew something. She thought that one day when the soldiers fought nobody would come back. ‘The Little Girl Saw Her First Troop Parade’ is a short prose poem shows the bitter reality of war through the innocent perspective of a young girl.
A little girl sees a group of soldiers in a parade, for the first time in her life. She asks the speaker who they are. She gets the reply that they are soldiers. Her next question is who soldiers are. The speaker again replies that the soldiers are meant for war. They fight and try to kill as many soldiers as possible of the other side. When the little girl gets this reply she is silent and thinks for a while. Then she says that she has come to know something.When she is asked what it is, then she replies that “Sometime they will give a war and nobody will come.”

The history of the world is full of war in which millions of people have lost their lives. War is always evil and destructive. It affects not only those who are fighting but also numerous innocent people who have nothing to gain from the war. In spite of all these bitter realities, people are still fighting and killing each other. The present poem begins as a casual conversation between a little girl and a grown up man, but in the last line the girl presents such an insight (wisdom) that even the grownups rarely thinks about. The little girl says that there will (might) be a day when people will give a war but no one will come to fight. This line may be signaling towards that terrible war which will lead to the ultimate annihilation of the human race form the earth. Therefore, when there will be a war nobody will comes because those who have gone to war will never return, and there will be no one left anymore.

The poem may be taken as a bitter satire for the nations that are competing to accumulate (collect) as many nuclear weapons as possible. This context in the preparation of war, when a large mass of people are living in hunger seems to be futile even for an innocent girl but this is something that the so called intellectual and leaders have failed to understand. When Sandburg presents this insight (wisdom) for the perspective of a little the message becomes even more poignant.

‘The Little Girl Saw Her First Troop Parade’ is a prose poem which unfolds (open) dramatically in the form of a dialogue. But there are certain special characteristics that distinguish it from ordinary poem. The poetic elements like alliteration and assonance can be found in abundance and each line of the poem has a rhythmic quality. The success of the poem also lies in its capacity of giving each a starting (shocking) message with the use of very few words in the form of a causal talk. Like William Wordsworth Sandburg in this poem has used the language of everyday speech.

Pandora’s Box

Major English XI Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

Pandora’s Box
by Rosalind Vallance

Summary of Pandora’s Box

In this play only The Chorus and The Leader of the Chorus speak. The Chorus is made up of l2 people. Normally they all speak at the same time. Sometimes only 6 of them speak-this is called The Semi-Chorus.

The other characters are Pandora (a girl). Epimetheus(a boy) and Hermes(a god). They do not speak. They only mime. The chorus and the stage directions describe what they do.
Pandora enters first alone and plays with an imaginary ball. Epimetheus enters and they throw the ball to each other. They are playing. They are happy.

The Leader of the Chorus is worried. Then Hermes enters and The Leader thinks he has come to bless the children. Hermes is carrying an imaginary box. Pandora is fascinated by the box. Hermes warns her, then smiles and leaves.

Pandora and Epimetheus begin to play again but Pandora is still fascinated by the box. She hears a voice coming from it. She lifts the box up and then opens it. The Troubles escape from the box and begin to attack her. Epimetheus and Pandora manage to beat The Troubles away.

The Chorus explains that Pandora has let evil out of me box and it is impossible to put it back again. Pandora hears another voice from the box. She listens carefully and, even though she is frightened she opens the box again. This time, Hope flies out.

Explanation

At the beginning of the play the world is trouble-free. It is a perfect world where children can play safely. The Troubles of the world are trapped in the box. Hermes brought the box with The Troubles inside and left it near Pandora. The god did not open the box; a human being opened the box. In other words, The Troubles would not have been released into the world unless a human being (Pandora) had not been curious.

When the box was opened, The Troubles came out into the world. This was the worst situation, because there was no hope. However, when the box was opened a second time, Hope was released. This explains the world as it is today. There are troubles, but there is also hope.

Wet Saturday

Major English XI Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

Wet Saturday
by John Collier

Summary of Wet Saturday

It was a Saturday in July. The weather was wet Mr. Princey, his wife, his daughter, Millicent and his son. George was in their house. They were discussing the bad thing Millicent had done. She had killed the local priest; Withers Millicent had been in love with Withers. She met him in the stable. He told her that he was going to marry another girl. Millicent became very angry and hit Withers on the head with a metal stick. She killed him.

Mr. Princey thought no-one would have seen Withers come to their house. He was saying, “Who would kill Withers?” when a man called Captain Smollett came in. Captain Smollett laughed because he thought Mr. Princey was making a joke.

Mr. Princey asked Smollett to go to the stable. They told him that Millicent had killed Withers because they were afraid Smollett would guess the truth anyway. Mr. Princey said he would kill Smollett if he told anyone that Millicent had Withers. Mr. Princey said he couldn’t trust Smollett, so he made it look as if Smollett had murdered Withers. George hit Smollett in the face to make it look like there had been a fight. He made Smollett touch the post that used to kill Withers, so that his fingerprints would be on it. Mr. Princey pointed a gun at Smollett and forced him to drag the dead body into a drain.

Now many things made it look as if Smollett had killed Withers. Mr. Princey said he did this to make sure Smollett would never tell anyone about the murder. However, as soon as Smollett had left the house, Mr. Princey called the police.

Di Grasso: A Tale of Odessa

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Issac Bable

Summary

Because this brief work is a sophisticated commentary on the nature of art as well as “just a story,” it is all the more interesting for the reader to know that it is the last work Isaac Babel published in his lifetime, before he fell victim to Stalinist justice. Although the exact circumstances of Babel’s arrest in 1939 are not known, it is believed that he was charged with espionage, a patently contrived accusation; he was executed in 1941. The Jewish author, whose collections of stories were often reprinted during his lifetime, was “rehabilitated” after the death of Joseph Stalin—and his stories were reprinted again.

“Di Grasso” ostensibly focuses its attention on the Jewish theatrical world of prewar Odessa (about 1908), where one learns that the narrator as a boy of fourteen has recently “come under the sway” of the “tricky” ticket scalper Nick Schwarz and his “enormous silky handle bars.” Without looking further into the relationship between the boy and the older man who is his “boss,” the narrator instead describes (entertainingly) almost the entire action of a very bad play being newly performed by a traveling troupe of Italian actors. In this play, a “city slicker” named Giovanni temporarily lures the daughter of a rich peasant away from her betrothed—a poor shepherd played by the Sicilian actor Di Grasso. Di Grasso pleads with the girl to pray to the Virgin Mary—a huge, garish, wooden statue of whom is on the stage—but to no avail. In the last act, when Giovanni has become insufferably arrogant, Di Grasso suddenly soars across the stage, plunges downward onto Giovanni, bites through his throat, and sucks out the gushing blood—as the curtain falls.

Recognizing a hit when he sees one, Schwarz rushes to the box office, where he will wait all night, first in line to buy at dawn as many tickets as he can afford, for resale. The narrator shortly remarks that everyone in Theater Lane has been made happy by the new hit—except himself.

Now an entirely new story line develops. It seems that the lad has taken his father’s watch without permission and pawned it to Schwarz—who eventually grows very fond of the big gold turnip. Even after the boy pays off the pledge, Schwarz refuses to give back the watch. The boy is in continual despair, imagining his father’s wrath. He suggests that Schwarz and his father have the same character.

Then one night Schwarz and his wife, along with the boy, attend the final performance of the Italian troupe, with Di Grasso playing the shepherd “who is swung aloft by an incomprehensible power.” Schwarz’s wife, a fat and sentimental woman with “fish-like eyes,” is overwhelmed by Di Grasso’s great leap of love. She laments her own loveless life and berates her husband as they walk home from the theater with the boy trailing behind. The boy sobs openly, thinking of his father and the watch. Madam Schwarz hears the sobs and angrily forces her husband to return the watch, which he does, but not without giving the lad a vicious pinch.

The Schwarzes walk on, reach the corner, and disappear. The boy is left alone to experience ultimate happiness; he sees the world at night “frozen in silence and ineffably beautiful.”

Themes and Meanings

At an elementary level of meaning, this story reveals the hidden relationships that may exist between apparently unconnected things and events. The Italian play, with its fantastic Sicilian actor, acts powerfully on the unloved wife of the swindler Nick Schwarz—and the boy and his watch are saved.

The story becomes more interesting when the reader sees that it is precisely the power of art that is significant, rather than merely “a play.” Finally, it is not art in general that is at issue but art of great passion. Here, bad art is “transformed” by a passionate actor. Commenting on Di Grasso’s acting, the narrator insists that the Sicilian, “with every word and gesture,” confirms that there is “more justice in outbursts of noble passion than in all the joyless rules that run the world.”

Such an explicit statement, not all that common in Babel, must be taken seriously. One wonders if “joyless rules” might refer to the Soviet Union of the bleak 1930’s, and if Nick Schwarz, with his handlebar mustaches, is not intended to be seen as a pitiless Stalin figure. In any case, however, such political overtones are not the central focus of the work.

Passion in life, as in art, is a recurring motif in Babel’s writings. Often it is accompanied by violence, as in the present work—which depicts not only the murderous leap of Di Grasso but also the descent of the curtain “full of menace” and the “vicious pinch” exacted by Schwarz. If life is lived fully and passionately, some violence is inevitable.

As art influences or works itself into life (here moving Schwarz’s wife to take pity on the boy), so may life be transformed into art. Thus the boy, dizzy with happiness, sees the ordinary world of the city transformed into ineffable beauty. Here reality, art, and transcendent beauty merge in a remarkable vision. The boy’s epiphany has the character of a future writer’s first glimpse of the world beyond everyday reality (or of the way reality really is if one looks at it right).

The Elephant

Major English XI Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

The Elephant
by Slawomir Mrozek

Summary of The Elephant

The director of the zoo did not care about the animals that lived there. The zoo had many small animals like rabbits but it did not have an elephant. The news came that the zoo could buy an elephant if it wanted to. The director thought an elephant was too expensive, so he decided to make an elephant out of rubber and blow it up like a big balloon. The rubber elephant was made and two zoo workers were told to breathe air into it to blow it up. This was too difficult for them. So they decided fill the rubber elephant from the gas pipe instead.

The next day the rubber elephant full of gas was put into the zoo. In front of the elephant was a notice that said, “Particularly sluggish Hardly moves.” Some children and their teacher were looking at it. Suddenly the elephant rose up off the ground and floated away. The children who saw the elephant stopped believing their teacher and started to drink a lot of alcohol.

For Prodigal Read Generous

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Edward Estlin Cummings

In the poem For Prodigal Read Generous poet asks the reader to be generous if she or he wants to understand what is prodigal. Only an unselfish person can give large amounts freely. Similarly, ‘age’ will tell him the value of youth. The old person reminds the reader that he too was young and his youth had already passed and that youth is so short. If the reader knows what mere surprise is, he will understand what a pure miracle is. Miracle is the intense form of surprise. After this, the reader is asked to study other aspects of life.

If the reader knows what satisfaction is, he will experience what pure joy is. A satisfied person is very happy. The monotony of prose will show how lively a poem is. If the reader is careful and attentive enough to avoid danger he or she should be curious. Otherwise his curiosity will lead to destruction. After this he is asked not to pay attention to something. Cummings asks the reader to read one set of words and to understand something else for each word. Finally, the reader is asked to close the eyes, probably with satisfaction that is obviously false.

To close the eyes is also not to pay attention to something, not to take notice of it, to ignore it. Thus concepts change from generation to generation. There is the absence of capital letters in this poem. The poet may mean to say that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, he wants to say that all are equal. The literary devices he developed were intended to show how the outer appearance reinforces the inner vision. His disordered syntax (sentence construction) and typographical disarrangements were intended, not to bewilder, but to heighten the understanding. The poet has dropped the conventional punctuation. We don’t get a period at the end of the sentence in this poem.

The first line of the poem reads “for prodigal read generous” and the third line reads “read for sheer wonder mere surprise”. In the third line the verb ‘read’ is placed first and its object ‘mere surprise’ has been placed at the end. In fifth line the order is completely different: first there is the object ‘contentment’ and after the object is the verb ‘read’ and then is the adjunct of ecstasy. Seventh line also follows the order of fifth line except the fact that there is no verb. The poet has reversed the usual or natural order of words for emphasis. The emphatic words are placed either in the beginning or at an end. The end position is more important than the first. Therefore ‘generous’, ‘surprise’ ‘ecstasy’ and curiosity’ have been especially highlighted in lines 1, 3, 5 and 7 respectively.

In all the eight lines of this poem, the poet has used the imperative form of the verbs read, turn and close. He is asking his reader to read different things, to turn the page and to close the eyes and thus to experience different aspects of life by himself. The poet uses the phrase ‘to close your eyes’ to mean ‘not to pay attention to something’ ‘not to take notice of it’ ‘to ignore it’ and ‘to show satisfaction.’

Dover Beach

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Matthew Arnold

Summary & Analysis

This is a poem about a sea and a beach that is truly beautiful, but holds much deeper meaning than what meets the eye. The poem is written in free verse with no particular meter or rhyme scheme, although some of the words do rhyme. Arnold is the speaker speaking to someone he loves. As the poem progress, the reader sees why Arnold poses the question stated above, and why life seems to be the way it is. During the first part of the poem Arnold states, “The Sea is calm tonight” and in line 7, “Only, from the long line of spray”. In this way, Arnold is setting the mood or scene so the reader can understand the point he is trying to portray. In lines 1-6 he is talking about a very peaceful night on the ever so calm sea, with the moonlight shining so intensely on the land. Then he states how the moonlight “gleams and is gone” because the “cliffs of England” are standing at their highest peaks, which are blocking the light of the moon. Next, the waves come roaring into the picture, as they “draw back and fling the pebbles” onto the shore and back out to sea again. Arnold also mentions that the shore brings “the eternal note of sadness in”, maybe representing the cycles of life and repetition. Arnold then starts describing the history of Sophocle’s idea of the “Aegean’s turbid ebb and flow”.

The sea is starting to become rougher and all agitated. Also the mention of “human misery” implies that life begins and ends, but it can still be full of happiness, and unfortunately, at the same time, sadness. “The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore.” The key word in that stanza is once, because it implies that he (Arnold) used to look at the sea in a different way than he does now. Throughout the whole poem, Arnold uses a metaphor to describe his views and opinions. Now he only hears its “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.” It seems as though Arnold is questioning his own faith. The whole poem is based on a metaphor – Sea to Faith. When the sea retreats, so does faith, and leaves us with nothing. In the last nine lines, Arnold wants his love and himself to be true to one another. The land, which he thought was so beautiful and new, is actually nothing – “neither joy, nor love, nor light”. In reality, Arnold is expressing that nothing is certain, because where there is light there is dark and where there is happiness there is sadness. “We are here though as on a darling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash at night”. Arnold uses much alliteration in the poem. For example, in line 31, “To lie before us like a land of dreams”, repeating the letter L at the beginning of three words. Also, in line 4, “Gleams and is gone…”, repeating the letter G. The usage of assonance and consonance is not widespread in “Dover Beach”. In line 3 – “…on the French coast the light” – the repetition of the letter T is shown, as an example of consonance. Other literary techniques, such as onomatopoeia and hyperbole, are not used in the poem, besides the metaphor for “Faith” being the Sea.

The diction Arnold uses creates a sense of peacefulness and calmness. It is fairly easily understood vocabulary, with the exception of a few words, such as cadence and darkling. From reading Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”, one realizes that there is no certainty in life. When everything is going perfectly, something unfortunate may happen at any given time, with no forewarning.

To Bobolink for Her Spirit

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by William Inge

This is a One Act play with the following highlights…

Setting/Staging
Exterior; Casting totals include 4 children (two boys/two girls)

Short Synopsis
Short play about the dedicated autograph hunters who lie in wait for celebrities outside of one of New York’s famous restaurants.

Casting Information

Total: 7
Male: 3
Female: 4

When Icicles Hang by the Wall

Major English XI Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

When Icicles Hang by the Wall
by W. Shakespeare

Summary and Critical Analysis of When Icicles Hang by the Wall

In winter the dipping water freezes and hangs; the shepherd breathes his finger-nails to warm them; Tom carries wood to the fireplace; milk is frozen in the bucket while taking it home; people feel biting cold and the roads are muddy because of rain. At night the owl stares and sings a happy song. And the cook prepares steaming soup to keep the family members warm. The blowing of the wind can be heard everywhere. When the priest starts preaching, his voice cannot be heard because of the cough. In the snow birds protect their young by covering them with their wings. Marian has to clean her nose continuously. So it has turned red. In the kitchen small sour apples are being roasted to make jelly, and the owl sings a happy song at night.

At the conclusions of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost are two songs, one in praise of spring, one of winter. The pleasure of spring is the obvious ones of the outdoors. As in a debate, in the second poem, “When Icicles Hang by the Wall,” the second speaker presents the claim for winter. He is willing to concede the disadvantages of winter-its cold, its muddy roads, its wind, the throat and nasal discomforts we all endure-nut his plea for winter is a subtle one. The poet presents the harshness of winter without using words like “cold” or “unpleasant”.

For this he uses the following expressions: ‘blow his nail’, ‘blood is nipped’, ‘ways be foul’, ‘all aloud the wind doth blow’, ‘coughing drowns’, ‘nose looks red and row’. All these represent the harshness of winter-its cold, its muddy roads, its wind, the throat and nasal discomforts. He arranges each stanza to move us indoors, for there we experience the pleasures of his season. Roasted crab apples sizzling in hot cider, steaming soup tended by a perspiring maid, a warm room: these are pleasures all the keener for the cold we know is just outside.

Two false approaches often taken to poetry can be avoided: the first is that approach which always looks for a moral or a lesson, and the second that which expects to find poetry always beautiful. This poem has no moral, nor is it beautiful. Poetry may deal with common colds and greasy kitchen maids as legitimately as with sunsets and flowers, and give no message or noble truth about life, and still continue to be a favorite among readers for nearly four centuries.