Friday

Prepare a five-minute (it really MUST be five minute) oral commentary to present for critique on Tuesday.

1 min : Intro with author, title, overview of general meaning (no specifics), and key focal points for the commentary. I suggest, for the whole commentary --

 

Intro:  1 minute

·      Structure:       1 minute (sonnet, quatrains, couplet, octave, sestet); rhyme scheme suggesting  a blend of Petrarchan and English forms, leading to how structure affects meaning –

·      Diction and imagery (2 min): look at each quatrain. Note the diction and imagery come from blacksmithing. The second, it is from war and politics (look up words you do not know, students!) The third, it is from love and marriage. What is the effect as the poem progresses through these patterns? How does the couplet “wed” the last two quatrains?

·      Rhythm and meter (2 min -- Help us, O Justin) – do a scansion of the first quatrain. Point out the effects of the spondees and caesuras. How do they reflect, amplify, or otherwise affect the poem? Note the enjambments at lines 1 and 12. Effects? Does the sentence “bend – or break”?