Friday September 10, 2010

Last day to turn in your vocabulary 1 without penalty.

Monday is your critical lens summer essay. You will not, of course, be able to use your texts. Afterall, you have only 40 minutes. Look over the critical lens template from yesterday. Note the literary elements that apply to your particular chosen texts.

Nice work on your in class essays on Wednesday. Keep in mind that every statement made in your essays must have proof and an analysis.

Missing essays: Leon, Roberto, Mary and Manny. If I made a mistake, please show me your essay on the blog.

As we read the following in class, please reflect upon the relationship between the narrator and the birds. In terms of literary elements, ask yourself how point of view impacts a work of literature.

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye;

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

They all began to sing.

Now, wasn't that a dainty dish

To set before the King?
The King was in his countinghouse,

Counting out his money;

The Queen was in the parlor

Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

Hanging out the clothes.

Along there came a big black bird

And snipped off her nose!

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.