1. ELIT 48C
 Class # 21
Alumnae?
crisis
criteria
Criterion

2. Just so you know
 alumna/alumnae; alumnus/alumni: literally “foster
daughter” and “foster son,” these words refer in American
usage to graduates of an educational institution. Most
universities tend to use the masculine forms only.
 crisis/crises: singular crisis (krahy-sis). Latin plural crises
(krahy-seez). You can have one crisis and several crises
 criterion/criteria: One judges the worth of a book
according to a set of criteria. One criterion might be style.
Another criterion might be accuracy.
 phenomenon/phenomena A tornado is a phenomenon
of Nature. Other phenomena are earthquakes,
thunderstorms, and floods.

3. Chair Poet?
'Writing free verse
is like playing
tennis with the net
down.'
Robert Frost

4. AGENDA
Lyric Poetry
“The Snow Man” 1923
“The Emperor of Ice Cream”
1923
Author Introduction:
William Faulkner

5. Lyric Poetry
 Lyric poetry has a long history. Its most basic
definition is poetry that has a rhythmic quality that
makes it able to be sung. Originally, it was
accompanied by a lyre.
 Lyric poetry is likewise identified by its expression of
intense, personal emotion. It is quite powerful
because it draws readers into personal worlds. It is
often, but not always, written in the present tense.

6. Lyric Modernists?
 Modernist poetry is generally a turning away from
inherited models of poetry.
 With the imagist movement, poets distanced
themselves from the reliance on musicality and the
richness of sound, focusing instead on the
complexities of image, the precision of words, and
the directness of language.
 T.S. Eliot says, in “Tradition and the Individual
Talent” that “poetry is not a turning loose of
emotion, but an escape from emotion.” Yet, lyric
poetry seems to be about emotion.

7. How is it Possible?
 Wallace Stevens says in “The Figure of the Youth as
Virile Poet,” that “It is the mundo of the imagination
in which the imaginative man delights and not the
gaunt world of reason. The pleasure is the pleasure
of powers that create a truth that cannot be arrived
at by the reason alone, a truth that the poet
recognizes by sensation.”
 Wallace Stevens’ lyrical poetry is modern in that it is
a continued and methodical experiment with new
ways of using language, another focus of the
moderns.

8. THE
POETRY OF
WALLACE
STEVENS
Discussion

9. The Snow Man
By Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Paraphrase?

10. QHQ: “The Snow Man”
1. Q: What is he trying to say here?
1. “For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
2. Q: Was Stevens alluding to those that do not think
outside the box as mere Snow Men, lifeless creatures
who will soon melt and die?
3. Q: Does winter represent the poor?
4. Q: Could [Stevens’s] poem be describing a relationship
possibly coming to an end?
5. Could “The Snow Man” be used to explain why lesbian
and gay critical theories are grouped together when
they have very varying qualities?

11. The Emperor Of Ice-Cream
By Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Paraphrase?

12. QHQ: “The Emperor of Ice Cream”
1. Q: Did Stevens regard this poem as positive, and
life-affirming, or depressing in its nihilism?
2. Q: Steven Wallace uses a peculiar choice of words
within his poem “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” Why
use the word “horny” to describe feet?
3. Q: Is Stevens writing about Jack the Ripper (a killer
of prostitutes) in “The Emperor of Ice-Cream?”
4. Q: Why would Wallace Stevens choose an
“Emperor” and “Ice Cream”?

13. William Faulkner
AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
William Faulkner,
shown here in 1954,
believed it was a
writer's duty to write
about the compassion
and endurance of
people

14. Novelist William Faulkner knew the South well.
He spent most of his life there, and wrote with
compassion about family, community, and the
people he knew. Born in New Albany,
Mississippi, on September 25, 1897, Faulkner
created the legendary Yoknapatawpha County. Its
fictitious population includes Southern white
aristocrats, merchants, farmers, poor whites, and
persecuted blacks. Faulkner told how the South is
still affected by its past. "The past is never dead,"
he wrote. "It's not even past."
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/progress/jb_progre
ss_faulkner_1.html

15. HOMEWORK
 Read: “Barn
Burning” 800-12
 Post #21 QHQ
“Barn Burning”

16. Exam #1