2.  A short poem expressing
the thoughts and feelings
of a single speaker
◦ Ancient Greece: sung to
music (lyre)
◦ Today: musical quality of
language

3.  The Romantics favored lyric poetry because they
wrote about personal emotion
◦ Wordsworth: “London, 1802”
“The World Is Too Much with Us”
◦ Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Wordsworth   Coleridge

4.  Heinrich Heine
◦ 1797-1856
◦ Brilliant love poet
◦ “The Lorelei”

5. I cannot explain the sadness
That's fallen on my breast.
An old, old fable haunts me,
And will not let me rest.
The air grows cool in the twilight,
And softly the Rhine flows on;
The peak of a mountain sparkles
Beneath the setting sun.
More lovely than a vision,
A girl sits high up there;
Her golden jewelry glistens,
She combs her golden hair.
With a comb of gold she combs it,
And sings an evensong;
The wonderful melody reaches
A boat, as it sails along.
The boatman hears, with an anguish
More wild than was ever known;
He's blind to the rocks around him;
His eyes are for her alone.
At last the waves devoured
The boat, and the boatman's cry;
And this did with her singing,
The golden Lorelei.

6.  Many years before the Romantic Era, Japanese
wrote poems discussing similar ideas/emotions
 Haiku
◦ 3 line poems
◦ 1st line: 5 syllables
2nd line: 7 syllables
3rd line: 5 syllables
◦ Focus on nature and
intense emotions

7. The sun’s way:
Hollyhocks turn toward it
Through all the rain of May.
Poverty’s child –
He starts to grind the rice,
And gazes at the moon
Clouds come from time to time –
And bring to men a chance to rest
From looking at the moon

8. Scampering over saucers –
The sound of a rat.
Cold, cold.
Spring rain:
In our sedan
Your soft whispers.
Fuji alone
Left unburied
By young green leaves

9. Beautiful, seen through holes
Made in a paper screen:
The Milky Way.
Far-off mountain peaks
Reflected in its eyes:
The dragonfly.
A world of dew:
Yet within the dewdrops –
Quarrels.

10. 1. Main idea of Heinrich Heine’s “The Lorelei.”
2. Main idea behind the haiku of Matsuo Bashō.
3. Main idea behind the haiku of Yosa Buson.
4. Main idea behind the haiku of Kobayashi Issa.
5. Major difference between poets’ perception of nature
in the English Romantics’ poetry and Japanese haiku.