EED102G/201/2/2012
Tutorial Letter 201/2/2012 WAYS OF KNOWING: FICTION, POETRYAND DRAMA
EED102G Semester 2
Department of English Studies This tutorial letter contains Feedback for Assignment 02.
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EED102G/201/2
Dear Students
In this tutorial letter we will discuss some aspects of the optional assignment 02.
1.
The first section of the assignment requires you to annotate the poem which is given to you in the assignment. You should begin with a clean copy of the given poem. You should read and reread the poem slowly and carefully. Then, and only then, should you begin jotting down on your copy of the poem your thoughts and feelings about the poem. Of course you do not have to write on your copy if you don’t want to. You could jot down your thoughts and feelings in point-form point-form if you prefer. These points or notes you would then express in formal academic language when you come to write your essay. Examine every word in the poem carefully to see what it means and also what it suggests. You should be aware of the additional meanings and associations, that is, the connotations, suggested by the words used by the poet. A good poet chooses words very carefully in order to make you, the reader, think and feel in a particular way. When you annotate a poem you are sifting out as many of the mental and emotional effects of the words used in the poem as you can.
We have annotated the poem for you as an example of the kind of annotation you should do in preparation for the writing of an analysis. You will notice that I do not use full sentences. These are merely annotations or notes jotted down in preparation for my formal analysis. When you do your annotation you will certainly notice many things we have not mentioned in this brief example.
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A YOUNG MAN’S THOUGHTS BEFORE JUNE THE 16TH
1976, student uprising, Soweto
literal as well as metaphorical
Fhazel Johennesse
Sets the time frame of the poem - the events of
meaning - he will literally walk on a road, but he will also be
the uprising have not yet happened; 'before' is
tomorrow i travel on a road
also in contrast to 'sunset', with June the 16th the
starting out on a political and emotional journey which will
event that marks the break between
that winds to the top of the hill
'before' (innocence of youth) and
change things forever
'sunset' (destruction of youth)
i take with me only the sweet all the love and joy of
many emotions suggested by these words: nostalgia,
memories of my youth
longing, sorrow; fear; loss; grief
childhood depicted here.
my heart aches for my mother
numerous connotations: security; love; tenderness; safety; childhood; loss; longing
for friday nights with friends These lines suggest nostalgia for family, friends, and the sharing of
around a table with the broad belch of beer
joy and sorrow that constitutes constitutes life in a close, loving community; pain
i ask only for a sad song
and hardship are also suggested by the words 'sad,' 'downturned,' 'broken brow' - the hard times as well as the jolly, as in 'broad belch
sung by a woman with downturned eyes
This ‘sad song’ is different from the wistful , nostalgic songs of the beery Friday nights; now it is a song of mourning for loss and death; this line alludes to the tragedy which which will take place tomorrow.
and strummed by an old man with
of beer' are all suggested by Friday nights.
a broken brow Refers to violence violence and death. By the end of the next day – ‘sunset’’ – the poet’s words will be drenched with red.
o sing my sad song sing for me
‘drenched’ does not mean a sprinkling – it means utterly soaked through – there will be a very great deal of blood. This last line carries carries an extremely extremely sorrowful prophecy which is also a grim warning.
for my sunset is drenched with red
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2.
The second section of the assignment requires you to write an essay based on the analysis of the poem. The annotation you did in section 1 is your preparation for the writing of this analysis. When you write your analysis you put down all your thoughts and feelings about the poem, which you have jotted down i n your annotated annotated copy or in note form, into academic English. You write in full sentences and paragraphs. You do not use headings. You write in the present tense. You may mention whether or not you like the poem but only if you refer to the words of the poem to justify your opinion. Your opinions, if they are not supported by means of close reference to the poem itself, are not relevant in a formal academic analysis of a poem. The assignment suggests you respond to certain questions, given to you in the assignment, in the course of your your analysis, such as: Do you think this is a good poem? ; What do you like or not like about what the poem is saying? ; and so on. You need to be careful when attempting to answer these questions. You must remember all the time that your opinions are only valid in this context if you carefully and thoroughly substantiate them by detailed reference to the poem itself. As indicated in your Study Guide, each poem is an ideological ideological utterance within a particular racial, gender or class context. The key to responding to a poem is to form associations in your mind in response to the words of the poem. An active reader is able to connect the known with the unknown in order to develop a better understanding of the world as a result of a close reading of the poem. Remember that the title of a poem is part of the poem. In good poetry not a single word is unimportant. The title of Fhazel Johennesse’s poem, A Young Man’s Thoughts before June the 16 th gives us a clear idea of what the poem is about, and establishes an immediate connection with the content and the poet’s intention. Those of you who are too young to have a personal recollection of the events and significance of the Soweto uprisings of June 16 th sh oul d gath gather er information from history textbooks, newspapers and other sources if you are to be able to understand the poem, particularly the last line, “for my sunset is drenched with red”. ‛
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I hope you took careful note of the guidelines provided in Tutorial Letter 101 of EED102G for the writing writing of a literary essay. Study Unit 6 of your your Study Guide also contains a very useful checklist, specifically designed for writing essays on poetry. This is followed by a discursive essay, which presents you with an example example that fulfils the criteria for academically acceptable writing. You will also find this example useful when you write essays on the prescribed short stories, novel and drama. Below you will find the topic-focussed and well-structured essay of one of our current students. Since you were asked for a personal response, you may find that the student’s opinions on aspects such as irony and free verse are debatable. Moreover, when you re-read Study Unit 5 ‘Introduction to Poetry’ in your Study Guide, you will notice additional aspects that could have been incorporated into the discussion. However, despite the fact that there is room for improvement, the essay did receive a very good mark for conforming to most of the requirements of the question. A YOUNG MAN’S THOUGHTS BEFORE JUNE THE 16 th
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‘A Young Man’s Thoughts Before June the 16 th’ by Fhazel Johennesse is a good poem. The style is simple, with no complicated jargon. Even though it is a short poem, the speaker of the poem gets his point across quickly. We know immediately from reading the title alone, what it is about. The poem impacts on us, allowing us to visualize a youth, fighting for his rights, and that he would prefer to be anywhere but there. This is evident in line 5, when says, “…my heart aches for my mother…” I like the poem because it is easy to read. It makes you feel the emotions of the young boy. The poet makes you feel the dread the youth feels and how he longed for a normal youth’s pleasures, like his mother’s presence and the ability to be sitting around drinking with his friends. Instead, he is ready to face his demise. The only thing he is requesting is that someone sings the “sad song” (line 8 and repeated in line 12); meaning that all he wants is someone to tell the story of what happened on June 16 th and that he did not give his life in vain.
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I like the way the speaker is sending the message. It is tastefully written. In some poems, either shock tactics like foul language are used or the poet uses a lot of irony. This can confuse people and more often than not, the message gets lost. The poem ‘A Young Man’s Thoughts Before June the 16 th’ is spoken by a youth involved on that fateful day. This we know by the speaker using words like “I”, “me”, and “my”. This gives a personal feel to the poem and we can imagine the youth and what he is experiencing. It is a simple poem, with no complicated words, which can reach a variety of audiences. The literary devices used are; alliteration, onomatopoeia and repetition and free rhyme. One example of alliteration occurs in the use of the letter “ b” in the phrase “broad belch of beer”. The poetic devices of alliteration and onomatopoeia are deliberately combined to emphasize the long belching sound that youths often make, to get their friends to laugh when they drink. Alliteration is also used with the repetitive use of the consonant “ s” in the phrase “ sad song sung” which emphasizes sadness. The use of the word “ strumming” in the next line is followed by a repetition of “ sad song” in the penultimate line stress the lengthy melancholy of the people. The words “ broken brow” in line 11 is another example of alliteration, to stress on the fact that an old man’s mind (symbolized by the word “brow”) is “broken”. Here the figurative device of synecdoche adds to the denotation of the decrease in mental capacity through repeated suffering. The repeated use of alliteration also slows down the rhythm, and in this way the reader slows down his reading of the poem, feeling the heavy sadness with the speaker of the poem. The colour “red” is used to symbolize the sunset of the youth’s life and the blood which is going to be wasted. The word ‘drenched” describes the huge amount of blood which is going to be spilled. The free rhyme emphasizes the sad, solemn nature of of the poem. Making the poem rhyme may have made it sound upbeat, and it would therefore have taken away the full emotion of sorrow that the poem makes us feel. The speaker talks about the “sweet memories of [my] youth” and he says, “…my heart aches for my mother…” (line 5). This makes us realize that he is just a young boy who just wants to do normal things, and that he does not really choose to be at the scene of the bloodshed. He feels so strongly about his cause, namely; the reasons behind the June 16 th uprising, and knows that there might be a disastrous outcome. All he wants is for someone to tell the story of the events and that the day should be remembered by the singing of the “sad song” and that his death not to have been for nothing. The poem makes us realize that people, even the young, have died to make a difference in the world and that June 16 th is not just a public holiday for a day off from work, but that we should always remember the plight of those who have lost their lives so tragically.
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PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING : 9
Paragraph 1 provides a suitable introduction to the essay.
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Paragraph 2 answers the first question, ‘Do you think this is a good poem? Do you you like it?’
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Paragraph 3 responds to the second question, ‘What do you like or not like about HOW the poem is saying it?’
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Paragraph 4 answers the next question, ‘What literary devices does the poet use? How do they work in the poem?’
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The next paragraph addresses the final question, ‘How does the poet evoke certain emotions in the reader?’
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The short concluding paragraph rounds off the essay appropriately.
Barbara C. Janari:
[email protected] janarbc@ unisa.ac.za a
012 429 6326
Eileen Donaldson:
[email protected]
012 429 3241
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