William Butler Yeats was one of the best poets of the English Language of all times and received a Nobel prize for Literature in 1923. He was Irish so he was really influenced by the Irish heritage and politics.
I have chosen one of his poems for today's lesson, A Drinking Song, mainly because I like its simplicity not only of its form but also its message.
One of the main aims of this course is to improve your writing. It must be condensed, down to the point, orderly...and reading poetry can help you attain this goal.
Here you have a very simple scene, the author is drinking a cup of wine, red or white...we don't know but no bother, he's reflecting of the act of drinking itself, not the way some would do during the weekends, nope, not the way people do when they want to numb the pain and forget the past, nope. It's something more spiritual. He is actually enjoying his wine. He focuses on perception, mindfully. It’s all about awareness and experiencing what you are doing.
Watch this video from "The Hours":
A poem is like a picture, there's something very poetic in this scene, isn't there? An adult trying to explain what death is like to a kid, there's not much difference between animals and human beings. A peaceful instant in time only interrupted by the clutter of a noisy crowd.
Well, I want you to imagine the scene in A Drinking Song and perceive what's going on. Why? Because you will have to transform this poem into prose. A description. This has much in common with the narrative form, relating an experience in terms of the writer's own feelings and responses.
How come can I do that??? Following these simple instructions:
First, analyze the poem, you need to understand what the poet is trying to convey.
Break the poem into manageable sections, making sure that they are complete sentences.
Study each sentence in your paragraph to determine whether it is a run-on sentencen like : "The trees are in their autumn beauty, the woodland paths are dry." Separate the two sentences with semicolons or periods, or by adding a conjunction such as "and," "but," "because," "so" or "when."
Check each sentence in your paragraph to make sure that it has a verb and a subject, If not, the sentence is a fragment. For instance : "Not rudely, as a beast, to run into an action." There is no subject saying who doesn't run rudely as a beast, making the sentence a fragment.Study any fragments to determine what the subject and verb should be .
Check the context if there's any. In this case, there are no morethan one stanza so you will have to imagine it.
Read over the paragraph to check if it flows well in prose form. If the sentence is extremely long, it won't work.
Check they are grammatically correct. But change as little as possible so you can preserve the meaning of the poem while still making it grammatically correct.
The length? Enough to make a thorough description
It's challenging but cool! I can't wait to see the result!
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