What this paper explores is how emotion is expressed in performance poetry. What is it that makes... more What this paper explores is how emotion is expressed in performance poetry. What is it that makes performance poetry powerful? How is emotion conveyed effectively when poetry is performed? What elements and techniques in the performance affect how emotion and feeling are conveyed? Finally, where is emotion and feeling more powerfully communicated to the reader; in performed poetry or in text poetry?
These questions will be explored through an analysis of the poem ‘B’, commonly known as ‘If I should have a daughter’, written and performed by Sarah Kay. The theoretical framework will be provided by Martina Pfeiler’s 'Sounds of Poetry: Contemporary American Performance Poets', which traces the history of oral poetry and techniques, as well as discussing the differences between written and performed poetry.
What this paper seeks to show is that the performance of poetry by its writer makes it easier for the recipient of the poem to understand the emotions that the poet is trying to convey, and this is done through various techniques such as body language, facial expression, pitch, and tone. This, however, does not imply that written poetry conveys emotion in a lesser way; only that it does so differently. What performance poetry does, according to this paper, is to allow the author to take you exactly where they want you to go, with regard to emotions, and to do so with feeling.
This dissertation seeks to analyse the dual nature of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The I... more This dissertation seeks to analyse the dual nature of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The Introduction will first establish the standpoint of the dissertation, which views Satan as the tragic hero-villain of the epic, and it will then move to an analysis of an inherent duality evident in parts of the epic that involve features other than Satan’s character.
The first chapter will analyse theories of doubling from different disciplines: philosophy, ethics, and psychology, and will apply the theories to the poem using illustrations from different parts of Milton’s epic. The first part of this chapter will focus on the Apollonian-Dionysian duality as proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, the second part will debate whether or not Satan and God’s parts in the heavenly war could be justified using the Just War Theory, and the final part will analyse doubling in Freudian terms, referring to The Uncanny and The Ego and the Id.
The second chapter is the core of the dissertation. It will analyse Satan’s duality in three parts. The first part will analyse Satan’s duality in terms of heroism; classical versus epic heroism, and whether he is more of a hero than a fool. It will then move to an application of Aristotle’s Poetics, to justify the term “tragic” given to him in the introduction. The second part will analyse other features of duality in Satan, namely, appearance and reality and the interior split within him. The final part is a close reading of ‘Book IV’, using this reading as an in-depth analysis of the character.
This will lead to the conclusion, which uses all that has been said to determine why there may be a split in readers between love and hate for this character, thus answering the final part of the title posed by this dissertation
Simply put, this dissertation explores the reading experience. It explores the possible reasons a... more Simply put, this dissertation explores the reading experience. It explores the possible reasons as to why people love to read and the impact that the experience of reading has on the reader. The dissertation does so with particular reference to the novel. Issues such as canonicity, popular fiction, affect theory, the function of reading, and the place of literature in a reader’s life are tackled through the reading of several critics and important thinkers, and the varied thoughts are juxtaposed and explored in order to come up with potential answers to this unanswerable question. Two important traits of the novel with regard to the impact it may have on the reader are explored in more depth. The first of these is the epiphanic characteristic of the novel and the representation of the epiphanic in the novel. The second is the possibility of affirmation through tragic narratives. What this dissertation ultimately does is to analyze critically the incredibly personal act of reading as a universal phenomenon, taking into consideration aspects of the novel which make the medium more amenable to analysis and criticism. What this project essentially seeks to achieve is a critical analysis which attempts to justify why readers keep on reading and why people keep becoming readers regardless of new media and other distractions. The key word that surfaces continuously throughout the dissertation is identification, and this is the term that holds the various strands of thoughts and theories together, which in the end communicate—on an affirmative note—the need for the love of reading to remain a reality as well as the improbability of its dying out.
What this paper explores is how emotion is expressed in performance poetry. What is it that makes... more What this paper explores is how emotion is expressed in performance poetry. What is it that makes performance poetry powerful? How is emotion conveyed effectively when poetry is performed? What elements and techniques in the performance affect how emotion and feeling are conveyed? Finally, where is emotion and feeling more powerfully communicated to the reader; in performed poetry or in text poetry?
These questions will be explored through an analysis of the poem ‘B’, commonly known as ‘If I should have a daughter’, written and performed by Sarah Kay. The theoretical framework will be provided by Martina Pfeiler’s 'Sounds of Poetry: Contemporary American Performance Poets', which traces the history of oral poetry and techniques, as well as discussing the differences between written and performed poetry.
What this paper seeks to show is that the performance of poetry by its writer makes it easier for the recipient of the poem to understand the emotions that the poet is trying to convey, and this is done through various techniques such as body language, facial expression, pitch, and tone. This, however, does not imply that written poetry conveys emotion in a lesser way; only that it does so differently. What performance poetry does, according to this paper, is to allow the author to take you exactly where they want you to go, with regard to emotions, and to do so with feeling.
This dissertation seeks to analyse the dual nature of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The I... more This dissertation seeks to analyse the dual nature of Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The Introduction will first establish the standpoint of the dissertation, which views Satan as the tragic hero-villain of the epic, and it will then move to an analysis of an inherent duality evident in parts of the epic that involve features other than Satan’s character.
The first chapter will analyse theories of doubling from different disciplines: philosophy, ethics, and psychology, and will apply the theories to the poem using illustrations from different parts of Milton’s epic. The first part of this chapter will focus on the Apollonian-Dionysian duality as proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, the second part will debate whether or not Satan and God’s parts in the heavenly war could be justified using the Just War Theory, and the final part will analyse doubling in Freudian terms, referring to The Uncanny and The Ego and the Id.
The second chapter is the core of the dissertation. It will analyse Satan’s duality in three parts. The first part will analyse Satan’s duality in terms of heroism; classical versus epic heroism, and whether he is more of a hero than a fool. It will then move to an application of Aristotle’s Poetics, to justify the term “tragic” given to him in the introduction. The second part will analyse other features of duality in Satan, namely, appearance and reality and the interior split within him. The final part is a close reading of ‘Book IV’, using this reading as an in-depth analysis of the character.
This will lead to the conclusion, which uses all that has been said to determine why there may be a split in readers between love and hate for this character, thus answering the final part of the title posed by this dissertation
Simply put, this dissertation explores the reading experience. It explores the possible reasons a... more Simply put, this dissertation explores the reading experience. It explores the possible reasons as to why people love to read and the impact that the experience of reading has on the reader. The dissertation does so with particular reference to the novel. Issues such as canonicity, popular fiction, affect theory, the function of reading, and the place of literature in a reader’s life are tackled through the reading of several critics and important thinkers, and the varied thoughts are juxtaposed and explored in order to come up with potential answers to this unanswerable question. Two important traits of the novel with regard to the impact it may have on the reader are explored in more depth. The first of these is the epiphanic characteristic of the novel and the representation of the epiphanic in the novel. The second is the possibility of affirmation through tragic narratives. What this dissertation ultimately does is to analyze critically the incredibly personal act of reading as a universal phenomenon, taking into consideration aspects of the novel which make the medium more amenable to analysis and criticism. What this project essentially seeks to achieve is a critical analysis which attempts to justify why readers keep on reading and why people keep becoming readers regardless of new media and other distractions. The key word that surfaces continuously throughout the dissertation is identification, and this is the term that holds the various strands of thoughts and theories together, which in the end communicate—on an affirmative note—the need for the love of reading to remain a reality as well as the improbability of its dying out.
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These questions will be explored through an analysis of the poem ‘B’, commonly known as ‘If I should have a daughter’, written and performed by Sarah Kay. The theoretical framework will be provided by Martina Pfeiler’s 'Sounds of Poetry: Contemporary American Performance Poets', which traces the history of oral poetry and techniques, as well as discussing the differences between written and performed poetry.
What this paper seeks to show is that the performance of poetry by its writer makes it easier for the recipient of the poem to understand the emotions that the poet is trying to convey, and this is done through various techniques such as body language, facial expression, pitch, and tone. This, however, does not imply that written poetry conveys emotion in a lesser way; only that it does so differently. What performance poetry does, according to this paper, is to allow the author to take you exactly where they want you to go, with regard to emotions, and to do so with feeling.
The first chapter will analyse theories of doubling from different disciplines: philosophy, ethics, and psychology, and will apply the theories to the poem using illustrations from different parts of Milton’s epic. The first part of this chapter will focus on the Apollonian-Dionysian duality as proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, the second part will debate whether or not Satan and God’s parts in the heavenly war could be justified using the Just War Theory, and the final part will analyse doubling in Freudian terms, referring to The Uncanny and The Ego and the Id.
The second chapter is the core of the dissertation. It will analyse Satan’s duality in three parts. The first part will analyse Satan’s duality in terms of heroism; classical versus epic heroism, and whether he is more of a hero than a fool. It will then move to
an application of Aristotle’s Poetics, to justify the term “tragic” given to him in the introduction. The second part will analyse other features of duality in Satan, namely, appearance and reality and the interior split within him. The final part is a close reading of ‘Book IV’, using this reading as an in-depth analysis of the character.
This will lead to the conclusion, which uses all that has been said to determine why there may be a split in readers between love and hate for this character, thus answering the final part of the title posed by this dissertation
These questions will be explored through an analysis of the poem ‘B’, commonly known as ‘If I should have a daughter’, written and performed by Sarah Kay. The theoretical framework will be provided by Martina Pfeiler’s 'Sounds of Poetry: Contemporary American Performance Poets', which traces the history of oral poetry and techniques, as well as discussing the differences between written and performed poetry.
What this paper seeks to show is that the performance of poetry by its writer makes it easier for the recipient of the poem to understand the emotions that the poet is trying to convey, and this is done through various techniques such as body language, facial expression, pitch, and tone. This, however, does not imply that written poetry conveys emotion in a lesser way; only that it does so differently. What performance poetry does, according to this paper, is to allow the author to take you exactly where they want you to go, with regard to emotions, and to do so with feeling.
The first chapter will analyse theories of doubling from different disciplines: philosophy, ethics, and psychology, and will apply the theories to the poem using illustrations from different parts of Milton’s epic. The first part of this chapter will focus on the Apollonian-Dionysian duality as proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, the second part will debate whether or not Satan and God’s parts in the heavenly war could be justified using the Just War Theory, and the final part will analyse doubling in Freudian terms, referring to The Uncanny and The Ego and the Id.
The second chapter is the core of the dissertation. It will analyse Satan’s duality in three parts. The first part will analyse Satan’s duality in terms of heroism; classical versus epic heroism, and whether he is more of a hero than a fool. It will then move to
an application of Aristotle’s Poetics, to justify the term “tragic” given to him in the introduction. The second part will analyse other features of duality in Satan, namely, appearance and reality and the interior split within him. The final part is a close reading of ‘Book IV’, using this reading as an in-depth analysis of the character.
This will lead to the conclusion, which uses all that has been said to determine why there may be a split in readers between love and hate for this character, thus answering the final part of the title posed by this dissertation