03 Jun To what degree does the spiritual? manifest in both the visual arts and poetry, and in what sense, or senses, does it evidence in different ways in t
Write an 1000-1500 words on ONE of the following two questions:
1.To what degree does the “spiritual” manifest in both the visual arts and poetry, and in what sense, or senses, does it evidence in different ways in the two media? In formulating your answer, make sure you make reference not only to various class materials and presentations, but the specific writing of Kandinsky on the “spiritual in art” and also Wallace Stevens, when appropriate.
2.Choose either the modern visual arts (including the movies watched) or the poetry we have studied (including in class), and answer the following question: how do the different materials and structural components (e.g., in painting line and color or in poetry rhythm, word selection, sound, and meter) function to create certain effects that communicate powerfully with the viewer/listener? Do not generalize, but analyze certain key painters/poet carefully and discuss their style or methods in such a way as to communicate what these “effects” are, and how they are produced.
Poetry and the Spiritual
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"God is the perfect poet." Robert Browning
Religion, worship, and poetry
Psalm 117 – English Text
Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever…
The Psalms
The Qu’ran
* Buddham saranam gacchāmi
I seek refuge in the Buddha.
* Dhammam saranam gacchāmi
I seek refuge in the Dharma.
* Sangham saranam gacchāmi
I seek refuge in the Sangha
Buddhist chanting
I am the angel of reality,
seen for a moment standing in the door.
…
I am the necessary angel of earth,
Since, in my sight, you see the earth again,
Cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set,
And, in my hearing, you hear its tragic drone
Rise liquidly in liquid lingerings,
Like watery words awash;
…
an apparition appareled in
Apparels of such lightest look that a turn
Of my shoulder and quickly, too quickly, I am gone?
Wallace Stevens
Poetry of Wallace Stevens
Translation from the French (Excerpt)
Symbolist Poetry Arthur Rimbaud
April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar kine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Symbolist Poetry T.S. Eliot
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My life is not this vertical hour in which you find me in such haste I am a tree in front of my own background I am only but one of my many mouths and the one which is the first to close I am the silence between two sounds that only with difficulty grow used to one another for the tone of death also wishes to be heard but in the darkness of the interval they make peace with one another, trembling and the song remains beautiful
Oracular Poetry Rainier Maria Rilke
DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light…
Existential Poetry Dylan Thomas
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What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! –and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective…
Existential Poetry Alan Ginsberg
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I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Existential Poetry (African American) Langston Hughes
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We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Existential Poetry (African American) Gwendolyn Brooks
Conceptual Poetry Adrienne Rich
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