Compare two english poems you have enjoyed most. Write your own comments based on following points.

Take-home test : intro to Literature

Question !!!

1) Compare two english poems you have enjoyed most. Write your own comments based on following points.

a) Your personal preferences

b) The moral values, messages or ideologies conveyed

c) The beauty of language used

2) (Re) define the following forms terms by referring to accesed references. State your own concept and give your argument.

a. Literature

b. Poetry-poem



ANSWER !!!



1. a. The first Poem



The One Best Friend

By Belle

Thanks for being there for me,
through good times and bad times.
I will be on your side even if the the world ends.
When the world is going,
I will be here,
now and until the end.
Your my very best friend.
The one that I look up to.
The one that I run to, when I have a problem.
The one that I talk to.
Your the one best friend that was always there for me.
I wanna thank you for all the things you gave and showed me.







b. The second Poem



How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning



How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death







v In my opinion, the first poem is tells about Poet’s felling. Poet tells about the poet’s best friend. Poet so happy because poet’s friend always there for him, on good times or bad times, Poet’s friend always there when Poet have a problem. And Poet want thank for all the things Poet’s friend gave an showed.





v The second poem tells about someone who loves someone else and states his love more than everything. He expresses that his love is free and pure. When god asks him to choose which one is better between dying or loving his love, he prefers to choose his love rather than the other choices



v I think, the first poem is a wonderful poem, because this poem is tells about best friend. this poem motivating me in order to be a good friend for everyone because without friends we will feel alone and we can’t share our problems to get the solutions.



v After I read that poem, I find the different topic between the first poem and the second poem, the first poem talks about friendship and the second talks about love.





a. I prefer the first poem, because it use a simple vocabulary and easy to understand for me, for me the first poem is so wonderful poem, because it teach me to be best friend for everyone.

b. The moral massage of the poem is we must be best friend for everyone without look the basic of the people.

c. The beauty of language from the first poem is :



I will be on your side even if the the world ends
When the world is going





1. Some definition of literature.



a. Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.

Lombardi Esther . (2011) literature available at : http://classiclit.about.com/od/literaryterms/g/aa_whatisliter.htm accessed on November 20, 2011



b. Literature, a body of written works related by subject‐matter (e.g. the literature of computing), by language or place of origin (e.g. Russian literature), or by prevailing cultural standards of merit. In this last sense, ‘literature’ is taken to include oral, dramatic, and broadcast compositions that may not have been published in written form but which have been (or deserve to be) preserved. Since the 19th century, the broader sense of literature as a totality of written or printed works has given way to more exclusive definitions based on criteria of imaginative, creative, or artistic value, usually related to a work's absence of factual or practical reference (see autotelic). Even more restrictive has been the academic concentration upon poetry, drama, and fiction. Until the mid‐20th century, many kinds of non‐fictional writing—in philosophy, history, biography, criticism, topography, science, and politics—were counted as literature; implicit in this broader usage is a definition of literature as that body of works which—for whatever reason—deserves to be preserved as part of the current reproduction of meanings within a given culture (unlike yesterday's newspaper, which belongs in the disposable category of ephemera). This sense seems more tenable than the later attempts to divide literature—as creative, imaginative, fictional, or non‐practical—from factual writings or practically effective works of propaganda, rhetoric, or didactic writing. The Russian Formalists' attempt to define literariness in terms of linguistic deviations is important in the theory of poetry, but has not addressed the more difficult problem of the non‐fictional prose forms. See also belles‐lettres, canon, paraliterature. For a fuller account, consult Peter Widdowson, Literature (1998).

Widdowson Peter. (1998). Literature available at : http://www.answers.com/topic/literature#ixzz1epAWML3T accessed on November 20, 2011



2. Some definition of Poetry



a. Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme, but this is by no means necessary. Poetry is an ancient form that has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time. The very nature of poetry as an authentic and individual mode of expression makes it nearly impossible to define.



Flanagan Mark. (2011) poetry available at : http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/literaryterms/g/poetry.htm accessed on November 20, 2011



a. There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

Poetry is a lot of things to a lot of people. Homer's epic,The Oddysey, described the wanderings of the adventurer, Odysseus, and has been called the greatest story ever told. During the English Renaissance, dramatic poets like John Milton, Christopher Marlowe, and of course Shakespeare gave us enough to fill textbooks, lecture halls, and universities. Poems from the romantic period include Goethe's Faust (1808), Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" and John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

Shall I go on? Because in order to do so, I would have to continue through 19th century Japanese poetry, early Americans that include Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot, postmodernism, experimentalists, slam...

So what is poetry?

Perhaps the characteristic most central to the definition of poetry is its unwillingness to be defined, labeled, or nailed down. But let's not let that stop us, shall we? It's about time someone wrestled poetry to the ground and slapped a sign on its back reading, "I'm poetry. Kick me here."

Poetry is the chiseled marble of language; it's a paint-spattered canvas - but the poet uses words instead of paint, and the canvas is you. Poetic definitions of poetry kind of spiral in on themselves, however, like a dog eating itself from the tail up. Let's get nitty. Let's, in fact, get gritty. I believe we can render an accessible definition of poetry by simply looking at its form and its purpose:

One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. Carefully selecting words for conciseness and clarity is standard, even for writers of prose, but poets go well beyond this, considering a word's emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and yes, even its spacial relationship to the page. The poet, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly rends significance from thin air.

How am I doing so far? On to purpose:

One may use prose to narrate, describe, argue, or define. There are equally numerous reasons for writing poetry. But poetry, unlike prose, often has an underlying and over-arching purpose that goes beyond the literal. Poetry is evocative. It typically evokes in the reader an intense emotion: joy, sorrow, anger, catharsis, love... Alternatively, poetry has the ability to surprise the reader with an Ah Ha! Experience -- revelation, insight, further understanding of elemental truth and beauty. Like Keats said:

"Beauty is truth. Truth, beauty.
That is all ye know on Earth and all ye need to know."

Faust Goethe's . (1808) poetry available at : http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/poetry/a/poetry.htm accessed on November 20, 2011



I think Like this

Ø Literature is any written or printed material to describe anything from creative writing which have artistic value.

Ø Poetry is Experience, and the poet wants, and spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.