Paper 8

3:05pm - Receives question paper. Starts reading poems because I didn't study drama.
3:10pm - Brain says "Whaddaheck!" to Poem B. Flips to easier-to-understand drama. Starts annotating drama.
3:20pm - Realizes I didn't study drama. Flips back and tries to understand poems. Still can't understand Poem B.
4:35pm - gg no re.


Oh well, nobody would've gotten the intended interpretations anyway - Poem A is 2/3 of the poem, and B requires cross-reference to another of Blake's works. The "correct" (i.e. intended) answer might actually be the wrong answer.


Poem A : The Greater Cats
By Victoria Sackville-West (Like, omg? The poet's female...)

The greater cats with golden eyes
Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there and different skies,
And night with different stars.
They prowl the aromatic hill,
And mate as fiercely as they kill,
And hold the freedom of their will
To roam, to live, to drink their fill;
But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.

Their kind across the desert range
Where tulips spring from stones,
Not knowing they will suffer change
Or vultures pick their bones.
Their strength's eternal in their sight,
They rule the terror of the night,
They overtake the deer in flight,
And in their arrogance they smite;
But I am sage, if they are strong:
Man's love is transient as his death is long.

Yet oh what powers to deceive!
My wit is turned to faith,
And at this moment I believe
In love, and scout at death.
I came from nowhere, and shall be
Strong, steadfast, swift, eternally:
I am a lion, a stone, a tree,
And as the Polar star in me
Is fixed my constant heart on thee.
Ah, may I stay forever blind
With lions, tigers, leopards, and their kind.

Chew on this : It is a poem about the poet's personal homosexual lusts and escapades. Vicky here had a lesbian affair with one of her childhood friends.


Poem B : The Tiger
By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Chew on this : It is NOT a poem exalting tigers. No, you may not describe every stanza as "the stanza consists of several enigmatic questions which serves to emphasize the mysterious nature of the tiger". Did everyone realize "could" was replaced with "dare" in the last stanza? I didn't.

But it's Practical Criticism, so I suppose Whitby'd consider every proposed meaning lar. That's assuming one could identify the various techniques used, unlike me.

Meanwhile, I feel like dying.



CW's currently in love with... Kate Beckinsale, his math lecturer and good-looking girls.