3.2 Written Texts What do you need to know?

1
3.2 Written TextsWhat do you need to know?

• African American Poetry
• Maya Angelou
• Paul Laurence Dunbar

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Maya Angelou

• Biography
• Born April 4, 1928 in Saint Louis, Missouri,
  Maya Angelou's given name was Marguerite Johnson.
  In her early twenties she was given the name Maya
  Angelou after her debut performance as a dancer
  at the Purple Onion cabaret. The author's father,
  Bailey Johnson, was a naval dietician, and her
  mother was Vivian Johnson. She has one sibling, a
  brother named Bailey after their father. When she
  was about three years old, their parents divorced
  and the children were sent to live with their
  grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou claims
  that her grandmother, whom she called "momma, had
  a deep-brooding love that hung over everything
  she touched." Growing up in Stamps, Angelou
  learned what it was like to be a black girl in a
  world whose boundaries were set by whites. She
  learned what it meant to have to wear old hand me
  downs from a white woman. And she also learned
  the humiliation of being refused treatment by a
  white dentist. As a child she always dreamed of
  waking to find her "nappy black hair"
  metamorphosed to a long blond bob because she
  felt life was better for a white girl than for a
  black girl. Despite the odds, her grandmother
  instilled pride in Angelou with religion as an
  important element in their home.
• After five years of being apart from their
  mother the children were sent back to Saint Louis
  to be with her. This move eventually took a turn
  for the worst when Angelou was raped by her
  mother's boyfriend. The devastating act of
  violence committed against her caused her to
  become mute for nearly five years. She was sent
  back to Stamps because no one could handle the
  grim state Angelou was in. With the constant help
  of a woman named Mrs. Flowers, Angelou began to
  evolve into the young girl who had possessed the
  pride and confidence she once had. Again in 1940,
  her brother and her were sent to San Francisco to
  live with their mother. Life with her mother was
  constant disorder. Living with her mother soon
  became too much for her so she ran away to be
  with her father and his girlfriend in their
  rundown trailer. Finding that life with him was
  no better, she ended up living in a graveyard of
  wrecked cars that mainly housed homeless
  children. It took her a month to get back home to
  her mother. Angelou's dysfunctional childhood
  spent moving back and forth between her mother
  and grandmother caused her to struggle with
  maturity. She became determined to prove she was
  a woman and began to rush toward maturity.
  Angelou soon found herself pregnant, and at the
  age of sixteen she delivered her son, Guy.

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Historical Context

• Jim Crow laws  
• in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern
  states and municipalities, beginning in the
  1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks
  and whites. The name is believed to be derived
  from a character in a popular minstrel song. The
  Supreme Court ruling in 1896 in Plessy v.
  Ferguson that separate facilities for whites and
  blacks were constitutional encouraged the passage
  of discriminatory laws that wiped out the gains
  made by blacks during Reconstruction. Railways
  and streetcars, public waiting rooms,
  restaurants, boardinghouses, theaters, and public
  parks were segregated separate schools,
  hospitals, and other public institutions,
  generally of inferior quality, were designated
  for blacks. By World War I, even places of
  employment were segregated, and it was not until
  after World War II that an assault on Jim Crow in
  the South began to make headway. In 1950 the
  Supreme Court ruled that the Univ. of Texas must
  admit a black, Herman Sweatt, to the law school,
  on the grounds that the state did not provide
  equal education for him. This was followed (1954)
  by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board
  of Education of Topeka, Kans., declaring separate
  facilities by race to be unconstitutional. Blacks
  in the South used legal suits, mass sit-ins, and
  boycotts to hasten desegregation. A march on
  Washington by over 200,000 in 1963 dramatized the
  movement to end Jim Crow. Southern whites often
  responded with violence, and federal troops were
  needed to preserve order and protect blacks,
  notably at Little Rock, Ark. (1957), Oxford,
  Miss. (1962), and Selma, Ala. (1965). The Civil
  Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of
  1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 finally
  ended the legal sanctions to Jim Crow.

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Historical Context

• 1) Brown v Board of Education
• 2) Selma Voting Registration 1965
• 3) Student Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides
• 4) Birmingham Campaign
• 5) Death of MLK and Malcolm X

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Phenomenal Woman

• Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
• I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's
  size
• But when I start to tell them,
• They think I'm telling lies.
• I say,
• It's in the reach of my arms
• The span of my hips,
• The stride of my step,
• The curl of my lips.
• I'm a woman
• Phenomenally.
• Phenomenal woman,
• That's me.
• I walk into a room
• Just as cool as you please,
• And to a man,
• The fellows stand or
• Fall down on their knees.

Men themselves have wondered What they see in
me. They try so much But they can't touch My
inner mystery. When I try to show them They say
they still can't see. I say, It's in the arch of
my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my
breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a
woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's
me. Now you understand Just why my head's not
bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to
talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought
to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my
heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my
hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a
woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
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Phenomenal Woman

• Explication
• Published in And Still I Rise (1978)
• The poem is written in free verse
• There is no set rhyme scheme

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Phenomenal Woman

• Persona
• The persona in this poem is a strong, confident
  woman.  Lyman B. Hagen states, "The woman
  described is easily matched to the author
  herself.  Angelou is an imposing woman-- at least
  six feet tall.  She has a strong personality and
  a compelling presence as defined in the poem"
  (126).

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Phenomenal Woman

• Imagery
• Angelou uses imagery to give the reader a sense
  of what the persona looks like.  She states "I'm
  not cute or built to suit a fashion model's
  size."  She then lists characteristics to help
  further the reader's sense of the persona  "The
  curl of my lips. . . / It's in the fire in my
  eyes. . . / The sun of my smile. . . / The need
  for my care."
• In the second stanza Angelou uses a metaphor
  "Then they swarm around me, / A hive of honey
  bees." This refers to the men who have surrounded
  her as she enters a room.  When reading this I
  think of Scarlett at the Twelve Oaks Barbecue in
  Gone With the Wind.
• She uses such imagery so that the proud,
  confident persona can be better understood.

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Phenomenal Woman

• Repetition
• Maya Angelou uses repetition in this poem to
  stress certain phrases.  An example of this is
  "I'm a woman / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman,
  / That's me."  Angelou also uses repetitiveness
  in the structure of her poem.  The persona says
  that pretty women ask her what her secret is and
  she tells them by listing her qualities.  She
  walks into a room and gathers attention and tells
  the reader why by listing her qualities.  She
  says that men even wonder why they are smitten by
  her and she tells them by listing her qualities.
  In the final stanza she tells the reader that now
  they should understand and be proud of her as
  well and again she lists personal qualities.
•  Her use of repetiton helps to give the poem a
  flow and make it seem more familiar and lyrical.

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Phenomenal Woman

• Line Length
• The line length varies in the poem as a result
  some words have more emphasis.  Some examples are
  "I say," "Phenomenal woman," and "That's me."
• The emphasis on certain words helps them to stand
  out to the reader.

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Phenomenal Woman

• Anaphora
• An anaphora is the "repetition of words or
  phrases at the beginning of lines " (Canada
  9/7/98).
• Angelou does this in several places in Phenomenal
  Woman. An example is "The span of my hips, / The
  stride of my step, / The curl of my lips. . . /
  Phenomenally.  / Phenomenal woman,"
• I believe that she does this in order to create a
  smooth flow in the work.

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Phenomenal Woman

• Musicality
• Maya Angelou's poem Phenomenal Woman is very
  lyrical, as are many of her other poems.  This
  may have been influenced by her career as a
  dancer and as a Broadway actress.
• Hagen states "Most of her other poetry could
  easily be set to music.  It is purposely
  lyrical.  It is designed to elicit stirring
  emotional responses.  Much of it is meant to show
  fun with the familiar" (122).

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Carol E. Neubauer

• One of the best poems in this collection is
  Phenomenal Woman, which captures the essence of
  womanhood and at the same time describes the many
  talents of the poet herself. As is characteristic
  of Angelou's poetic style, the lines are terse
  and forcefully, albeit irregularly, rhymed. The
  words themselves are short, often monosyllabic,
  and collectively create an even, provocative
  rhythm that resounds with underlying confidence.
  In four different stanzas, a woman explains her
  special graces that make her stand out in a crowd
  and attract the attention of both men and women,
  although she is not, by her own admission, "cut
  or built to suit a fashion model's size." One by
  one, she enumerates her gifts, from "the span of
  my hips" to "the curl of my lips," from "the
  flash of my teeth" to "the joy in my feet." Yet
  her attraction is not purely physical men seek
  her for her "inner mystery," "the grace of her
  style," and "the need for her care." Together
  each alluring part adds up to a phenomenal woman
  who need not "bow" her head but can walk tall
  with a quiet pride that beckons those in her
  presence.

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Still I Rise
You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me
with your eyes, You may kill me with your
hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll
rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come
as a surprise That I dance like I've got
diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the
huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past
that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black
ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I
bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror
and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's
wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts
that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the
hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

• You may write me down in history
• With your bitter, twisted lies,
• You may trod me in the very dirt
• But still, like dust, I'll rise.
• Does my sassiness upset you?
• Why are you beset with gloom?
• 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
• Pumping in my living room.
• Just like moons and like suns,
• With the certainty of tides,
• Just like hopes springing high,
• Still I'll rise.
• Did you want to see me broken?
• Bowed head and lowered eyes?
• Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

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Still I Rise

• Up to a point, "Still I Rise," Angelou's title
  poem, reminds us of Brown's famous "Strong Men,"
  and it is the discovery of that point which helps
  us define Angelou's particular presence and
  success in contemporary letters and, if we may
  say so, in publishing. The poetic and visual
  rhythms created by the repetition of "Still I
  rise" and its variants clearly revoice that of
  Brown's "strong men ... strong men gittin'
  stronger." But the "I" of Angelou's refrain is
  obviously female and, in this instance, a woman
  forthright about the sexual nuances of personal
  and social struggle

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Sandra Cookson

• "Still I Rise," a poem about the survival of
  black women despite every kind of humiliation,
  deploys most of these forces, as it celebrates
  black women while simultaneously challenging the
  stereotypes to which America has subjected them
  since the days of slavery. "Does my sassiness
  upset you?" "Does my haughtiness offend you?"
  "Does my sexiness upset you?" the poet demands in
  an in-your-face tone through successive stanzas,
  leading to the poem's inspirational conclusion.
  The penultimate stanza is especially strong "Out
  of the huts of history's shame / I rise / Up from
  a past that's rooted in pain / I rise / I'm a
  black ocean, leaping and wide, / Welling and
  swelling I bear in the tide."

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Amber Stolz

• Still I Rise begins with a mention of writing
  down history. There has been a movement to
  analyze the text books presented to students to
  see if they hold the true history, or just one
  rose colored version. It is interesting that
  Still I Rise begins by making the reader
  immediately think of the skewed versions of
  history they have been taught over the years.
  There is a sense of lies and silent
  discrimination that surrounds the history of
  African Americans. She also mentions dust in the
  first stanza. This goes along with the theme,
  bringing to mind many blacks who were killed.
  However, she says that the dust will rise,
  indicating that although the history has been
  difficult, the spirit will prevail.
• The second, fourth, fifth, and seventh stanzas
  begin with different questions. This question is
  spoken to those that are perceived as taking
  offense at the rise of her spirit. The tactic of
  asking the questions pulls the reader into the
  poem. Instead of being able to skim over the
  content, the reader is forced to examine his or
  her own beliefs. The first, third, and sixth
  stanzas, those that do not question the reader,
  end with the phrase Ill rise. The mixture of
  questions and assertion that Ill rise lets the
  reader know that the answers to the questions are
  mute. They are to be filled in by the reader.
• This poem has a consistent rhyming pattern until
  it reaches the last two stanzas. With these two
  stanzas the format changes. Instead of talking to
  the reader, Angelou begins to assert the rising
  the title speaks of. She makes reference to
  roots and the slavery era. Instead of these
  experiences being a weight around her neck, she
  draws on the strength of her ancestors to
  increase her own. She says that she is able, in
  fact obliged, to persevere to fulfill the dreams
  of her ancestors for the opportunity to be a
  success in a free world.

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Equality
Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I
will be free. Take the blinders from your
vision, take the padding from your ears, and
confess you've heard me crying, and admit you've
seen my tears. Hear the tempo so
compelling, hear the blood throb through my
veins. Yes, my drums are beating nightly, and the
rhythms never change. Equality, and I will be
free. Equality, and I will be free.

• You declare you see me dimly
• through a glass which will not shine,
• though I stand before you boldly,
• trim in rank and marking time.
• You do own to hear me faintly
• as a whisper out of range,
• while my drums beat out the message
• and the rhythms never change.
• Equality, and I will be free.
• Equality, and I will be free.
• You announce my ways are wanton,
• that I fly from man to man,
• but if I'm just a shadow to you,
• could you ever understand?
• We have lived a painful history,

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

• The free bird leaps
• on the back of the wind
• and floats downstream
• till the current ends
• and dips his wings
• in the orange sun rays
• and dares to claim the sky.
• But a bird that stalks
• down his narrow cage
• can seldom see through
• his bars of rage
• his wings are clipped and
• his feet are tied
• so he opens his throat to sing.
• The caged bird sings
• with fearful trill

The free bird thinks of another breeze and the
trade winds soft through the sighing trees and
the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and
he names the sky his own. But a caged bird
stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts
on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied so he opens his throat to
sing The caged bird sings with a fearful
trill of things unknown but longed for still and
his tune is heard on the distant hill for the
caged bird sings of freedom.
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Carol E. Neubauer

• Perhaps the most powerful poem in this
  collection is Caged Bird, which inevitably brings
  Angelou's audience full circle with her
  best-known autobiography, I Know Why the Caged
  Bird Sings. This poem tells the story of a free
  bird and a caged bird. The free bird floats
  leisurely on "trade winds soft through the
  sighing trees" and even "dares to claim the sky."
  He feeds on "fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
  lawn" and soars to "name the sky his own." Unlike
  his unbound brother, the caged bird leads a life
  of confinement that sorely inhibits his need to
  fly and sing. Trapped by the unyielding bars of
  his cage, the bird can only lift his voice in
  protest against his imprisonment and the "grave
  of dreams" on which he perches. Appearing both in
  the middle and end of the poem, this stanza
  serves as a dual refrain

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Paul Laurence Dunbar

• Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first
  African-American poet to garner national critical
  acclaim. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872, Dunbar
  penned a large body of dialect poems, standard
  English poems, essays, novels and short stories
  before he died at the age of 33. His work often
  addressed the difficulties encountered by members
  of his race and the efforts of African-Americans
  to achieve equality in America. He was praised
  both by the prominent literary critics of his
  time and his literary contemporaries.

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Sympathy

• I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas!
• When the sun is bright on the upland
  slopes
• When the wind stirs soft through the springing
  grass,
• And the river flows like a stream of glass
• When the first bird sings and the first
  bud opes,
• And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
• I know what the caged bird feels!
• I know why the caged bird beats his wing
• Till its blood is red on the cruel
  bars
• For he must fly back to his perch and cling
• When he fain would be on the bough a-swing
• And a pain still throbs in the old, old
  scars
• And they pulse again with a keener sting--
• I know why he beats his wing!
• I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
• When his wing is bruised and his bosom
  sore,--
• When he beats his bars and he would be free
• It is not a carol of joy or glee,
• But a prayer that he sends from his
  heart's deep core,

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Sympathy

• In Sympathy, Paul Laurence Dunbar relates the
  many problems in his life to the problems of an
  entrapped bird.  In the poem Dunbar shows the
  bird in the cage while wonderful things happen
  all around it.  He illustrates how the sun is
  bright and the wind is whispering softly, but the
  bird is unable to enjoy the beautiful weather due
  to its cage.  The difficulties he has encountered
  in life are shown in these lines And a pain
  still throbs in the old, old scars/ And they
  pulse again with a keener sting. In this, the
  bird is not actually symbolizing Paul Laurence
  Dunbar, for he continues to claim how he can
  sympathize with the bird, yet it has his same
  problems, Dunbars cage being the racism that he
  constantly faced during his time period. In this
  point in his life, Dunbar was finding that it was
  impossible to find any job that could be
  considered meaningful or of importance, or any
  job that paid even averagely. He was an elevator
  boy at this point, and his main way of venting
  his frustration against a discriminatory world
  was through poetry. By using brilliant imagery
  and stinging emotion, Dunbar shows us how racism
  is imprisoning his soul.

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Sympathy

• Jean Wagner
• "Sympathy" is a heartfelt cry of a poet who finds
  himself imprisoned amid traditions and prejudices
  he feels powerless to destroy . . . .
• Peter Revell
• A poem like "Sympathy"with its repeated line, "I
  know what the caged bird feels, alas!"can be
  read as a cry against slavery, but was probably
  written out of the feeling that the poets talent
  was imprisoned in the conventions of his time and
  exigencies of the literary marketplace.

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We Wear the Mask

• We wear the mask that grins and lies,
• It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
• This debt we pay to human guile
• With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
• And mouth with myriad subtleties.
• Why should the world be overwise,
• In counting all our tears and sighs?
• Nay, let them only see us, while
• We wear the mask.
• We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
• To thee from tortured souls arise.
• We sing, but oh the clay is vile
• Beneath our feet, and long the mile
• But let the world dream otherwise,
• We wear the mask!

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We Wear the Mask

• Gossie H. Hudson
• The Poem "We Wear the Mask" may reveal why he so
  often chose to write of the black man as a
  happy-go-lucky creature of the plantation
• Why should the world be over-wise,In counting
  all our tears and sighs?Nay let them only see
  us, while    We wear the mask.

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Peter Revell

• Almost without exception, Dunbars poems on black
  themes treat their subjects objectively. The
  formal diction of many of them demands this. They
  are written from within black experience but that
  experience is presented in such a way that the
  reader, black or white, can draw inspiration or
  admonition from the subject matter. The one
  outstanding exception to this generalization is
  "We Wear The Mask," arguably the finest poem
  Dunbar produced, a moving cry from the heart of
  suffering. The poem anticipates, and presents in
  terms of passionate personal regret, the
  psychological analysis of the fact of blackness
  in Frantz Fanon's Peau Noire, Masques Blancs,
  with a penetrating insight into the reality of
  the black man's plight in America
• We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides
  our cheeks and shades our eyes,--This debt we
  pay to human guileWith torn and bleeding hearts
  we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties.
• The poem is also an apologia for all that his own
  and succeeding generations would condemn in his
  work, for the grin of minstrelsy and the lie of
  the plantation tradition that Dunbar felt himself
  bound to adopt as part of the "myriad subtleties"
  required to find a voice and to be heard. The
  "subtleties" lead us to expect that honest
  feelings and judgments, when they occur, will be
  obliquely presented and may be difficult to
  apprehend, a point of view that many critics of
  Dunbar have not taken into account. It should be
  noted that the poem itself is "masked," its link
  to the black race, though obvious enough, not
  being openly stated. Yet in this one poem Dunbar
  left aside the falsity of dialect and the
  didacticism of his serious poems on black
  subjects and spoke from the heart.

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Typical Questions

• EITHER OPTION A
• 'A good poem is not a simple verbal statement but
  a cunningly-fashioned work of art which can be
  approached from many angles.' Discuss, with close
  reference to ONE long poem (50 lines or more) or
  TWO shorter poems you have studied.
• OR OPTION B
• 'A successful poem is a subtle combination of
  message, movement, sound and sense.' Discuss,
  with close reference to ONE long poem (50 lines
  or more) or TWO shorter poems you have studied.
• OR OPTION C
• Compare and contrast ONE OR MORE poems by a poet
  you admire greatly with ONE OR MORE poems by a
  poet for whom you have less regard, making clear
  the reasons for your preference.
• OR OPTION D
• 'By giving up rhyme and regular metre, poets have
  shot themselves in the foot. There is nothing in
  modern poetry to make it memorable.' Discuss,
  with close reference to TWO OR MORE poems you
  have studied.

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More Questions

• EITHER OPTION A
• In what ways do you believe the language of
  poetry is different from everyday language?
  Illustrate your answer with close reference to
  TWO OR MORE poems you have studied.
• OR OPTION B
• What distinctive qualities most impressed you in
  the work of a poet you have studied this year?
  Discuss with close reference to TWO OR MORE poems
  you have studied.
• OR OPTION C
• 'The best poetry often challenges us to look at a
  topic or issue in a fresh, new way.' Discuss this
  statement with close reference to TWO OR MORE
  poems You have studied.