Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Break, break, break”

After reading this poem twice, I personally think that the persona is Daedalus, the father of Icarus. He is talking about what the people on the land did when his son has fallen down from the sky. Obviously, Daedalus was sad beyond words can express when he witnessed this tragedy but there was nothing he can do. As he weakly watched the ship sailed away, he also witnessed his son’s hands vanished into the water and his voice silenced by the sea, as stated in Stanza 3. Tennyson wrote “Break, break, break” in the first and the last quartet to signify Daedalus’ broken heart that he could not utter his thoughts knowing Icarus was dead and the poor boy would never come back to him. Tennyson also used rhyme scheme that is a, b, c, b to portray the intense emotion and the expressions “O Sea!”, “O well” and “But O for the touch…” as sighs to define Daedalus’ feelings towards the fall of Icarus.

Position paper - The thesis statement

The lecturer had asked us to think of some topics or thesis statements that we wish to analyze. At first, we just write them down in our books for him to see but later we wrote the on the whiteboard and wait for approval. I had come out with some thesis statements from A White Heron and Great Expectations. These are some of my choices:
1. Loyalty to nature should come first before the desire to fulfill our own needs.
2. Innocence made Sylvia choose loyalty to nature.
3. Miss Havisham gains nothing out of her revenge.
4. Estella represents Miss Havisham’s revenge towards men.

I chose to work on the fourth thesis statement because I felt that there are many things to discuss from it.

Tales

Folktales and folklore have always been my favorite since I was about four or five years old. My first piece of literary reading is the famous tale, The Red Riding Hood. I never know it was literature, but I love it and eager to have my sister teach me how to pronounce the words. It was very interesting for me to read by myself then, and later I kept asking for more books to read.
For me, folktales are part and parcel of a child’s growth and that every one of us might have our own favorite tale, no matter whether we have read it somewhere or heard it from our parents as bedtime stories. According to Carl Tomlinson and Carol Lynch-Brown's Essentials of Children's Literature, folktales are stories that grow out of the lives and imaginations of the people, or folk. They are a form of traditional literature which began as an attempt to explain and understand the natural and spiritual world. Interestingly, the folktales that traveled by land changed a great deal because of the retelling process, while those that traveled by sea were more similar in version.
There are several distinctive elements of folktales. First is the introduction which introduces the leading characters, time/place of the story and the conflict or problem to be faced. These may be short such as "Once upon a time". Setting is also stock such as a road or a palace or in a forest. Then the action mounts steadily until it reaches a climax, where the problem or conflict will be resolved. Typically, the hero or heroine faces many obstacles and is usually reduced to helplessness before the climax. Finally is the conclusion which is usually short and sweet. The heroes and heroines are happy and the villains are punished. One convention conclusion is "and they lived happily ever after." They also appeal to a child's sense of justice – good is rewarded and evil is punished.

Daedalus and Icarus - the poem by W. H. Auden

This poem is written by W. H. Auden, based on the painting “The Fall of Icarus” by Peter Breughel that he had seen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels. Auden who visited the museum in 1938 wrote that "In so far as poetry, or any of the arts, can be said to have an ulterior purpose, it is, by telling the truth, to disenchant and disintoxicate."

The poem juxtaposes ordinary events and extraordinary ones, although extraordinary events seem to deflate to everyday ones with his descriptions. Life goes on while a “miraculous birth” occurs, but also while "the disaster" of Icarus's death happens. Even the shepherd, the farmer and the sailors ignored Icarus who has fallen into the sea because they have many other things to do to keep their own survival. This situation painted by Breughel is stated in a form of poem by Auden, which I find done rather metaphorically yet beautifully. I guess they saw him falling and it was actually extraordinary witnessing such a sight but they didn’t care less and continue doing their business.

Our first assigned reading was Daedalus and Icarus, and we were asked to print out the painting by Pieter Bruegel entitled “Fall of Icarus”. We searched the net and found some other paintings with the same title.
The painting was about a landscape of land and sea, where Icarus had fallen from his flight with his father, Daedalus. One might not notice him as the only visible feature is his legs pointing out on the surface of the water. From the class discussion, I acknowledge that the painter purposely made it insignificant than the title, probably because to emphasize one paragraph of the text which I found quite interesting. As we can see the shepherd and the fisherman did not even bother about Icarus falling into the vast ocean as they thought that he and his father were Gods soaring across the sky.
Other than that, Dr. Edwin asked us to simplify the text which I only took about fifteen minutes to complete. I found out that the simplified version would be more suitable for secondary school students from both high and low level of proficiency. But the most basic thing is the simple plotline that covers all points according to the conventional plot structure. As instructed by the lecturer, it should include the reason Daedalus invented the flying device, how Icarus was thrilled with his flight and caused his own death by flying near the sun, and his burial.

my reflections

Since I had some experience posting journals in this site, I don’t find it hard to do except for composing the entries. For the first blog, I would start by doing some reflections about my experience and expectations for the course.
First of all, I had this thought that this course would be just the same with my previous literature course, well, maybe what differs is the more difficult texts to study. I was quite right but it obviously has more distinct features than that. Skimming through the course outline and the compilation book, I noticed that we are to study different genre of literary works, such as letters, folk tales, diary entries and also fables. They somehow ignited my interest in reading them especially the folk tales.