“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.” — William Butler Yeats, who was born today in 1865.
A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown. ― W.B. Yeats
In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, ‘Here are lions.’ Across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, 'Here are ghosts.’
Clearing out the iCloud, I’ve posted to YouTube the remainder of my pandemic-era online lectures from my penultimate year adjuncting in a large public university’s English department. This was Introduction to Literature in Spring 2020. The first two-thirds of the class, on fiction and drama, were held in person; then the rest, mostly on poetry, were online. These were almost my first video lectures, so they should be amusingly rough.
Above is the first video. Here is the playlist of four videos. The first three are a very basic introduction to poetry with major examples; I cover Pound, Eliot, Plath, Heaney, Walcott, Hopkins, Dickinson, Stevens, Yeats, and Keats. The third lecture, in which I explain why Yeats uses symbolism wrongly and Keats uses it rightly, might be the most fun—I like a strong opinion—but the middle one, where I trace faith, doubt, and skepticism in literary form across three poets, may also entertain.
The final video in the playlist is a q&a. I invited students to submit whatever questions they still had after the course was through. I answer such queries as: is literature superior to other media? is older literature better than contemporary literature? are Shakespeare’s borrowed plots a stain on his achievement? should we read “problematic” (racist, etc.) books? what makes a classic? what’s my favorite Jane Austen novel? and more. Please enjoy!
