Dead Poets Society

This is a list of poetry in Dead Poets Society

• O Captain! My Captain! - Walt Whitman

• To The Virgins, Make Much of Time - Robert Herrick

• O Me! O Life! - Walt Whitman

• Excerpt from Walden - Henry David Thoreau

• The Ballad of William Bloat - Raymond Calvert

• The Prophet - Abraham Cowley

• Ulysses - Alfred Lord Tennyson

• The Congo - Vachel Lindsay

• Song of Myself (Section 52) - Walt Whitman

• The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

• Sonnet XVIII - William Shakespeare

• She Walks In Beauty - Lord Byron

2. Try to find out as much as possible about the authors. Write down the information you can find.

You can:
(a) Look up the names in the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture.

(b) Look up the words in the Hutchinson Pocket Encyclopedia.

www:search.eb.com

2. Pairwork reading		You are going to read about Byron and try to answer the questions you wrote. (a) Person 1 Read the biographical details on paper 1 Person 2 Read the biographical sketch on paper 2 (b) Answer as many of your questions as possible. (c) If any of your questions are still unanswered, you could do some more research into Byron's life in order to answer them.
		adventurous carefree nostalgic romantic bored excited regretful tired
3. Listen		Listen to the poem as you read it. Which of the words in the box do you feel best expresses Byron's mood when he wrote the poem?

* a–roving (archaic) – roving, wandering		So we'll go no more a–roving^* So we'll go no more a–roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword^ outwears its sheath^, * a sword *** a sheath And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest. Tough the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a–roving By the light of the moon.



4. Comprehension Check		Cross out the information you feel is not true in the following sentences. Example: (a) The poem is probably addressed ~~– to a woman~~ ~~– a male friend~~ – the poet himself. (b) The poem was written – late at night – during the day. (c) The poet – has decided to stop adventuring – is planning to go out and have fun. (d) The poem is about – a moment when time stands still – the passing of time. (e) The poet – doesn't intend to fall in love again – is hoping to find a new lover. (f) Byron wrote the poem – when he first met and fell in love with Teresa Guiccioli – when he was sick and exhausted at the end of the Carnival season in Venice – in 1816 when he left England to travel abroad.
5. Looking at style		(a) Night /naIt/ and /braIt/ (lines 2 and 4 are perfect rhymes. (The final vowel and consonant sounds are exactly the same.) Although they look as if they should rhyme, a–roving and loving (lines 1 and 3) don't rhyme completely. Look up the phonetic transcription in your dictionary: a–rowing: ____________________ loving: ____________________ Listen to the poem again. Which pairs of words at the end of lines are perfect rhymes and which are imperfect rhymes: perfect rhymes: ____________________ imperfect rhymes: ____________________ perfect rhymes: ____________________ imperfect rhymes: ____________________ perfect rhymes: ____________________ imperfect rhymes: ____________________ (b) Read the poem again more closely. Find the details mentioned in the following sentences. – Byron starts the poem with the word 'so'. – In the second verse Byron uses an image of a sword in a worn–out sheath. – In the second verse Byron describes the heart and love as if they were people. – Byron uses a lot of repetition (of sounds, words, and sentence structure) throughout the poem.

6. Reading aloud		(a) Read and listen to the poem again. As you listen, mark the stressed words with ·. The first line looks like this: · · So we'll go no more a–rowing (b) Tap out the rhythm as you listen to the poem again, following the text. (c) Listen and read the poem with the tape. (d) Now read the poem aloud without the tape to help you.

7. Check your answers		Check your answers in the key!
	If you have enjoyed reading the poem in this unit, and would like to read some more short poems by Byron, Shelley, and other poets old and new, we suggest you take a look at The Oxford Book of Short Poems edited by P J Kavanagh and James Michie. All the poems in it are shorter than 14 lines.

2. Try to find out as much as possible about the authors. Write down the information you can find.

3. Now watch some of the important scenes and try to answer the questions in your "Szenenübersicht".

5. Watch the video about Walt Whitman.