Byron - so we'll go no more

“So we’ll go no more a roving” is a poem composed by Lord Byron in 1817. The poem is formed by three quatrains, with continual rhymes which follow the pattern ABAB. At the age of twenty-nine he wrote a letter to his friend Moore in which he included the poem. He wrote: “Though I did not dissipate overmuch… yet I find the sword wearing out the scabbard, though I have but just turned the corner of 29.”
The first stanza is characterised by the word “SO”, which begins the whole poem. The choice of this word is particularly effective as it seems more to introduce a conclusive statement, and not a beginning. This emphasises the fact that he has accepted the end of his young age, and that he is ready to start a new, and more tranquil life. On the other hand, the last two lines of this stanza are contradictory. “The heart be still as loving” and the use of the word “moon”, both express the meaning that party spirit is still bright in his body, and although his heart is still young and wants to party, his body cannot yet sustain it.
In the second stanza he writes the love he had for parties and having fun. The first and the second line are particularly striking as they use a very strong image to describe the actual conditions of his body: “sword outwears its sheath” and “soul wears out his breast”. The image created by the sword entering his body is intended to emphasise the fact that him, and his soul, want to party, but the body do not permit it anymore. In addition to this image, a much more calm one is added in the last two lines: “heart must pause” and “love itself have a rest”. What he is saying is that his heart has to rest and his conclusion is to listen to it.
The first stanza, which represents the real conclusion of the poet, stands out for its melancholy and sadness. The poet is resigned and reluctant towards the idea of stopping with the parties. The words “Yet” and “no more”, are well-chosen as it emphasises the poet’s melancholy. The phrase “go no more a-roving” also makes clear the fact that there will be no more parties and fun. A clear connection can also be noticed between the last line of both stanzas one and three, as they both take the moon as subject.
Lord Byron achieved in creating a striking tone of melancholy and sadness, through his detailed choice of words and phrases which emphasise meanings and ideas, about his life without parties.

Lament link

http://englishlanguageliterature.com/2011/02/17/lament-by-gillian-clarke/

good discussion on this poem

Report to Wordsworth

The poem Report to Wordsworth by Boey Kim Cheng is particularly effective in conveying the human destruction and the deterioration of planet Earth. Cheng imagines writing a letter to Wordsworth an English poet, nature sensitive who grew up in a rural area constantly in contact with nature. In fact, most of his themes were related to the relationship man/nature. To make the poem effective, Cheng uses a variety of poetic devices.
Boey Kim Cheng refers directly to Wordsworth: “You should be here, Nature has need of you”. The “you” could also be referred to the reader. Nature is described with a capital N, this adds importance as only proper noun are written with a capital letter. This creates in the reader’s mind a more humanitarian and spiritual image of nature. It is almost as if nature has been personified and brought to life. The effect is of a creation of a link between the reader and Nature which will develop through the poem; this also gives the possibility of using words normally related to human.
Immediately, nature is described as oppressed and ruined: “she has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog.” This personification of nature shows the importance of nature for the poet and introduces the harmful actions of man towards the natural environment. Through personification again, Cheng describes the “the flowers are mute and the birds are few in the sky” referring to the loss of beauty and of musicality in the surrounding world meaning something has changed. The deaths of the birds are compared to a dying clock: “slowing like a dying clock”. The clock symbolises how the time that passed can’t be retained. The effect is of a drastic ending to nature and the reader will be more and more concerned because as more time passes, we get closer and closer to the end.
In lines 5-6 there is a positive-negative contrast, the poet refers to the Greek sea-god Proteus who lost all this hopes “all hopes of Proteus rising from the sea have sunk” because “he is entombed in the waste”. The word “entombed” refers to natural destruction and suggests he is hidden in the waste of the sea by the excess of pollution and contamination. This terrible image adds to the sympathy than the reader has in regards of Nature. Referents to ancient Greek Gods continue with: “Triton’s notes struggle to be free”. Triton, God’s messenger used to play a horn, however the dirt and waste is such dense and thick that the notes can’t get out. This metaphor is effective in creating meaning and tragedy as music is poetically linked to a positive aspect of life; by destroying music, symbol for life, man is destroying everything which is good in our world. In fact, his horns are:”chocked and his eyes dazed”. This shows how he is totally paralyzed by the waste.
The most significant image of this poem is the one referred to Neptune: “and Neptune lies helpless as a beached whale”. It is significant because Neptune is the King of the Seas and so if he is forced on his knees by human pollution, all hopes vanish. With his death comes the end of a reign. The comparison with a whale accentuates what previously said. A whale is a docile animal and people have huge sympathy for it. The death of a whale brings sadness and this highlights the atrocities caused by pollution. The insatiable hunger of man for killing is showed with “while insatiate man moves in for the kill”. This causes the reader to see man as cruel identity.
Approaching the end of the poem, Boey Kim Cheng is making clear how all hopes are gone: “poetry and pity have begun to fail”. Poetry and Pity, religion, have been for centuries the only way to educate people and if they fail, all humanity is condemned to self-destruction.
The Ozone layer is for Cheng a big issue, “O see the wound in the sky”. The image of the Ozone whole like a wound creates in the reader’s mind a sense pity.
The last phrase refers to the The Great Flood in the Bible. “God is laboring to utter his last cry”. The cry symbolises the Flood. Human destruction reached such a high extension that God is preparing for the ultimate decision to restart a new world. The reader might feel scare but at the same time aware that if he doesn’t start to help humanity, our destiny would be a one path way to destruction.

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Marrysong

Analysis : Marrysong ( Themes of Marriage and Relationships)

10Nov

Explore how the poet of Marrysong expresses the varying shades of marriage and love.

‘Marrysong’ by Dennis Scott, is about a husband who is struggling to understand his wife: an abstruse, unpredictable woman whom he compares to territory. He tries to demarcate the lines of her, trying to find out what pleases her, but in this he fails and ends up being “lost in the walled anger of her quarried hurt”, or adversely “see cool water laughing where the day before there were stones in his voice.” Her anger and happiness are both short-lived and perplexing to the speaker. “Walled” implies restrictions and limits, a sense of confinement. This is exactly what he finds in his wife’s company. In contrast “cool water laughing” implies that water, flowing freely and without any limits delights him, just the way his wife does when she is in one of her better moods.
“Quarried hurt” relates to the “stones in her voice”; when quarrying implies digging and blasting out stones from a quarry, stones imply hardness, pain, and discomfort which are everything the speaker experiences.
The poem is an extended metaphor of “that territory” which “shifted under his eye” and no matter how hard he tried “The map was never true.” This sense of being lost, literally and metaphorically, is further emphasized when he says the “roads disappeared”. Roads and maps are associated with guidance, direction, purpose and all this the speaker is deprived of.
“Wind brought him rain sometimes, tasting of sea-”, the wind and sea both are metaphors of his wife and we see how in essential they are to the speaker, yet how deceiving they can be as they constantly change. She tastes like seawater, which implies bitterness, saltiness and unpleasantness, hard to digest for the human body. This in turn implies the pain she has caused the speaker. And all at once she can “suddenly” “change” to “faultlessly calm”.
The structure of Marrysong is designed in a manner that it attracts the reader’s attention till the very end with slow and heavy sounds and a particularly alluring rhyme and rhythm.
He tries to explore his spouse, in order to understand and predict her, but that too is rendered useless. She takes him by surprise each time when everything about her is “each day new”, this implying that although his wife, he “year after year” miserably fails in getting her. She changes each time to him, making “wilderness again”. The “shadows of her love shortened or grew” depicting how constant this process was and how helpless he is to try and grasp these shadows eternally.
This feeling of uncertainty and continuous thwarting at his plans leads to a despairing and complaining attitude. She, being a woman, is alluring and intriguing in the way that her whole persona changes over varying periods of time; it could be an hour or years.
“Year after year” the man’s struggle to understand his better half’s, his wife’s, complex mind is carried out. Eventually he accepts “that geography, constantly strange” as who his wife is. Thus although “he never learned her, quite”, his love for her is so strong that he “stayed at home increasingly to find his way among the landscapes of her mind”, accepting her unquestioningly, and here “home” implies familiarity, comfort, calmness for once.
Thus Marrysong is a touching portrayal of man’s vulnerability towards the woman whom he loves. He can never wholly understand her, this showing he can never wholly possess her. He can only surrender, accept defeat with understanding that the journey through the wilderness of marriage is a difficult one, only to be trekked upon by the willing.

Ayesha Nasir

Class of 2011

Generation’s School

Dover Beach 2

Analysis on ‘Dover Beach’

Posted on March 25, 2011by Julia Mayer

Explore how Matthew Arnold uses language to give us insights into the life of modern man in ‘Dover Beach’.
The life of modern mankind is presented very negatively and ignorantly by Matthew Arnold in the poem Dover Beach by the fact that religious faith evanesce with the Industrial Revolution. Arnold creates the image of the dark future for the people without unwavering faith or religion.
Modern men are bastardised with the thought that new the Industrial Revolution will give them advantage over nature. This thought of gaining superiority made humans arrogant by which this appearance is broken by the reality of nature’s dominance. People also seem ignorant with the wishful thought. These pebbles which ‘the waves draw back, and fling’ are completely powerless and are thrown around by the waves that move these “pebbles” at ease. Arnold uses pebbles as a metaphor for humans to show the inferiority in comparison to nature. The ignorance of humans is emphasised by the historical allusion to Peloponnesian War. In the dark, soldiers could not differentiate between their own army and the opponents; and so they killed their own soldiers. This is used by the poet to show the stupidity of modern man throwing away the religion which was everything to people before the Industrial Revolution; something to believe and rely on when people prayed. However, this old belief is thrown away and Arnold sees it as a very naïve decision.
The Industrial Revolution gave the source of arrogance and confidence which took place among the Western countries. This revolution was revolutionary itself; humans could mass produce, with improved quality, and at ease. These machineries became the limbs of human society. What came with the industrial revolution was the idea of realism. People could nearly produce goods to near-original standards, all thanks to improved technologies and science, and hence began to doubt the existence of God and supernatural beings. Realism contrasts the theology which is all about belief without questioning that God exists; and people believed it before the times of the machineries. It gave people hope and modesty under the mighty existence of God. However both hope and modesty disappeared with the Industrial Revolution which Arnold laments for. Bitterness is suggested when Arnold exclaims ‘Ah, love’ to show that in this changing world, one can only rely on the partner, and be trustful and true. Sarcasm is used to describe the modern world as a ‘land of dreams’ as there is no more hope for the world, as there is no more faith.
As the poem proceeds, the transition of mood is noticeable as the grief of the loss of faith extends to a sense of resignation towards the end and having a sarcastic, sour approach to the issue. The ‘tremulous cadence slow’ helps to convey the gradual process of the wane of doctrine which adds to the idea that the change of people’s lives is almost unnoticeable. This gradual process hurts Arnold because people are caught unaware of the changes taking place and so do not think it is particularly wrong and sinful. Arnold presents his sorrow with the historical allusion to Sophocles who, was a Greek playwright, had heard the sound of waves crashing as the ‘eternal note of sadness’. The ‘sadness’ of the mankind turning away from religious beliefs is a parallel to the ‘melancholy… withdrawing roar…retreating’ of the waves. Before the development of science and technology, people had truly believed in the religion and thought that they were in total control of god. The metaphor ‘Sea of Faith’ which presents the religious faith people have, used to be ‘full and round Earth’s shore’ but now is ‘retreating… down the vast edges’ which shows the decreasing religious beliefs. Arnold points out that, without faith, humans are ‘naked’ and have no protection and defence which reflects the vulnerability of man and their lives.
With carefully chosen words, Arnold presents the uncertainty of the future of humans. The new industrialised world seems “so various, so beautiful, so new” but it is again a mere appearance. The reality is that this mechanic, stiff world will have “neither joy, nor love, nor light” because this mechanics cannot feel love, hence no joy, and no vision as humans need love and the warm characteristics of humanity. It is thus deducible that the future will have no “certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain” which are the essentialities of humans. Humans can only survive the harsh world when everybody believes and trusts each other, and this will be broken with the introduction of industrialisation. This change of the world will bring “confused alarms on struggle and flight” which creates an imagery of a “darkling plain”; a dark vision for humans. Furthermore, the “turbid” ebb and flow shows the cloudy, uncertain future of ‘ebb and flow’ which is the repetitive cycles of nature. Can humans only survive when they make harmony with the nature, and to go against the natural cycles can only mean extinction of humans. The ‘cliffs’ of England ‘gleams’ and ‘glimmers’; gleams and glimmers have a sense of shakiness, precariousness and unknown which echoes the uncertain modern man. Also the alliteration of ‘g’ and ‘m’ creates a stuttering tone which adds to the idea of uncertainty. This imagery portrays the withering away of cliffs as a decline of religious beliefs and whatsmore, deterioration of the Earth itself as humans exploit resources out of the Earth which the modern development enabled men to do.
The flaws of modernism and realism are expressed in this poem. The flow of the poem is cut off by uses of caesura which is a parallel to the imperfect modern world. Arnold gives a hint that modernization of the world will have some flaws which will inevitably bring loss of faith and result in loss of equilibrium. In science, there is no hope; everything is measured out and exact. Hence in the modern world reality there can be no hope as it looks vain. Again, Arnold sympathises with the loss of hope in reality. In a different sense, the calm, naturalistic description of a beach at night in the first stanza is the appearance which contrasts to the reality that is sad, unhopeful, ‘retreating’ and ‘tremulous’.
Human beings are inferior over nature and the spiritual beliefs as to an extent that people cannot control anything. The abandonment of the doctrine of religion with the help of the Industrial Revolution is only a vain act against the power-overwhelming nature. Religion and faith should remain in humanity and ignoring it should result in the uncertainty and vulnerability of modern man.

Hurlingham’s square

Its real name is Ravenscroft, and it is found in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires. It is a square in the downtown Hurlingham and attracts a large number of people during the week and even more during weekends. It has among its features, a monument to women or the tree at Gral Roca corner and O'Brien. On Sunday an art and craft fair takes place where a lot of people go to. As well as families that like to pass its weekend at the square. At noon people use to change the square into a running circuit.Some bands use to play on weekends where the people enjoy some music.
On its surroundings, we found an ice-cream parlor, a church, a tennis court and a kinder garden.

Lucia López Fuentes & Barbara Geoghegan

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) wrote "Dover Beach" during or shortly after a visit he and his wife made to the Dover region of southeastern England, the setting of the poem, in 1851. They had married in June of that year. A draft of the first two stanzas of the poem appears on a sheet of paper he used to write notes for another another work, "Empedocles on Etna," published in 1852. The town of Dover is closer to France than any other port city in England. The body of water separating the coastline of the town from the coast of France is the Strait of Dover, north of the English Channel and south of the North Sea.

Point of View

The poet/persona uses first-, second-, and third-person point of view in the poem. Generally, the poem presents the observations of the author/persona in third-person point of view but shifts to second person when he addresses his beloved, as in line 6 (Come), line 9 (Listen! you), and line 29 (let). Then he shifts to first-person point of view when he includes his beloved and the reader as co-observers, as in Line 18 (we), Line 29 (us), Line 31 (us), and line 35 (we). He also uses first-person point of view to declare that at least one observation is his alone, and not necessarily that of his co-observers. This instance occurs in line 24: But now I only hear. This line means But now I alone hear.

Who Is the Listener? (Line 29)

The person addressed in the poem—lines 6, 9, and 29—is Matthew Arnold's wife, Frances Lucy Wightman. However, since the poem expresses a universal message, one may say that she can be any woman listening to the observations of any man. Arnold and his wife visited Dover Beach twice in 1851, the year they were married and the year Arnold was believed to have written "Dover Beach." At that time Arnold was inspector of schools in England, a position he held until 1886.

Theme

Arnold’s central message is this: Challenges to the validity of long-standing theological and moral precepts have shaken the faith of people in God and religion. In Arnold’s world of the mid-1800's, the pillar of faith supporting society was perceived as crumbling under the weight of scientific postulates, such as the evolutionary theory of English physician Erasmus Darwin and French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Consequently, the existence of God and the whole Christian scheme of things was cast in doubt. Arnold, who was deeply religious, lamented the dying of the light of faith, as symbolized by the light he sees in “Dover Beach” on the coast of France, which gleams one moment and is gone the next. He remained a believer in God and religion, although he was open to—and advocated—an overhaul of traditional religious thinking. In God and the Bible, he wrote: "At the present moment two things about the Christian religion must surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they cannot do with it as it is."

Type of Work

“Dover Beach” is a poem with the mournful tone of an elegy and the personal intensity of a dramatic monologue. Because the meter and rhyme vary from line to line, the poem is said to be in free verse--that is, it is unencumbered by the strictures of traditional versification. However, there is cadence in the poem, achieved through the following:

Alliteration Examples: to-night, tide; full, fair; gleams, gone; coast, cliff (first stanza)
Parallel Structure Example: The tide is full, the moon lies fair (first stanza); So various, so beautiful, so new (fourth stanza); Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain (fourth stanza)
Rhyming Words Examples: to-night, light; fair, night-air; stand, land; bay, spray; fling, bring; begin, in (first stanza)
Words Suggesting Rhythm Examples: draw back, return; Begin, and cease, then begin again (first stanza); turbid ebb and flow (second stanza)

Year of Publication

Although Matthew Arnold completed "Dover Beach" in 1851 or 1852, the poem was not published until 1867. It appeared in a collection entitled New Poems, published in London.

 

OXIGENO!!

Oxigeno? What is that? We met our friends from St Paul´s College and asked them if they knew a place for partying. It´s a place where most Hurlingham teenagers go to party every Friday! So we entered that fantastic world which everyone talks about.  When we got inside the colours of the lights flashed everywhere, and we could hear the music and how it made everyone in the club shake their bodies.  

We went to Oxigeno´s VIP where we could see the entire disco bar, from the window.

Although the place is big, it is not big enough for all the people that go each Friday.

In the bar you can find a lot of different drinks to help you enjoy your night!

Don´t hesitate to go!

Aldana Saccomanno and Jorge Lin Kang

Herminia

 

Herminia is a tea house located on one of Castelar´s main streets. In spite of this, the owner wanted to create an atmosphere where time stops and people relax. To achieve this, Herminia fuses good music; books; and delicious, exotic and unique flavours. Every piece of furniture, including chairs, cutlery and tableware, is different from the other but they all follow a same style: romantic, antique and baroque. Herminia´s speciality is tea. They offer a large variety of flavours that come from different parts of the world and which are served in leaves, and not it tea bags.

Two years ago, “Herminia Market” opened its doors to the customers. Here, the teas in leaves can be bought as well as different items such as decorating furniture, bouquets and fragrances. The aim of this market was to help the customers to recreate Herminia´s atmosphere in their own homes.

Shake your body

Time to work out! In spite of our distance from gyms full of machines to exercise our body, there is a great space to do so in Parque Leloir (Ituzaingó), where machines are replaced by open spaces. We found out that there is a training circuit, designed by the Ituzaingó City Council with the help of neighbours and NGO´S.  This circuit is usually used by people that live near it or in the vicinity, where you can run, walk and ride your bike or enjoy other physical activities.

The 4.5 km circuit has five different little spaces located around it when you want to take a rest. These spaces can be found at the following streets:

Station 1: Del Cielito y de la Media Caña.
Station 2:  De los Baqueanos y de la Media Caña.
Station 3: Del Candil y De La Doma.
Station 4: Del Prado y Del Candil.Station 5:  De La Vidalita y De la Zamba.

Parque Leloir is declared an environmentally protected zone because it is one of the biggest “Buenos Aires lungs” thanks to the areas full of trees and the vegetation where we can breathe fresh air ourselves in this public space.

P.S: We recommend you go in the morning after 8 am or before 6 pm because of the busy traffic in the main streets such as De Los Reseros. 

Manuela Scatena Bugallo and Martina Izurieta

Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica de Argentina

Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica de Argentina

Av. Eva Perón 2220, Morón                             

 

The Museo Nacional de Aeronáutica (MNA) is a museum located in Morón, Buenos Aires, Argentina, dedicated to the history of aviation, in particular the Argentine Air Force.

The museum's history dates back to 1951 when it held the exhibition "Alas Argentinas" where there were exposed scale models of all aircraft used by the Air Force Argentina. Thus the museum was created on January 13, 1960, in order to preserve the historical aviation heritage of this country. It was initially located at the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, and in the 2000s was relocated to the Morón Airport and Air Base, site of Argentina's first international airport.

Ever wanted to dance with a pilot? Now you can! Among the activities that the museum provides, you can choose to go to the “Pilot Tango Ball” where you must be escorted by a partner, or you can get on the plane and feel like a real pilot! You must pay attention to the website because these types of activities are SO UNIQUE and SPECIAL that the museum gives you time to relax after all night partying! As they are not frequently held you will want to go again!

The Museo Nacional de Aeronautica surprises you with plenty of activities which are not the typical ones done in a museum: Guided tours, although, of course, it includes this activity for the ones that visit the museum for the first time.

For more information visit the online blog which updates the information every day: http://museonacionaldeaeronauticamoron.blogspot.com.ar/

Martina Cervi/Camila Pellegrini/Lucia Neira