Essay / Test

Dear students, I hope you are well, enjoying the Christmas break with your friends and family.

This is a reminder that the second version of
your essay is due on January 9 2017, at ICA (Instituto de Cultura Americana), between 2 and 4 pm
and
the consultation test takes place on January 12, at room 2.1., between 10 and 12 am (with an extra 30 minutes).

Light in our hearts *

Saint Louis Blues

Read more about this classic here — "St Louis Blues: story of the WC Handy classic son," Martin Chilton.

Jacob Lawrence_Migration Series

 "In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just twenty-three years old, completed a series of sixty paintings about the Great Migration, the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Lawrence’s work is a landmark in the history of modern art and a key example of the way that history painting was radically reimagined in the modern era. Explore the social and cultural nuances of each of the sixty panels in Lawrence’s series here."

WCW

documentary about William Carlos Williams here

Alma López_'Our Lady'

 Alma López, Our Lady (1999)

more info about the work here. Recall that we established an intersemiotic dialogue between this image and Amy Lowell's poem “Madonna of the Evening Flowers.”

Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)

 Image here (where you'll also find articles on the artist)

The scope of I. Cunningham's legacy — article here 
Go for a virtual tour on Imogen Cunningham Trust

Georgia O'Keeffe

Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow (1923)

"Flowers or vaginas? Georgia O’Keeffe Tate show to challenge sexual cliches," Hannah Ellis-Peterson, read the article here

Go for a virtual tour on Georgia O'Keeffe's Museum 

"Leda and the Swan"_Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
                    Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

   Peter Paul Rubens (16th c. copy of a Michelangelo's lost painting)

E. Bishop_“Visits to St. Elizabeth’s”

 Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

“Visits to St. Elizabeth’s”

This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the time

of the tragic man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a wristwatch

telling the time

of the talkative man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a sailor

wearing the watch

that tells the time

of the honored man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the roadstead all of board

reached by the sailor

wearing the watch

that tells the time

of the old, brave man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls of the ward,

the winds and clouds of the sea of board

sailed by the sailor

wearing the watch

that tells the time

of the cranky man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

over the creaking sea of board

beyond the sailor

winding his watch

that tells the time

of the cruel man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a world of books gone flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

over the creaking sea of board

of the batty sailor

that winds his watch

that tells the time

of the busy man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a boy that pats the floor

to see if the world is there, is flat,

for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

waltzing the length of a weaving board

by the silent sailor

that hears his watch

that ticks the time

of the tedious man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls and the door

that shut on a boy that pats the floor

to feel if the world is there and flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances joyfully down the ward

into the parting seas of board

past the staring sailor

that shakes his watch

that tells the time

of the poet, the man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the soldier home from the war.

These are the years and the walls and the door

that shut on a boy that pats the floor

to see if the world is round or flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances carefully down the ward,

walking the plank of a coffin board

with the crazy sailor

that shows his watch

that tells the time

of the wretched man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

Source

This poem relates Bishop's visit to Pound while he was at the insane asylum St. Elizabeth's.

How does it illustrate Pound's imagist principles? 

What does it tell us about Pound's biographical circumstances? 

M.V. Gato_"Agosto"

 Margarida Vale de Gato (1973-)

"Agosto"

Agosto sim, rigoroso Thomas,
é o mais fácil mês para ficar louca;
perdem os corpos pela roupa pouca
com frequência a pele e arde atrás

crudelíssimo o sol, isto se estás
há muito insone e sentes seca a boca
enquanto aos outros nus assiste a troca
escura e táctil que a febre satisfaz

e justifica. De resto, as sombras
foram todas tomadas por casais
como deve de ser. E já a mim

sequer a lua ou um leque cobrem.
Não chega amor na noite de chacais
e melgas. Escrever ainda assim.

M. V. Gato lê o poema aqui

Neste poema M. V. Gato interpela diretamente T. S. Eliot, reescrevendo o primeiro verso de "The Waste Land". Que outros tópicos unem os dois textos?