WRITING ASSIGNMENTS


Writing Assignment #1

Poets: * Sappho "Age and Light"
* Tennyson "Tithonus"
* Frost "Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Summarize each of the three poems. In your summaries locate and identify any mythological references e.g. Neptune, the Roman god of the water, brother of Jupiter and Pluto. Once you have completed your summaries, discuss what you believe to be the major themes of the poems and how the poets' use of mythology helped establish those themes.


Writing Assignment #2

Poets: * Horace "The Snows Have Fled Away"
* Martial "Thou Mother Dead; Thou Father's Shade"

These poems deal with death and the underworld. Just as you did in the first writing assignment, summarize the poems and identify any mythological references, then discuss the major themes and the poets' use of mythology to establish the themes.


Writing Assignment #3

Poets: * Wordsworth "The World is Too Much With Us"
* Francis of Assisi "Cantacle to the Sun"
* Chief Seattle "Letter to the President in Washington"

This assignment focuses on the earth, Gaea, and how three writers from very different backgrounds share a similar veneration for nature. Discuss the major themes of each work then how the themes might be related.


Writing Assignment #4

Poets: * Field "Icarus"
* Wiliam Carlos Williams "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
* Auden "Musée des Beaux Arts"

Summarize Field's poem and discuss the use of Icarus in the poem. In a second discussion, address what the poet is saying about suburban America.

In a second essay, study Brueghel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" and discuss how the painting and the poems of Williams and Auden are related.


Writing Assignment #5

Poets: * Parker "Penelope"
* Yeats "Leda and Swan"
* Broumas "Circe"

Summarize the poems including an explanation of the mythological allusions, then discuss the major themes of the poems.