Adam’s Curse - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Adam’s Curse

By: Sophie Shugarts, Kimberly Cabamalan, Chris Yoo, Brooklyn Lee, Joshua Stavehaug, and Gemma MorrisSlide2

Dominant Effect

Yeats uses

nature imagery

and

juxtaposition

to create a

frustrated, somber tone

, illuminating parallels and differences between

manual and intellectual labor

.Slide3

Background and Context

Wealthy sponsor paid for the renovation of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, where Yeats’s play

On Baile’s Strand

was performed

First in a collection of plays featuring the heroic ancient Irish warrior Cuchulain

Irish national identity

Style of poetry shifted to conversational rhythms and simpler diction

Greater appeal to a wider audience for a national identity

In the Seven Woods

(1903),

The Green Helmet and Other Poems

(1910), and

Responsibilities

(1914)

Autobiography by Maud Gonne,

A Servant of a Queen

Overarching theme of this poem: art and beauty are not appreciated

“I saw Willie Yeats looking critically at me and he told Kathleen he liked her dress. It was on that occasion Kathleen remarked that it was hard work being beautiful which Willie turned into his poem

Adam's Curse

” (Jeffares, 78)Slide4

Rhyme Scheme

Heroic Couplet

“(in verse) a pair of rhyming iambic pentameters, much used by Chaucer and the poets of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Alexander Pope.”

Significance of this choice

Due to the rhyme scheme, the heroic couplet grabs the listener’s attention and draws importance to specific lines, similar to how Yeats draws attention to how art is not appreciated

Iambic Pentameter-Use of traditional poetic meter for theme

As the poem progresses the AABB rhyme scheme deteriorates-

slant rhymeDemonstrates the shift from a structured Romantic rhyme scheme to the more unstructured ModernismRomanticism ---> Modernism ---> More intellectual timeSlide5

Allusion: Adam and Eve

Title: Adam’s Curse= an allusion to Adam and Eve after they ate the apple

Adam=cursed to hard work and manual labor

Eve=cursed to labor of birth

Theme: the appreciation of art, and true beauty and art are only a result of hard work

Hard work=intellectual laborSlide6

Juxtaposition

Lines 5-7 “Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,/ Our stitching and unstitching has been naught”

Theme: art should be appreciated

stitching/ unstitching= the futility/difficulty of poetry and art because people do not appreciate it

Futile and hopeless toneSlide7

Juxtaposition Continued

Lines 10-14 “And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones/ Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;/ For to articulate sweet sounds together/Is to work harder than all these, and yet/Be thought an idler by the noisy set/Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen”

Theme: art should be appreciated

Juxtaposing images of manual and intellectual labor to draw parallels and differences between the two, arguing that intellectual labor is “harder than all these”

The pivot word “yet” aids in this juxtaposition

Inclusion of manual labor differs from the dominant nature imagery of previous poems, showing the shift to appeal to a wider audienceSlide8

Imagery

Lines 30-34 “We saw the last embers of daylight die,/ And in the trembling blue-green of the sky/ A moon, worn as if it had been a shell/ Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell/ About the stars and broke in days and years”

Theme of change

Juxtaposition of light and day: contrast of old and new motif of rebirth

Sunset imagery highlights the need for advancement

Metaphor of sea: theme of change and motif of time

Choice of diction: “die,” “had been,” “fell,” “broke” creates a broken and dejected tone

Duality in “shell”: symbol of birth and life but also protection/a cageSlide9

Imagery Continued

Lines 36-39 “That you were beautiful, and that I strove/To love you in the old high way of love;/That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown/As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.”

Use of past tense creates a sense of finality

Passive voice creates a nostalgic and disappointed tone (“it had seemed,” “we had grown”)

Imagery of the “hollow moon” and diction of “it had all seemed happy”

Empty and dejected tone

Heartbreaking mood

Emphasizes the lack of appreciation the speaker feltSlide10

Repetition

Labor

r

epeated on lines 21, 23

“Yet” r

epeated on lines 5, 11, 28 & 38

“I” repeated in lines 3, 4, 22, 35 & 36

The speaker is the poet discussing poetry and art“We” repeated in lines 1, 29, 30, & 38The “we” is very important, as it could refer to both the poet, his poetry, the beautiful woman or the unnamed friend, or all of them“You” repeated in lines 2, 3, 7, 35, 36 & 37The “you” in the poem refers to the unnamed friend the speaker discusses at the start, not the beautiful woman discussed elsewhere, but rather the Irish national identitySlide11

Discussion Questions

Why does Yeats use quotations and dialogue?

Where do we see major shifts in the poem? What is the effect?

What (other) literary conventions does Yeats use to develop this poem’s overall tone and themes?Slide12

Exit Slip

Pick either a motif or a repeated word (one that we mentioned or otherwise) and track it throughout the poem.

In your journal, briefly explain its significance in terms of the overall message and the themes discussed.

State one reason Yeats alludes to Adam and Eve.