Middle Eastern Poetry Unit

All Relevant Information

"Sultan"

"Make my Passion Grow"

DICTION

• polite direct address: explicitly, more imploring than hostile criticism; implicitly, possibly sardonic

IMAGERY

• image of oppression of people destroying country

THEME

• gov't surveillance, arbitrary imprisonment, violence, etc. not good for country

STYLE

• speaker lamenting oppressive conditions in society by imploring the sultan

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

• synecdoche: various forms of oppression mentioned

DICTION

• "search," "cold," "passion," etc. common in love writings

IMAGERY

• passionate love depicted through pleasant & intense natural objects/phenomena (e.g. orange scent)

THEME

• speaker eagerly seeking love, yet faltering at times

STYLE

• variegated assortment of fig. lang. describing speaker's growing passion for love

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

• metaphor: sea, universe, "Baghdad to China," etc. representing distance; bridge, lamp, sparrow, etc. representing guidance

All Relevant Information

Visual Media/Music

"A Lesson In Drawing"

Essential Questions

DICTION

• innocent (e.g. "paint box," "bird," "drawing book") vs. impure (e.g. "locks and bars," "gun," "thorn," "bomb")

IMAGERY

• world through drawings: harmony vs. violence

THEME

• longing for widespread love; criticism of violence

STYLE

• story of father's consternation after discovering violence engrained in him and in society

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

• personification: rose "raising its thorns"
• metonymy: "bird," "rose," etc. represent ideal world;

"gun," "thorn," etc. represent violence

Middle Eastern Poetry

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday

• In a "Lesson In Drawing," through what literary devices is the central theme of an unavoidable violence created?
• In "Sultan," how does the oppression of the citizens resemble modern-day societies who befall to oblivious/ignorant leaders?
• In "Make My Passion Grow," this poetic song recalls modern-day love ballads that are based upon sorrow and hear break. How does the narrator's experience cross over, not only to pertain to his personal love experience but to lovers in general?

Adrienne Atkinson, Christina Lee, Tony Lee, Megan Taylor & Ashleigh Wilson

Visual Media/Music

The violence in Syria continues...

Connections with Previous Poetry

No. 7 A Lesson in Drawing

“My son lays down his pens, his crayon box in front of me

and asks me to draw a homeland for him.

The brush trembles in my hands and I sink, weeping.”

•From Bruce Springsteen’s "My Hometown":

• “Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun, words were passed in a shotgun blast
• Troubled times had come to my hometown
• My hometown, my hometown, my hometown”

•From Bruce Springsteen’s "Atlantic City":

• “Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night now they blew up his house too, down on the boardwalk they’re gettin’ ready for a fight gonna see what them racket boys can do”

•Similarities:

• Both authors are showing the younger generation their origins
• Younger generation is naïve and innocent, doesn’t understand their elders’ harsh perspective on life
• Violence in their hometowns makes it hard for them to feel a sense of pride in their roots

Conclusion: "Make My Passion Grow"

Connections Cont'd

Conclusion "Sultan"

Conclusion:

"A Lesson In Drawing"

Conclusion: "Sultan"

Conclusion: "Lesson in Drawing"

“O my lord the Sultan! You have lost the war twice because half our people has no tongue.”

• Conclusion: (similar to earlier mentioned) the people of the Middle East have ideas, but do not have the freedom to express them.
• Half of the poem, is implied towards the female community (since the speaker explicitly mentions his wife)
• The women of the Middle East do not have ‘tongues’ or the ability to speak or express themselves.

No. 8 Sultan

“I was beaten with my shoes.

O my lord the Sultan!

You have lost the war twice

Because half our people has no tongue.”

•From U2’s "Sunday Bloody Sunday":

“And the battle's just begun

There's many lost, but tell me who has won

The trench is dug within our hearts

And mothers, children, brothers, sisters

Torn apart”

•Similarities:

• Tremendous violence due to political regimes
• For Sultan – Ba'ath Party rule under Hafez al-Assad
• For Sunday Bloody Sunday - Bloody Sunday incident in Ireland where British troops shot and killed unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders
• People have no voice, feel hopeless

Extremely lyrical diction- heavy use of personification and metaphors

• “Make my passion grow Oh beautiful fit of madness Sparrow of my heart my April…”
• Discussion and description of heart and passion = emotions
• Lists things that go together/polar opposites – “Oh sand of the sea and soul of my soul…Oh jungles of olives…Oh taste of ice and taste of fire…” = bipolarity, extremes
• Represents dramatic, rapid changes in attitude or emotions (first love)
• Conclusion: The Middle East is a place of extremes where things can be unpredictable.

Drawing a prison vs. a bird

• Bird = Mental/Physical/Emotional freedom
• Prison = Mental block/stalemate, depression, hopelessness, etc.
• “’…I’ve forgotten the shapes of birds’” = doesn’t remember what it’s like to be free
• Conclusion: Many people living in the Middle East having been living without their freedom(s) for a long time. Wishing for their freedom to return has become hopeless to some.

Style/Attitude- combination of conversational and dream-like

• “If I were promised safety, if I could meet the Sultan…They interrogate my wife…” – style sounds conversational, venting/speaking to a friend (or someone on his ‘level’ of status)
• Listing hypothetical situations, an “if only I could…” approach – kind of like day dreaming, which implies these are things that will probably never happen- are only a fantasy
• Wants to make his opinions known to a person who can make the changes he wants, but would have to do so at the cost of his safety (his life, probably, and the lives of those he cares about)
• Conclusion: The people of the Middle East do have political opinions and ideas, but do not express them for fear for their safety.

War-like descriptions of typically peaceful objects

• Personification: “…the rose wears dull fatigues…”
• Roses = love/passionate feeling
• Rose wearing fatigue = emotions of exhaustion, defeat
• There is nothing to feel passionate about anymore; people are giving up; no one likes the situation but they also have chosen to accept it because they feel there is nothing they can do to change it
• Anaphora: “you can’t buy a loaf without finding a gun inside…you can’t pluck a rose…without raising its thorns in your face…you can’t buy a book that doesn’t explode between your fingers”
• All of these everyday objects lead to danger and damage
• Nothing is sacred anymore; no one and nothing is trustworthy
• War time never truly ends
• Conclusion: Life in the Middle East is difficult because there is no one to truly trust and there is great risk in even the simplest of everyday activities. The Middle East is constantly at war; be it a political one or otherwise

Connections with previous poetry cont'd

No. 9 Make My Passion Grow

Conclusion "Make My Passion Grow"

Drown me milady the sea is calling me

Kill me for perhaps if death kills me it will revitalize me...

And put me in the darkness of your hair like a comb and forget me On your behalf I freed my lament and left history behind me

And scratched out my birth certificate and cut up all my arteries

From Nancy Ajram's "How Cruel Are You" (English Translation)

Is it not a shame, the passion and the years and longing that I am living for you?

If this is love, my misery is from it

And if I am to blame, I cannot say never again

And if it is my lot to live in torment

I shall live in torment

Repeated discussion of pain and suffering

• “…put me in the darkness of your hair like a comb and forget me…” display feelings of insignificance
• Conclusion: The people of the Middle East feel insignificant and forgotten.

Conclusion: "Lesson in Drawing"

I feel scared of the unknown so strengthen me

I'm scared of the darkness so hold me...On your behalf I freed my lament and left history behind me

Adele's "One and Only"

I don't know why I'm scared,

I've been here before,

Every feeling, every word,

I've imagined it all,

You'll never know if you never try,

To forget your past and simply be mine

Symbolism of the fear and the Arabic poem/drawing of the homeland

• "you’ll discover that the word and the tear are twins and the Arabic poem is no more than a tear wept by writing fingers”
• Poems = reveal emotional truths
• Tears = physical representation of negative, depressed emotions; typically a result of frustration
• The emotional truth that the speaker wants to express is one of frustration and sadness
• “My son asks me to draw a homeland for him. The brush trembles in my hands and I sink, weeping”
• The full break down, the word “sink” = an end, no restraints, hopelessness and despair hits
• Weeping instead of drawing a homeland = the homeland has become a hopeless place, or rather, the homeland is not what it was- it has become worse
• Conclusion: The Middle East was not always a difficult place for people to live in, but its inhabitants are frustrated and depressed because of the ways it has changed, as well as the fact they can do nothing to escape or stop these changes.

Nancy Ajram - How Cruel Are You (English Translation)

Adele - One and Only

Similarities

• All three talk about unrequited love, or in Nancy Ajram's case, a relationship that is gradually losing its spark/love or her boyfriend is cheating on her.
• "Forgetting the past" (Adele) and "On your behalf I freed my lament and left history behind me" (Kazem el-Saher) suggests previous/ongoing relationships or an arranged marriage; this "oppression" prevents them from showing true emotions/cannot voice their opinions