AMSBE - semináře-poznámky

• The punctuation – a dash – it shows a break, that the discourse is interrupted, characterization of modern poetry

• Strove – strive, strove, striven – to struggle, to fight

• Recess – break

  • This is a memory of her childhood

• The carriage passed by a field of grain maturity

  • Human life is like a grain – it appears, it grows and it dies

• The setting sun death (even the sun follows the same universal law)

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

• We are aware that we die

• In spite of death – there is a life cycle

• Dew – “rosa” in Czech synecdoche (using plural instead of singular and otherwise)

• The setting sun that passed and the dews send us to the new beginning

• Gossamer – natural silk

• Tippet – scarf, it is made of very thin material

• The tulle (tyl) send us to marriage ceremony she was never married, but she introduces the topic because she put away the idea of marriage and growing life out of her own “if others could have a partner, why couldn’t I?”

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

• The house = the tomb, the tomb will protect our body, nobody will destroy it you are at rest

• Swelling – to swell (otékat) – to go big, but it is very common in connection with a pregnant woman

• She doesn’t use the word tomb but the word house domestic reference, the house is a comparable with the swelling but she knows she will never get pregnant element of regret that she never had a child

• Cornice (garnýž)– in in the ground the marching of the tomb

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –

• ‘tis = it is

• Since this moment when they reached the cemetery, it seems like centuries but it feels shorter than a day she refers to subjective, psychological time

• Surmised = realized

• Horses’ heads this carriage did not take me to the destination

• Circular structure because this is how the universe grows life and death, life and death… eternity, no final end, no unique beginning

• Tropes and figures of speech:

  • Death – personification

  • School – metaphor

  • Rhyme – no rhyme, but the meter (rhythm) iambic

  • Melancholy

2nd seminar, 18th October

Leslie Marmon Silko – Yellow Woman

• She is a Native American → she is a Pueblo

• 19th century

• She writes in English – How is it possible?

• Officer Richard Pratt came with a solution – we shouldn’t focus on the young, children because they are the future, we should try to civilize them – he called his politics “Killed the Indians, safe the man” – the man who could speak English, was Christian → this was the result of civilization

  • Those were taken from families and taken to boarding schools (internát) – they went home only for holidays

  • In the 1870’ and lasted to Second World War

  • Sanction policies were not used only in USA

  • Acculturate – lose your culture and learn new one but by force!

  • Boarding schools were not near the family of the student – purposefully – they wanted them as far away as possible

  • Boys and girls were separated in schools, they wore uniforms (dark colours, not joyful for students), they had to use only English

  • If they were punished if they were caught using their language

  • It was kind of rules that are used in military school – because Richard Pratt was an officer

  • Boys were their hair cut – it is important (boys cut their hair only when they lost someone)

  • Children could go home on holidays BUT because school were far away, they didn’t have money for travelling so far – so many of them stayed for years in schools

  • They learned to read and write, principal of Christianity – they were encouraged to convert to Christianity, boys were encouraged to learn skills so they can get a job

  • Girls were told to become maids – to cook, to sew, to neat? + reading, writing in English

  • Girls on the highest level could be secretary or something like that