In Portfolio 12 we are considering a poetic form defined by subject matter, the elegy, which, as Kowit tells you, is a poem in a memory of the dead (Kowit 217) However, historically the elegy in English has had many more specific elements. Here is a list:

1. the poem (a)starts with an explanation of why or when it is being written, and (b)ends with a return to the speaker's situation.

2. the poem expresses not merely grief, but a sense of shock and anger because (a) the death was premature, pointless, or otherwise "unnatural" and/or (b) the person who died was so special

3. the speaker establishes a relationship with the person being mourned, usually by telling about their time together. In traditional English elegies, the conventions of the pastoral are often used for this purpose, that is, both speaker and subject are said to be shepherds, etc.

4. the speaker indicates how the person died and uses the material of the means of death, e.g., drowning, as a source of imagery in the poem.

5. the speaker tries to reject the fact of the death or to seek supernatural aid to bring the dead person back to life, but realizes that these efforts are futile.

6a. the speaker sees or imagines that nature itself is negatively affected by this death, or
6b. the speaker is amazed or outraged that nature is not affected by this death, or
6c. both (paradoxically or seriatim)

7. the speaker sees or recollects other mourners for the last person, in a literal or figurative procession

8. the speaker digresses into a criticism of some fault of society, related to what the lost person did or might have done

9. the speaker meditates on the nature of death, especially in comparison or contrast to the nature of life

10. the speaker finds some kind of consolation or acceptance of the death, often in the belief of some kind of immortality for the lost one.
 

You can find practically all of these characteristics in Milton's Lycidas (SC 245). Read the poem and make a note of what page and lines (first three and last three words of passage) you can associate with each of these parts or characteristics. Although it is not at all necessary that a poem have all these qualities to be a powerful elegy, Milton's poem is useful for giving us examples of each of the features used extremely well. Milton also illustrates a frequent characteristic of the elegy that Kowit treats as a distinct kind of poem, the recognition and contemplation of the poet's own mortality, especially the possibility of premature death.

Then choose one of the following elegies and outline it briefly, considering which of the "elegiac" characteristics it has and whether some of its characteristics are not allowed for in the traditional list: In SC: Henry King, "The Exequy" (215) (about the death of his wife); Samuel Johnson, "On the Death of Mr. Robert Levett" (311) (an apothecary who cared for the sick poor), Yeats, "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory" (539) ("my dear friend's dear son"); in MA John Crowe Ransom, "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter" (389) (the child of a friend); e. e. cummings, "my father moved through dooms of love" (461); Auden, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," (509). In TW, Sanchez, "Elegy (for MOVE and Philadelphia)" (294); Henderson, "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me" (Langston Hughes) (406)You don't have to read all these poems, though they are all well worth reading; you can select one by topic or sample them till you find one that particularly appeals to you. Two main questions: how does the poet convince the reader of the value of the person who died, and how does the poet make the controlled, intellectual act of writing a poem seem compatible with genuine grief, or if s/he doesn't, what happens to the poem? On Wednesday before and Monday after Thanksgiving, bring to class SC and whichever book your chosen elegy is in.

Portfolio 13 will be a "bring in a song that is a good poem" portfolio (with the usual short write-up of the reasons for your choice.  In this case, for time reasons, DON'T bring in the music.  Note that this puts a major burden on the quality of the words.  The song should be about a belief or commitment, religious or political or (though this produces few songs) philosophical.