Remember Meryl Streep Reading A. E. Housman?

Denys Finch-Hatton's glory hasn't faded entirely since he became "Townsman of a stiller town." ("To an Athlete Dying Young")

I have read that his grave in the Ngong Hills overlooking the Rift Valley is well-visited.  Athlete at Oxford, safari pilot to royalty, lover of literature, and lover of two women authors whose own glories have not faded, he, in his elevated grave, holds up "The still defended challenge cup."
  
Out of Africa is one of my favorite films.  If you haven't seen it, put it at the top of your list.  It's a film every lit student should see.  Imagine Denys and Karen (Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in 1985) camping in the African bush, where he washes her hair while reciting poetry to her.  Sudsing and cooing, he's every gal's hero, but Karen is the one who gets to play the Hemingway part as she "shoo"s away lions.  The film, as well as the book, is an autobiographical account of Danish author Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen) and Finch-Hatton and their lives in colonial Kenya, replete with historic European aristocracy.  It's a story of many famous lives well-lived.

You can view eiher the full film or a short clip of Meryl Streep reading A. E. Housman's poem  at You Tube, but note that Meryl's reading omits several stanzas.  Type in the title of the poem, and you will discover that a huge percentage of the English-speaking world likes to film themselves reading "To an Athlete Dying Young."  If you have little time or patience for "dead air," better to read it to yourself.
 
Better yet, find a copy of A Shropshire Lad, probably the most treasured book of poetry in English, and keep it forever.  In spring, you may see a cherry tree in bloom, and you'll want to quote "Loveliest of Trees."  When you are burned in love, you may want to recite "When I was one-and-twenty."  The book offers many similar opportunities.

Housman's theme of a life well-lived--I like to think of it that way--is displayed on Finch-Hatton's grave by a plaque inscribed with an excerpt from Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: 
"He prayeth well who loveth well/ Both man and bird and beast."
This theme urging us to live life to the fullest abounds in literature and poetry--and decorates many tombstones and public statuary.
 
After visiting Paris, I regretted most not searching Pere Lachaise Cemetery for quoted bits of wisdom, but I did wander into Montmartre Cemetery when I spied from a distance someone I recognized:

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you:  I am here to live out loud."'

Emile Zola in Nana

Because I didn't photograph any inscription, I'm not sure this caption is actually on this original grave of Emile Zola, now in the Pantheon, but the novelist's most famous line defines his life.  "Living out loud" is Zola's quotable phrase for living life to the fullest.  It reminds us of his defence of Dreyfuss  ("J'accuse . . ."), his consequent expatriot sojourn in England, and his exposure of the coal industry in Germinal.  Although his works are prose, his tone and themes are poetic.
 
Dylan Thomas' poem "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" may be difficult to remember in its entirety, but the last two lines are easy to commit.  Here, he echoes Zola's "out loud" in his prescription for us (especially for his father) even in old age:  "Do not go gentle into that good night./  Rage, rage against the dying of the light."  How different are these lines from the one Keats requested on his tombstone in Rome:  "Here lies One Whose name was writ in Water."  Was he beaten by his disease or raging over the bitter irony of dying at age 26 with so much potential untapped?

On the lighter side, I discovered in Rouen the home of French poet Pierre Corneille.

Birthplace in 1606 in Rouen of Pierre Corneille, author of Le Cid

His comment encourages us to live right and to live long:  "How sweet to die after one's enemies."  A character in his The Death of Pompey, a verse drama, exclaims, "Rome, if you do not wish me to betray you, make enemies that I can hate!"
 
Similarly, Robert Frost ". . . had a lover's quarrel with the world" ("A Lesson for Today" and tombstone) as he trod "the one less traveled by."  ("The Road Not Taken")  To paraphrase, "living out loud" includes rebellion, a healthy irreverence for the status quo, not conforming when the multitude is wrong.

With perhaps more gusto at heart, Shelley longs "to quicken a new birth" in "Ode to the West Wind," a poem whose Canto V is suitable for memorizing even if the entire work is a tad long.  In some lines, Shelley bemoans his own weakness and resembles Matthew Arnold's epithet for him:  "an ineffectual angel." ("Shelley: A brief account of his life and work," digital reprint of 1st ed., 1888)  But in his "Defense of Poetry," Shelley proclaims poets "the hidden legislators of the world."  That is what he wants the west wind to make of him:  "impetuous one."

With that image of the poet, we can return to Denys Finch-Hatton.  Flying his Gypsy Moth into the African bush country, scoffing at his aristocratic title, and refusing to marry, he lives out loud, flies the "road not taken," and "loveth well."  He may not write poetry, but he lives it and can quote it--just like you!

To Instructors Teaching Poetry

If you don't believe in rote--think it's olde--then I'm glad you weren't my teacher!  I've never heard a student make that objection to memorizing poetry.  Funny, though, I heard, "Why should we learn these punctuation rules?  They're so old."  This remark came from a college student whose punctuation was atrocious, and I gave her Will Durant's definition of literacy:  "the ability to pass on to succeeding generations all the aspects of one's own culture." (Our Oriental Heritage)

Schiller's desk

I took this photo in Weimar, but I remember this image as a picture in my high school lit book.

There you have it, a perfect rationale for learning 500 lines of poetry:  it's part of our culture.  Thanks to those overly-rambunctious Brits who practically conquered the world and translated everything in it into English, one can hardly object on multi-cultural grounds to encouraging succeeding generations to retain some of it by memory.  If some students want  to recite in a different language, they can hand you copies, and you can follow phonetically.  Anything to get 500 lines of meaningful verse into their kens!  Those bits of wisdom or compassion or humor will be useful to them all their lives--I am living proof.

I did not require students to recite in front of the class or to do it with expression.  Time constraints and shyness were no problem, therefore.  While the class was busy on another assignment, individuals came to my desk, and we had some relaxing one-on-one time together as they softly recited their masterpieces and I softly commented on their choices.  We actually bonded over poetry.

Some students wanted to stand before the class, and their reason was usually that they had found something so good they felt compelled to share it.  Keep in mind that in my college lit classes (mostly freshmen), students didn't know each other as well as those in public schools do.  Some wanted to preserve their shield of anonymity.  That didn't stop any student from feeling perfectly comfortable with me.  When I occasionally taught off-campus courses in high schools, it was the same, even though I sometimes saw them only once a week.  They enjoyed reciting poetry much more than they appreciated dissecting it!  However, they performed well when tested on terms.  Perhaps committing their own chosen lines to memory helped them to understand the forms. 

Tune in again for more discussion, and feel free to leave comments on your experiences in the classroom.

To Students Learning Poetry

   It's fun to recite lines of poetry . . . as you play, as you work, even as you suffer some disappointment--or rail against it.  My own personal outbursts include reciting "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (W. B. Yeats) to my dog as she "helped" me plant my "nine bean rows."  I realize that if you are less than "two-and-twenty," (A. E. Housman), then you may have a better example of "play."  For me, obligatory visits with the older relations was always like work, but I was "Gorgeously arrayed, boned and stayed." (Amy Lowell)  When I lose, "There is no joy in Mudville" (Ernest Lawrence Thayer), and when I win, "I am the master of my fate,/ I am the captain of my soul." (William Ernest Henley)

"When I was one-and-twenty/ I heard a wise man say, . . ." (Housman)

   If you are not yet two-and-twenty, you may have to memorize 500 lines of poetry--an easy, enjoyable task.  If your teacher hasn't made that assignment, do it anyway.  Knowing lines of poetry will imbue your life with distinctive new dimensions--and help you keep a sense of humor!
   I'm not telling you my age, only that a few decades past, my senior year in high school, my English teacher had us memorize 500 lines.  Do you know that I can still recite Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" verbatim?  It's true!  I double-checked with the text to be sure I hadn't got any words wrong or omitted any.  The same goes for a slew of Wordsworth's and Keats' poems, and the list goes on.
   I'm not showing off, but making a point:  what you learn by rote at an early age will stay with you all your life.  On the other hand, I find it very difficult to memorize anything today.  A few years ago, I tried to commit John Masefield's "Sea Fever."  (Love that rhythm!)  I thought I had it, but a year later, I couldn't remember anything but the first two lines and "the wheel's kick."  (I throw my shoulders into that rhythm!)  Hey, . . . if you're going boating, . . . those are some good lines to take with you in your head.  As I said before, poetry will add another dimension to your experiences.
   I hope I've convinced you by now to use the internet to find poetry you'd like to memorize.  You'll be rewarded all your life when you encounter it again in films, lectures, references in books, and more.  Memory is magical.  Besides, it's always your best friend.
   I would advise starting with a  classic, short poem, perhaps one of Wordsworth's.  The English romantics are always favorites of young students.  I must admit that I liked them best when I was young, and perhaps because "The Child is father of the man" (Wordsworth), I prefer them still.  Try that one:  "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold" by Wordsworth.  You'll find yourself reciting it next time you see a rainbow!
   Come back again.  I'm working on a space where you can comment and leave some of your ideas for other poetry scholars.