Poetry: Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, Slides of English Literature

Download Poetry: Still I Rise by Maya Angelou and more Slides English Literature in PDF only on Docsity! #MYSKOO 2 Poetry: Still I Rise Still I Rise BY MAYA ANGELOU You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Poetry: Still I Rise Background This is probably Maya Angelou’s best-known poem. Written in 1978, it is a wonderfully defiant, human, uplifting cry from the deep heart of America, which tells a story that speaks to us all. (Nelson Mandela read the poem at his inauguration) The poem roots itself in the history of the African-American people with its talk of slavery and overcoming oppression. But the poem does not speak only to one people, it speaks of the universal notion of downtrodden people. It is intended to be the voice of the unheard/voiceless. Two kinds of oppression are addressed: racial and sexism. Poetry: Still I Rise Theme Message Perseverance regardless of circumstances, a promise of triumph of African-Americans over slavery and racism. The poem delivers the message of the human’s incredible strength and ability to overcome hurt. However, the main and most important message this poem provides, is the hope for others who suffer the same ordeal as the narrator: that of discrimination on grounds of race and gender. Type Lyric Poetry: Still I Rise Mood and Tone empowering/ pride/superiority/ defiant/rebellious Structure This poem includes 43 lines in total, made up of seven quatrains and two end stanzas which help reinforce the theme of individual hope, with the phrase "I rise" being repeated in mantra fashion. The rhyme scheme is abcb, which tightly knits the stanzas together. It's worth going through the rhyme's effect because the full rhymes such as eyes/cries, hard/backyard, surprise/thighs continue up to the last two stanzas when the scheme changes from abcb to abcc and aabb, giving an absolute solid ending to the piece. Poetry: Still | Rise Stanza 2: Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause | walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Rhetorical question — ‘sassiness’ = bold /full of spirit/ lively / high-spirited — she continues with the same tone and asks the listener if he / she is upset by the fact that she doesn’t act the way they want her to. Why is the listener overwhelmed with sadness/despair? Beset = filled. Gloom = darkness. ‘Cause: elision- because. Makes the poem more colloquial/ authentic. Simile: She walks like a rich person; an oil magnate- with confidence/ pride. Poetry: Still | Rise Stanza 3: Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Simile: The moon and the sun are constant and certain throughout the ages, just like her “rising” is constant and never ending. She stresses the fact that she refuses to be downtrodden. That is a certainty just as tides are caused by the moon. The tides are certain, they happen every day. Nothing can stop them. Simile: just like people always have hope- she will always rise. Idiom: Hope springs eternal. Repetition of title/ mantra/ refrain  Poetry: Still | Rise Stanza 4: Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Rhetorical Question ~ pronoun you. Tone is accusatory. The oppressors want to see her spirit and hope broken, they want her humble and humiliated- her head must be bowed and her eyes lowered to show she is inferior. Simile slumped shoulders. Imagery is very effective- tears are a sad image, they want her shoulders to hang in sadness. Does the reader want to see her break down and become weak and utter gut-wrenching cries of a tormented soul?  Poetry: Still | Rise Stanza 7: Does my sexiness upset you? That | dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? The downtrodden are not sexy. The fact that she claims her womanhood upsets the oppressors. The oppressors are surprised. They are shacked that she is sexy. Simile. The way she dances is compared to a rich person. Image of wealth. Progression from oil- gold-diamonds. They are all precious minerals that have to be mined. They are not just obvious/ on the surface. Provocative image. She owns her sexuality and is proud of it. Poetry: Still | Rise Stanza 8: Out of the huts of history’s shame l rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain l rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling | bear in the tide. Alliteration. Where they lived, not in nicely built houses. Huts in Africa & for slaves on plantations seen as shameful. It is important that this line and the next similar lines stand on their own. It stresses the fact that she promises that nothing will destroy her. Her race will survive. They cannot be contained. Metaphor — Their past is embedded in pain, like a tree is rooted in the ground, their past is rooted in pain. Metaphor She compares herself to a mighty, vast, mysterious ocean. And extends the metaphor- just like the ocean bears the tides, she bears discrimination, disdain etc. Tone: Hopeful  Poetry: Still | Rise Stanza 9: Leaving behind nights of terror and fear | rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear | rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, | am the dream and the hope of the slave. | rise | rise I rise. Metaphor: She has left behind the terror, nights living in fear of her life. She wakes up into the brightness of day. Nights = her past her future looks clear, wonderful and bright like a new day. Daybreak= her future. Nights & daybreak= antithesis She has learnt from her past and takes this knowledge into her future and also acknowledges her past, her ancestors and her legacy. The slaves hoped and dreamed of freedom. She is free. Stand on its own — stresses the importance of their freedom and ability to rise to any occasion, any hardship that is thrown at them. Tone - defiance