Kap 3 - 1. Additional text

“I Sing the Body Electric” Walt Whitman 1855 (In ‘Leaves of Grass’) (excerpt)

9

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

Study questions for excerpt from “I Sing the Body Electric” Walt Whitman, 1855

First impression

• After reading through the excerpt, what is your first impression of the poem?
• What emotions does the poem stir in you?

Content

• Who is the speaker? Who is the speaker addressing in the first three verses of the stanza, and what is the speaker talking about in these opening lines?
• What is the poem (excerpt) about? Does it have a plot or does it describe a feeling?
• What is the general mood or tone of the poem?
• Which themes do you see in the poem?
• How does the title fit the poem?

Form

• Which poetic features are used? Look closely at the listing of body parts and people, what effect does this have on e.g. rhythm? Also consider rhyme scheme, run-on lines, alliteration and assonance.
• Is there imagery, like metaphors, comparisons (simile), contrasts, personification, symbols?
• How can the composition of the poem be described?

Interpretation and perspective

• Examine the relationship between content and form. Is there a clear connection?
• What is the poem trying to tell us or make us feel?
• Is there a message?
• Which values or ideas are present in the poem?

Kap 3 - 2. Grammatik

When Your Mother Says She’s Fat by Kasey Edwards (2013)

Grammatik

Sæt adjektiverne fra teksten i 1., 2. og 3. grad

Fat, ugly, glamorous, good, compassionate, proper, bad, important

1. Formulér en eller flere tommelfingerregler for adjektivernes gradbøjning på engelsk.
2. Oversæt følgende sætning til engelsk og beskriv hvilken forskel i brugen af tillægsord på dansk og engelsk, der viser sig i sætningen: Vi køber ikke en ny, før den gamle er solgt.

Kap 3 - 3. Go Discuss

GO DISCUSS

Work in pairs answering and discussing the following

• Have you ever used Photoshop to improve pictures of yourself or friends/family members?
• Do you consider it problematic to edit you own looks or the looks of others in pictures before posting these on e.g. Facebook?
• Images used in advertising are often manipulated/altered to make the models look perfect. Do you consider this problematic? Why, why not? Do you find that the models should be informed before agencies decide to adjust their physical appearance to fit the standards?

Models such as Meaghan Kausmann are beginning to object to having images of their faces and bodies altered by the advertising industries.

• Google the words Meaghan Kausmann shames swimwear label and read the article from dailymail.co.uk
• Find out how the swimwear label changed the images to make Kausmann’s body appear more ‘perfect’?
• Why do Kausmann and the photographer Pip Summerville object to these changes?
• Read the comments from the readers of the dailymail below the article. What opinions are expressed here? Where do you stand?