“La Fontaine” and “The Lives of the Poets” both invite us to consider the role of other texts in the composition of poetry. Bruce Boone and Robert Gluck frame their collection as a series of “transitions” of the poetry of Jean de La Fontaine; Steve Abbott takes his title from a famous 18th century book of biographical essays on English poets, and uses text from all kinds of biographical sources–books about famous people, celebrities, canonical writers, etc.–to construct his own essay-poem. In both cases the direct use of another text or group of texts is an instrumental part of the form. For this assignment you will pick a passage from either La Fontaine or Lives of the Poets–you must choose one!–of no more than 10 lines. You will quote this passage in your response, and analyze its use of source materials in order to answer the following questions: 1. What source or sources are being used here? (NOTE: To answer this question you will have to look up the source or sources you are talking about. This will require the use of Google) 2. HOW are those sources being used? Compare and contrast their use in the text you have chosen with the original context they came from. 3. WHY do you think those sources are being used in this way? (*Drawing conclusion from reading) NOTE: Your response should include some general reflections on why you think poets would use material from other texts to make their own poems. Finally, you should include some considerations of your own about why you think poets would use material from other texts to make their own poems. Your answers should focus on the form of the passage you choose: the organization of words on the page; what a text look like; how it’s put together. If you do not comment on the way the poem looks on the page, and merely summarize the content of its utterances, you have not done the assignment correctly.
