There is value in committing items to memory. Aside from the "show-off" factor of being able to rattle off information at will, having materials memorized speeds the ability of the mind to correlate information and thereby enhances the ability of a person to arrive at new understanding. Comments by Nobel laureate Eric Kandel of Columbia University suggest such cognitive benefits (Begley 182). While memorizing large amounts of material is certainly daunting, working up to it by memorizing small chunks--say, poems--suggests itself as a useful exercise (and is, in fact, specifically recommended by Kandel in his comments).
Memorizing poetry has several specific benefits. One of them is that it facilitates student grounding in the cultural tropes and referents of colleges and universities in the Western world. This aids students in navigating a sub-culture with which they may be unfamiliar or of which they may well have less than ideal notions. In addition to helping students become familiar with the prevailing culture of Western academia, memorization of poetry promotes engagement with it, something Terry Hermsen notes in "Carrying Poetry Around: An Essay in Praise of Memorization"; he writes that "Hearing the poem in my head--being able to carry at least sections of it around with me--gave a more human, a more vital, a more lived dimension to the art" (28). Memorization in his view also "makes us slow down....it opens space up around language" that allows "a quietness that's difficult to find in any other way" (29). Each is conducive to a fuller life, one more appreciative of the small things that are missed in later years, and so the memorization of poetry becomes one way (among many) to be more fully human.
Consequently, my sections of HUM 110 require the recital of a piece of poetry selected from those linked below. Students desiring to employ materials other than those below are encouraged to present their rationale for doing so to me well in advance of the date set for the presentation. Failure to recite from an approved work (either listed below or suggested by the student and approved by the instructor) will result in a failing grade for the assignment.
Also, since student performance will be judged partly upon interpretation, learning more about the poems and poets is STRONGLY encouraged. Please see the instructor for more information, or look around the websites where the poems are hosted. Consulting major literary anthologies or articles such as those accessible through JSTOR and Academic Search Complete will also be helpful.
Selections for Memorization
Homer, The Iliad 1.1-17 (to "archer god Apollo")
Dante, Inferno 3.1-20 (just the first twenty lines of verse)
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue 1-18 (just the first 18 lines)
Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"
Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"
Milton, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont"
Milton, "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"
Milton, Paradise Lost 1.1-16 (only the first 16 lines of Book 1)
Bradstreet, "The Author to Her Book"
Bradstreet, "By Night When Others Soundly Slept"
Coleridge, "The Complaint of Ninathoma"
Dickinson, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"
Poe, "The Raven" (first two stanzas only)
Baraka, "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note"
Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends"
Grading (the rubric for which appears as a PDF below) will be based not only on correctness of the recitation (are the words given in the correct order, as indicated by the linked texts?) but on the manner of delivery (is there an interpretive idea underlying the delivery, and is it consistently produced?) and the appropriateness of evaluation of other students. Some additional consideration in grading will be extended to those students who attempt the older works on the list.
Works Cited
Begley, Sharon. "Build a Better Brain." Reader's Digest October 2012: 178-85. Print.
Hermsen, Terry. "Carrying Poetry Around: An Essay in Praise of Memorization." The Council Chronicle March 2011: 28-29. Print.