Read “Theme for English B,” referring to my essay on the poem when needed, and think about Bois’ idea of “double consciousness” as it applies to the portrayal of the student in the poem. Answer my questions in the assignment labeled #5 Du Bois.
Answer the following questions:
1. Define what “English B” in fact is, both at Columbia and within the poem, relative to English A, and discuss how the poem uses the character “B” and the verb “to be” (in any of its various conjugations) to generate and articulate that definition. (One way to go with this is to examine the “three B’s” of “Bessie, bop, or Bach.”)
2. Track and discuss carefully, line by line, the speaker’s motion relative to your own motion as a reader, with emphasis on stanza three, which is introduced with the question: “I wonder if it’s that simple?” Some questions to think about are: What is the thematic relationship between those similarities? Why is it necessary to take such literal and figurative “steps”? Are the roles of instructor and student fixed or fluid? Who, finally is the instructor, and who are the students? Don’t forget to pay close attention to technical matters, especially line breaks.
3. What does it mean to be colored? How does one become “colored”? How are marks on the page related to the questions of race and power the poem evinces? Discuss the poem as an object, a page with marks, a thing made of language that is governed by the rules of grammar and syntax. Account for the perplexing division of pages that occurs in the last line of stanza three (“this page:”), and coordinate it with the poem’s final line.
The link to Du Bois’s poem: