Poems, and novels, and AP English. Oh My!

The traditional hero doesn’t bend the rules or break laws. They are brave, considerate and full of courage. They are strong both mentally and physically, and don’t turn their backs on what is right. They won’t turn their back on a fight, they seem to show no fear of death. They are the “ideal person’, and are seemingly lacking any negative emotions. They actually seem inhuman at times. Courage, is the ability to do what is right, to take action when it is need. You can fear many things, but still have plenty of courage. Literature like Beowulf produces the idea of a traditional hero.

In The Red Badge of Courage, Henry and some of the other soldiers are the opposite of the traditional hero. They say they are willing to give their lives for their country but then they all run in fear, during the battle. “Another commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling…In this rush they were apparently all deaf and blind…”(p.30) The men were all fleeing in terror, ignoring their duty to their country. They didn’t even pay attention to those around them that were in need of help (or were in danger).

“There was an appalling imprint upon those faces…in the eyes wild with one desire…the sight of this stampede.” (p.31) They do not represent the traditional hero, they run away, in fact they act like animals running away from a predator. The thing is though, they are human, and it is human instinct to run away from danger, it may seem primal, but its the truth. Crane is showing us that all the soldiers are human, they are the normal man. They show fear, they run, because they aren’t these incredible heroes that should be worshiped, they are the normal man, trying to make a difference. They are the non-traditional heroes.

Henry is not a traditional hero, he at first wishes to stay and fight (p.33), and does for one battle, but later he is overcome with fear and flees with the other. “He lost his direction of safety…Directly he began to speed toward the rear n great leaps…on his face was the horror of those things which he imagined.” (p.39). Crane doesn’t make his main character the traditional hero. he makes him just a young boy who was looking for glory, and realized what the dangers really are. By making him human, Crane is glorifying the normal hero, one that has fear, but still can have the chance to shine. Possibly one of the greatest pieces of evidence that Henry is not a traditional hero, is that he calls the soldiers who remained, “machine like fools” (p.41), those soldiers who stayed behind lack the fear that the others had. He can’t comprehend how they are calmly shooting those men, how they face danger and do not cringe.

    Realism and Naturalism were created as a response to Romanticism during the 19th century.  They came about in France, which is unsurprising.  The French viewed themselves as rationalists, and Romanticism clashed with their beliefs, and reasoning. Romanticism is heavily based on emotions, while Realism (and Naturalism) is based on rationalism, hence why they become big movements in France during the 19th century. Romanticism plays up on real life, adding drama and color that are like fluff, unneeded to a point.  Realism was real life, it had no sugar coating, or added extreme emotions.

Balzac is considered one of the forefathers of realism.  His first work was a series of novels that contrasted with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Balzac displayed all types of society in his work.  He displayed a great attention to detail, in fact, he was obsessive. They were incredibly long as well, at this time books were the way to kill time. (instead of getting fat doing nothing but watching tv, they got fat reading books :p).  His plots of his novels though, were leaning towards more romantic, than realistic.

Another “major player” was Flaubert, his work was more realistic than his predecessor.  He began as a romanticist, but his friends encouraged him to write something “more down to earth”.   He chose the story of an adulterous woman, his story was based on two real accounts and two real women.  Like Balzac, he paid attention to detail, and did a lot of research.  He even drew a map that detailed the town of his novel (which was based on a real town). The woman in the novel had two affairs and committed suicide, which may seem shocking to (most) modern readers, back than it was a tradition in French literature.  What made it real, and different, is that Flaubert’s character’s affairs were not because of a romantic feeling (adultery was not justified in the least).  The novel ended up being  a anti-romantic manifesto.  Flaubert returned to romanticism from time to time in his career.

“Aside from genre fiction such as fantasy and horror, we expect the ordinary novel today to be based in our own world, with recognizably familiar types of characters endowed with no supernatural powers, doing the sorts of things that ordinary people do every day.  ” An every day man is going to be attracted to a book that he (or she) can pick up and say that it applies to me.  Although, the everyday can be boring, and it can be said that some do seek novels that are more romantic than real.

Naturalism is not an extreme break from Realism, it is just an extension. “The term was invented by Émile Zola partly because he was seeking for a striking platform from which to convince the reading public that it was getting something new and modern in his fiction.”  In other words he was selling a false product.  The only difference between his work, and the work of his predecessors  was that his extremely long detail was more integrated. “Zola’s novels do place special stress on the importance of heredity and environment in determining character. They are anti-Romantic in their rejection of the self-defining hero who transcends his background. History shapes his protagonists rather than being shaped by them. This leads to an overwhelming sense of doom in most of his novels, culminating in a final catastrophe. ” His protagonists weren’t heroes like those you see in romantic novels, they were the everyday man, shaped by the past.  They didn’t do anything that could change history.  His characters didn’t stand out, they just represented all parts of society in it’s norm.   “Zola has had an enormous impact on the American novel. Americans with their preference for action over thought and for gritty realism were strongly drawn to his style of writing. ” (Of course.  Americans love sex, blood, and violence).

Realism and Naturalism, there is no big difference between them.  They are two peas in a pod.  They have thankfully not destroyed Romanticism all together ( it would be boring reading the same stuff, we need novels that have Romanticism in them), but they have made a huge impact on literature and all other arts.   The dislike of romanticism in the past, gave us a richer experience now.

Chapters 1, 2, 3

Five Tangible Things (explain them? really?)

Uniform (p.6) – presents a sense of pride and honor, an outfit

Guns/rifles (p.9, 15)- a weapon, source of some intangible emotions

Blankets (p.20)-keeps you warm…… (uh explain? )

Canteens (p.20)- a container used to carry water.

Haversacks (p.20)- an over the shoulder bag.

Five intangible things

Heartbreak (p.6-7)- Henry’s mother is upset and broken that her only son is living to go to war after she discouraged him.

Fear (p.1o)- Clarity comes to Henry, as he realizes how his actions could lead to his death

Loneliness (p.13, 16)- the worst kind, being surrounded by many people, but you can’t connect or confide in any of them.

Longing (p.17)- Henry misses his home, and his past life.

Confusion (p.27)- weird, old man gives Henry a package, and disappears.  who was he?

Personal Section: What do you carry?

Tangible: In my purse: my track phone (for emergencies, usually), my i-pod (can’t live with out music), a pencil and a mini-notebook (always be prepared, and it helps having a list handy), my wallet (money, my permit), chapstick (it’s winter after all), and a bunch of change on the bottom.  In my backpack: school stuff, a whole bunch of stuff to lug home and read, and answer etc…and I hate carrying all that stuff to and from school, but who doesn’t.  On my person: my watch (to tell time, especially when the school clocks are wrong.), a hair tie (just in case), and my glasses (Cause I wouldn’t be able to see anything, I am blind without them).

Intangible: determination- I am (usually) an overachiever, and I try to do my best at everything, and am determined to get the job done right., shyness- I got voted most shy in the yearbook for a reason. nervousness- I don’t like huge crowds of people, especially presenting things., Fear- about the future.,Humor-having a sense of humor (at times) can make everything better….and a bunch of others I suppose, but I don’t wish to share anymore.

1. Describe the subtle changes in setting and analyze how these shifts reveal Eve’s fall from grace.

Answer:

The changes in setting reflect Eve’s fall from grace. It begins bright, but as it goes on, and Satan comes (as the snake) the setting gets darker and darker. The setting begins with Eve picking fruits in the long grass. She is in the wonderful garden of Eden. Satan disguised as a snake has been curled around a tree branch watching her. As it gets darker, he whispers to her slowly sliding down the tree. He slithers up and tells her to follow him “down the dark path to the Blasphemous Tree” (which is the second setting). In this setting Eve eats the forbidden fruit, which God told her not to eat. This is a sharp contrast to the previous setting. The third setting is tragic, Eve is crying outside the Garden of Eden, hungry and alone because she eat the forbidden fruit. The last setting is Satan celebrating his victory under the hill.

2. How does the poem’s diction contribute to tone and meaning? Consider the use of adjectives, verbs, and participles. Look for patterns, contrasts and surprising juxtapositions of words.

Answer:

One pattern is Eve’s innocence (in the beginning). The verbs for Eve are innocent in manner, she is wading, and picking berries, and even after she is thrown out she is crying outside the gate. She is picking sweet berries, and wading in the grass, the image produced is a little girl wading in the water, and picking fruits and eating them. Eve is a maid, her skin is white, which represents innocence. She listens and wonders, another quality of innocence. She is innocent and naïve and that is how Satan tricks her into taking the fruit. Another pattern involves Satan’s trickery. He whispers, falls and tumbles. He is “mute as a mouse” until he falls from the tree (which represent his fall from heaven), he whispers to Eve with a silver tongue, softly almost like a birds song. He is tricking Eve into thinking he is as harmless as a bird. He speaks low, telling her of a secret, and he tricks her to follow him down the dark path, and succeeds. After he and his cohorts celebrate “lewdly” under the hill. The verbs for Eve are innocent in manner, she is wading, and picking berries, and even after she is thrown out she is crying outside the gate.

3.  Consider the poets use of figurative language. How does the choice of comparisons influence tone and meaning?

Answer:

The poet compares Satan to a mouse. He is supposedly mute and harmless but it is all just a trick. He is actually the most dangerous being in the garden. He is full of trickery. His speech falls like flowers, suggesting again that he is harmless, that he is just trying to help Eve, not hurt. His speech is like a bird’s song, he is as harmless as a bird, which is trickery. Eve’s innocence is established through the imagery that she is an “orchard sprite”, she is so innocent she is like a magical creature. Imagery further shows Eve’s innocence and how she is easily tricked, and shows how Satan can easily act harmless to succeed.

4.  Describe the meter, line length, and pattern of enjambment. What does the rhythm contribute to the mood of the poem?

Answer:

Most of the stanzas consist of only one sentence, and they are enjambed as they continue from one line to the next. For meter, I really don’t know, so…according to the back of the book it is “a triple falling meter, called a dactyllic, with two dactyls to a line.” The poem seems to actually be light, despite the subject matter due to enjambment and meter.

5.  Describe the use of repetition and rhyme. Look for patterns. What does the repetition contribute to the mood of the poem?

Answer:

There seems to be no actual rhyme scheme, but the stanzas do seem to have some rhyming lines (ex: Stanza one- sweet/eat). Repetition is used when Satan says, “Eva” three time. “Bells and grass” is repeated a few times, which seems to represent Eve’s innocence. Lines 29 and 30 show repetition, and also show Eve’s naïve nature. Repetition and rhyme contribute to the mood because they seem to hammer home the meaning of Eve’s innocence and Satan’s trickery.

1. Describe the form and structure of the poem.  What is the occasion of the poem?  What two reasons does the speaker give for refusing to promise a committed love? What compromises does she suggest at the end?

Answer:

The occasion is that the speaker is breaking up with her lover.  The reasons she gives are: they don’t know each other’s pasts, and that their future is not known.  Whose to say if they will still love each other in the future?  In the end the compromise she suggests is, can they just be  friends?  The poem is three stanzas that are eight sentances long.  The rhyme is ababcdcdefefghgh.

2. Analyze the effect on meaning of such devices as syntax, repetition, parallelism and paradox.

Answer:

Repetition is used by repeating the word “promise”.  The repetition helps supprt the poet’s view point on promises, they are meant to be broken (like a pie crust), so don’t bother with them at all.  Parallelism is located in lines 7/8, 17/19, and 4/6.  Parallelsim is used so that what ever applies the poet also applies to her lover.  Paradox is located in the last four lines, they can be nothing more then friends, but nothing less too, meaning their friendship won’t ever truly be there, it will be weak because of their past.(let’s be friends never really works).

3. Anaylze the effect on meaning of imagery and figurative language.

Answer:

Imagery is first in the title, she compares promises to pie crust, they are meant to be broken.  Imagery is also used in the second stanza.  She compares her previous relationships to sunlight and her lovers to warmth.  She briefly felt the sun once before, and the sun disappeared, so whose to say that it won’t happen again?  She compares her lover’s relationships to warmth, he was warm to others before and he stopped. So whose to say that he won’t stop loving (being warm to her as well?) (he actually sounds like a cheater).  The poet says the future is like a mirror, foggy. Whose to say that they will love each ohter in the end? You can’t see the future.

I did this some time ago, Feb.27.

Song

1. What is the ocassion of the poem?  What literary device does the poet employ?  Describe what you know of the speaker, the listener, and the “she” referred to in the poem.

Answer:

The occasion is that the speaker is a man who has fallen in love with a girl that is incredibly shy, and seems to deny his advances because of it, (”suffer herself to be desir’d, And not blush so to be admire’d).  The listener appears to be a rose, which the speaker ask’s to tell the girl that he likes, to be less shy, and to accept his advances.  The poet personifies the rose, making it a person, the word rose is captialized, giving it a name, and by asking the rose to be a messenger makes it personified as well.

2. Paraphase each of the four stanzas.

Answer:

Beautiful rose go tell her, the woman I love, to accept or reject me. Perhaps by sending you, she will see how just like you, she is sweet and fair.  Let this young woman know, the one who shuns those men who go after her, that if you (the rose) had grown in the desert, where no one is, then no one could have seen your beauty.  There is little worth in hidden beauty, tell her to come forward, let her be looked upon and desired, and not blush so much upon my advances. Then rose, die, so that she may notice that all things sweet and fair do not last forever..

3. Describe the prosody, including stanza form, rhyme, meter, and notable metrical substitutions (spondees), as well as the structure of the poem.  How do these choices help reinforce the poem’s content?

Answer:

There are four stanzas that consist of five lines each. The rhyme is ababbcdcddefeffghghh. Lines that have the a,c,e,g rhymes appear to be shorter then the other lines.  The structure fits as each stanza is just one sentance, and each stanza is telling the flower to do a different thing, from telling the girl how beautiful she is, to giving up its life to send a message. This reinforces the cotent as it speaks of carpe diem, seize the day, or rather seize the beauty, before it is gone.

Virtue

1. Consider first Huberts use of metaphor and personification.  In each case, what two unlikely things are being compared, and what do they have in common?

Answer:

The first metaphor is comparing daytime to the joining of the earth and sky. It must fall (die) and give way to night. The personification is in stanza two, the rose is so beautiful that is causes the people who look at it to cry.  This rose too will die eventually.   Spring is compared to a box of sweet smelling things, that too will disappear (die).  The last metaphor  is comparing a good person to seasoned timber, it (they) never fall, and as everything around them that is not good dies, they rise above.

2. How is the poem structured, and how doe the structure support its meaning?  Consider parallelism, order, and the turn in the poem.

Answer:

The poem has four stanzas four lines each, and his the rhyme: ababcdcdefefghgh.  Each stanza is one sentance, that describes different things. The day, rose, spring and soul are all sweet. It is ordered in a pattern of life span? The day is shortest, a rose in the ground will last a little longer, spring lasts a few months, finally a “good soul” will live the longest.  The turn is that the first three stanzas all end in death, the day will die, the rose will die, spring will die, but a “good soul” will continue to live.

3. How does prosody reinforce the poem’s meaning?

Answer:

The first three stanzas all have the same rhyme (stanza one; b, stanza two: d, and stanza three: e).  All end in die, and have a corresponding rhyming word.  The last stanza ends in live, and has the rhyming word give, this is unlike the previous rhymes.  This difference enforces the point of the poem, to live. Another difference that stands out is that the other three stanzas, except the last one, begins with sweet, the last begins with only.

1. What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight?  How doe these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?

Answer:

The “bell” is heard as quick and soft (and silver is that possible?).  The bell keeps beating, like the heart beats.  It is nighttime, (down and dark), and the only light is the emergency flare being sent into the sky.  The flare itself is ruby,  “pulsing out red light…” this is like blood poring out of a wound.  The imagery suggests that the accident was a fatal one, these images are the first warnings we get that the car accident was fatal.  The use of red and dark symbolize blood and death.

2. On the literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have: mangled (line 9), “tolls once” (line 11), “terrible cargo” (line 12), “rocking, slightly rocking (line 13), deranged and composed (lines 15 and 16).

Answer:

Literally, mangled is speaking about the bodies, they are horribly contorted, and unrecognizable. Mangled is used as a noun, actually to describe the bodies, suggesting how horrible the scene really is.  Tolls once (a verb) is the ambulance pulling away (church bell too, but that’s not literal).  Terrible cargo is the dead bodies the ambulance is carrying away from the scene, again this tells us how horrible the scene really is, like line 11, the bodies aren’t even called bodies, suggesting how terrible the accident really was.  Line 13, the ambulance is rocking on it’s wheels as it drives away.  Deranged suggests how shocked the witnesses are after seeing the seen, and seeing the police cleaning it up.  The police are the composed ones, unlike the crowd, they see these horrible accidents everyday, they are not distraught over what they just saw.

3. Analyze the metaphors in lines 3, 18, 22, 29-30.  What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem?

Answer:

In line 3 the emergency flare is compared to blood pulsing out of an artery .  Line 18 thereis so much blood that it collects like a pond, and streams like  a river into the gutter.  Line 22 a tourniquet is a compressing device used to control arterial circulation, their throats are so tight that not even blood can pass. The speaker compares seeing the accident to a wound one that will repeatedly open every time they remember what happened.  All these metaphors have to do with blood, or rather the death due to blood loss.  It is appropriate as the poem is about a car accident, car accidents are usually bloody.

4.  What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the simlie in 24-27?

Answer:

The theme of the poem is how violent deaths shock us to the core, and how they make us question life and death, (violent deaths have larger impacts).  The wreckage of the car is stuck/wrapped around the poles, like the cocoons of lotus (grasshoppers).  They are empty because the lotus are all grown up, (in this case, the passengers are dead). This metaphor is used because you have the image of life and growing, then the image of a car wrapped around a pole, its passengers dead. The simile is comparing the witnesses to people just getting over their illnesses, and they have been out of touch with the world, their jokes are grim.  They smile sickly, just trying to put up a good front.  They warn with common sense to begin driving more carefully, they use grim jokes and unoriginal thoughts to get their points across.  The witnesses are incredibly shaken (deranged).

1. Describe the form called rime royal: meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form.

Answer:

Rime royal consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter.  The rhyme scheme is usually ababbcc.  It can either be constructed either as a tercet and two couplets (ababbcc) or a quartrain and a terect abab-bcc.

(Thank you wikipedia), cause I didn’t know anything about it except the ababbcc rhyme.

2. What is the structure of the poem?  How do imagery and argument of each stanza develop and intensify the appeal?

Answer:

The poem consists of twenty-six lines in four stanzas of seven lines each, except in the last one that has five. The speaker is complaining about his lack of money throughout the poem.  In the first stanza the speaker is addressing his lady dear.  He is asking her for more money (perhaps for food? hevy=heavy?), and if he doesn’t get it, he will die.  The second stanza confuses me, I don’t know if he is  praising his lady, or if he is speaking of how wonderful gold is. He is addressing his lady in line 14, but the rest of the lines seem to be describing gold.  In the third stanza the speaker is flattering his lady, calling her his savior and the light of his life.  He wants to leave town with her, as she has money (he calls her his treasurer).  The speaker in this stanza also compares himself to friar or monk, infering (and confriming) to the fact that he is very poor, and has little to his name.  The last stanza is addressed to the king himself, that the king should make amends and give  the people more money.

3. In exploring the extended metaphor of the poem, consider how diction accounts for the humor of Chaucer’s parody.

Answer:

Well I just realized this, after answering the other questions, but I think the extended metaphor is that his purse is his lady dear? It would make sense, as the lady is light, and that would explain my confusion when he called the lady yellow-colored.  He calls his purse his savior, his queen, his light, his treasurer.  Diction creates humor as it is very amusing that he is comparing his purse to his lady, and calling an inanimate object all these titles that are used for amazing people.

4. How does the envoy(the shorter final stanza of a poem) continue the tone of the poem even as it addresses a specfic person?

Answer:

The speaker is still complaining about the lightness of his purse.  By complaining to the king he might have his problem fixed. The king may be able to make amends. In other words he might be able to fix the problems of the people.  It keeps the tone, as this stanza like all the rest have flattery, and have the speaker still complaining about his lack of money.

Spring and Fall Gerard Manely Hopkins

1. Hopkin’s short lyric shares some elements with the sonnet…What is the dominant meter and line length?  What is the rhyme scheme? Describe the poem’s structure.

Answer:

The poem consists of fifteen lines, and has perfect rhyme, that consists of two lines each, except in lines 7, 8, and 9, where the rhyme has three lines (sigh, why, lie.) The rhyme is as follows: aabbccdddeeffgg.  The poem has three to four accented syllables in six lines.

(According to the back of the book, this poem most closely reassembles the Italian sonnet.)

2. What is the effect of the frequent use of alliteration in the poem? Combined with assonance and consonace, what mood does this device create?

The overall mood is filled with sadness and sorrow, the speaker is trying to comfort Margaret as she grieves. Alliteration is located in line 7 (by and by, spare and sigh), line 8 (worlds of wanwood, leafmeal lie), line 11 (sorrow springs), and line 12 (heat heard, and ghost guessed). Line 7 by itself is a rhyme inside the poem.  Alliteration in line�8 slows the line down because of the sounds produced when you read it aloud, line 11 and 12 do the same.  Alliteration has a deeper meaning in the fact that when reading the poem aloud, it really does give a sorrowful tone to it.  Alliteration also connects previous lines and words together.

3. Comment on the effect created by such unsual diction as… How do the connotations of these words create the poem’s mood?

Goldengrove has to be a term used for trees whose leaves are getting ready to fall, as it is autumn. Unleaving refers to the leaves falling, this term is interesting because it makes you imagine leaves falling in a entirely new way. It’s like the leaves are falling off the tree all at once.  Fresh refers to new, Margaret is a child, she has a different way of looking at things, hence why she can imagine “goldengrove unleaving.” Wan means pale or sickly, therefore wanwood must refer to a pale color, a pale world of wanwood, perhaps suggests death? Leafmeal refers to the fallen leaves laying on the ground, and they are beginning to crumble into dust. A spring is a body of water, (of a sort), here the spring is created by the girl’s tears, over the fallen leaves.  Blight refers to disease (usually of plants and causes death), but since it comes before man, it must refer to the impending death of all men.

4. Anaylze the poet’s use of figurative language.  How doe it suggest the theme of the poem?

Answer:

The theme of the poem is that the knowing and fear of death lessens as we age, and learn the truth of it.  It is only as children that we fear it, as children have the largest “hearts”, children have a higher capcity for emotions. But as we get older, the “heart” gets to be more controled, and therefore, we have less fear. Our “mouth” and “mind” which come with expirence of death and life, can surpress our “heart” our emotions.  As a child, you don’t have the ability to comprehend death, but as you age, you do, and you think more with your mind, then with your heart, and this, you no longer fear death.  The speaker, no longer fears, and is trying to council the child who does.

The Oven Bird Robert Frost

1. Frost’s poem, like Hopkin’s, borrows from the sonnet form.  What is the meter, rhyme scheme, and structure?

The poem consists of 14 lines, the rhyme is as follows: aabcbdcdeefgf.  The poem consists of three lines about the bird, then the speaker interrupts, another line, the speaker interrupts, three more lines about the bird, the speaker interrupts, then four last lines about the bird.  The speaker interrupts to tell his own feelings.

(According to the back of the book, the poem has iambic pentameter and a nonce rhyme scheme.)

2. Paraphrase the three messages of the oven bird, then analyze the meaning of the word fall as it encapsulates the theme of the poem.

Answer:

The birds first message is that the leaves are now old, and that the number of mid-summer flowers, is 1/10 of how many there are during the springtime. The bird’s second message is that mid-summer is after the time when the blossoms of the pear and cherry trees fell like a shower that covered the the sky.� And that the fall that we call fall is coming, in other words autumn is on it’s way. The bird’s third and final message is that the dust of the highways that man made, coats the true beauty of nature. There are three falls in the poem, one is in spring, the blossoms falling, the other is autumn, the leaves falling, and the third, the third fall is represented by lines 10-14. The fall of man, as our “dust” covers everything, and everything is diminished.

3. Paraphrase the last four lines of the poem.  How does the oven bird symbolize the human condition?

The bird represents the feelings of loss that we as humans are facing when we look at the world it is now.  The bird’s song is a message to the other birds, that spring does not last forever, it dies and gives way to summer, that dies and gives way to autumn. The bird’s song is telling us that mankind is ruining nature, and it sings it’s sad song for the past, when the world wasn’t a “diminished thing”.

Yeah I don’t think I did that great with this one, and to top it off, I lost half my work and had to redo it, cause edublogs went down, and it didn’t save it, and I didn’t realize, and went to publish, and bye-bye work.

So, was anyone else happy about the snow day? Or disappointed?

 1. Descibe a villanelle by explicating the stanza pattern and the rhyme scheme of the poem.  How many different end rhymes are in the poem? How many times is each sound repeated?  Which words are repeated exactly at the ends of the rhyme, in what pattern?  How does the last stanza use the rhyming words? Why is this appropiate at the end of the poem?

Answer:

The poem consists of six stanzas, that have three lines each.  There are two different end rhymes, words that rhyme with Hello, which we will call A, and those that rhyme with fine, which we will call B. Rhyme A is repeated thirteen times, while rhyme B is repeated six times. The rhyme scheme for the first five stanzas is aba, and for the last it is abaa. The words ‘hello’ and ‘know’ are repeated often, hello  four times (lines 1,6,12, and 18), know is repeated four times (lines 3, 9, 15, and 19).  The last stanza uses both words, and it helps reinforce and repeat the poems meaning.

2. Isolating the b rhymes (middle line of each tercet) gives us this list: fine, wine, nine, line, pine, sign.  What is the significance of each of these words to the whole poem?

Answer:

Fine is a term we use when some one asks how we are, one we use when we don’t really care to reply. Wine is a great start to a romantic relationship.  Nine is the time when the relationship ends (when they say good-bye). A line is what we use to pick up someone, it also suggests that the speaker is right, it’s always a story, therefore its scripted. Pine here can be “the tall white pine” suggesting that winter is coming, meaning a cold time in the relationship.  It can also be that you are pining away, longing. Sign is used as here as a stop sign, the relationship ends (good-bye).

3. Incremental repetition tends to augment meaning and accumlate significance.  What variations in meaning are present in the following groups of repetitions and what is their effect?

Answer:

Line 1: This is merely the first Hello’s, just “the way to begin”.

Line 6: Having lunch, another hello, apparently more simple, and sane, when it really isn’t, unlike the first hello, this one begins a relationship.

Line 12: Hello here is used to enforce the speaker’s thoughts that all relationships are the same, the story begins with hello, and ends with good-bye.  The hello is always the same.

Line 18: This line reinforces line 12. It is very cold, suggesting that “hello and good-bye is the only story.”

Line 3: The first good-bye is merely a parting, you meet again.

Line 9: Is more sad, it suggests that in the end good-bye is a story we all know, this good-bye is worse then the first.

Line 15: This good-bye is the worsest. This is not in the end. This good-bye IS the end. The end of every relationship, the end of every story.

Line 18: This good-bye reinforces the idea that every relationship is just the same old story, like the final hello it is very cold.

Line 3: This begins the idea that every story has the same beginning and end. The speaker mentions why should they pretend, as good-bye always follows hello.

Line 9: Reinforces the previous line.  We all know the story, so why bother reading into the details?

Line 15: Like the line for good-bye is cold, both in meaning, and literally.  It is the cold night, when we know for sure that this story ends, this relationship ends with the word good-bye just like all the rest.

Line 19: Repeats we know twice, suggesting that the speaker is filled with sadness in the truth.  It’s like when you say “I know, I know”, you feel defeated, the speaker feels that way as well.