Agenda
• Chapter 9 Practice Poems
– Loveliest of Trees
– Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening
• Multiple Choice Practice
• Homework: Complete poetry
homework assigned Tuesday
Chapter 9--Meaning and Idea
Perrine’s Structure, Sound, and
Sense
Coach Adams--Fall 2006
Two types of meaning:
• Prose meaning--the literal definition of
the printed words; this is like a
paraphrase or translation into easier
language
• Total meaning: the entire experience
communicated by the poem.
What’s the difference?
Compare:
• “I think she’s
cute!”
• versus
• “I think she is a
mysterious
beauty.”
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
--Lord Byron
How to find the total meaning:
• Identify the idea the poem is trying to
convey.
• Identify the emotion the poem is trying
to express about that idea.
A Very Important Point
• The quality of a poem is not dependent
on the importance of the idea or the
reader’s opinion of the emotion--rather,
it is dependent upon the craftsmanship
the poet uses to tie the two together.
• Readers (and art fans and music fans
and people who like intelligent stuff)
must be willing to entertain ideas with
which they disagree.
Partner Work
• With a partner, go through both poems
in the introduction of Chapter 9 and
explicate each together.
• “Loveliest of Trees”
• “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening”
• Discuss the contrasts between each
poem briefly.
Loveliest of Trees
• Carpe Diem Poem
• Expressing the philosophy that life is
short and that one should therefore
enjoy it fully while one can.
• The pleasure proposed in this poem is
the enjoyment of beauty, especially of
natural beauty, as symbolized by the
blossoming cherry tree.
Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening
• Why does the speaker stop?
• Stopping to watch beauty in nature, but
has other necessary tasks in life to
fulfill.
• He wants to fulfill both, but the
promises take precedence over
enjoyment.
Multiple Choice Practice
• 15 Minutes timed to read
and answer questions.
• Place in binder!
Homework-read for pies not
for plums.
• Read and answer questions for the
following poems. We will go over these
on Thursday, and I will take this as a
homework grade.
• “Design” by Robert Frost
• “O sweet spontaneous” by e.e. cummings
• “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt
Whitman
• “Kentucky, 1833” by Rita Dove