1. Image
Meeting at Night (image, sense)
Robert Browning, 1812-1889
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
What sense/senses is/are used to create the image?
Grey, yellow, black: visual
Startled, leap, slushy: auditory
Sea-scented: olfactory, gustatory: salty
Tap, slushy: tactile
Scratch, heartbeat: kinesthetic
Visual; Auditory, Olfactory (smell), Tactile (touch), kinesthetic (fluttering of
insect, twittering of twig ), Gustatory (delicious taste),
2. Rhyme Scheme
A Metrical Feet
S. T. Coleridge (1772-1834)
Metrical feet - Lesson for a boy
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yea ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;-With a leap and a bound the swift Anapaests throng;
Stalk: To walk with a stiff, haughty, or angry gait:
Trochee: 扬抑格, 长短格
Spondee 扬扬格
Dactyl 强弱格，长短格
Iambic 揶扬格，短长格
Anapestic 抑抑扬格， 短短长
Trochee
/-
Spondee
//
Dactyl
/--
Iamb
-/
Anapest
--/
Amphibrach
sls
Amphimacer
lsl
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
1803.
From The House Of Life The Sonnet
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
A Sonnet is a moment's monument,
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent/omen, ,
Of its own arduous/strenuous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony, 黑檀树
As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearl'd and orient.
A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul,--its converse, to what Power 'tis due: -Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower 嫁妆 in Love's high retinue )随行人员,
It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, 似巨穴的
In Charon's 船夫 palm it pay the toll to Death.
Petrarchan sonnet
3. Discuss the imagery , the tone of the following poem
Death Be Not Proud
by John Donne
(1572-1631)
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die
This is a sonnet written in the strict Petrarchan pattern with 14 lines of iambic
pentameter rhyming abba abba cddcee. (proud, optimistic)
pity this busy monster, manunkind
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh
and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go
-- E. E. Cummings
His poems are somewhat dense and cryptic (ambiguous), and often require several
readings before one can truly appreciate them.
Though this is superficially similar to the Whitman poem, there is a significant difference.
The critical attitude and the somewhat sarcastic tone do not change the fact that
Cummings *has* appreciated the marvels inherent in science and technology. This is a
whole fallacy – not that Science is a dull grey blanket thrown over the face of Nature, but
rather that it is a glitteringly and dangerously seductive trap into which mankind - sorry,
man*un*kind, is walking with his eyes wide open. Actually, it's hard to call this one a
fallacy - the view is widely held, and not only by non-scientists.
Forget Not Yet
by Thomas Wyatt
Sir Thomas Wyatt* was a pioneer in bringing to English poetry the new forms of
the Italian Renaissance, especially the Petrarchan* sonnet.
Forget Not Yet
The Lover Beseecheth his Mistress not to Forget
his Steadfast Faith and True Intent
Thomas Wyatt (England)
Forget not yet the tried intent/ proved will
Of such a truth as I have meant; truth: loyalty
My great travail so gladly spent, travail: labor
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know,since whan
The suit, the service, none tell can;
Forget not yet!
Forget not yet the great assays, assay: trials
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet!
Forget not, yet forget not this－
How long ago hath been, and is,
This mind that never meant amiss- amiss: wrong
Forget not yet!
Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never movedForget not this!
Dream Song 40,
John Berryman, USA
John Berryman (1914 - 1972)
John Berryman, famous for The Dream Songs, is a poet who is very
non-traditional in his form. He "takes liberties with syntax and style". The
Dream Songs involves a syntax which Berryman partially adopted from
Shakespeare who was a big influence in his work. Some other major influences
in his life were Robert Lowell, and Yeats. In The Dream Songs, Berryman
speaks about his own life through a man named Henry. Henry is a middle-aged
American who must deal with paternal suicide, drunkenness, and other
problems that Berryman himself experienced. He speaks to an unnamed
friend about his issues, and his friend sometimes offers advice. There are
almost 400 Dream Songs which were originally published in 77 Dream Songs
and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. When they became a big hit, they were
published together in The Dream Songs.
Berryman married three times. His wives were Eileen Simpson (1942), Ann
Levine (1956), and Kathleen Donohue (1960). Berryman died on Jan 7, 1972
when he threw himself off a bridge in Minneapolis onto some frozen rocks in
the Mississippi River leaving behind his wife, two young daughters, and his
son.
Berryman often wrote about how he felt about his father's death in his poetry.
Berryman was also dependent on alcohol for thirty years and was treated
several times, drifting in and out of rehabilitation and psychoanalysis. His
addiction was another issue that had a large impact in his poetry. Berryman's
distinctive way of telling about his life through poetry was loved by many. He
won eleven awards: Oldham Shakespeare Prize, Poetry Society of America's
Shelley Memorial award (1948), American Academy award for poetry (1950),
National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1950), the Levinson Prize (1950),
the Guggenheim Fellowship (1952, 1966), Academy of American Poets, The
Pulitzer Prize(1964), National Endowment for the Arts award (1967), National
Book Award (1969), and the Bollingen Award (1969).
I'm scared a lonely. Never see my son,
easy be not to see anyone,
combers out to sea 卷浪, 拍岸浪
know they're goin somewhere but not me.
Got a little poison, got a little gun,
I'm scared a lonely.
I'm scared a only one thing, which is me,
from othering I don't take nothin, see,
for any hound dog's sake.
But this is where I livin, where I rake
my leaves and cop my promise, this' where we
cry oursel's awake.
Wishin was dyin but I gotta make
it all this way to that bed on these feet
where peoples said to meet.
Maybe but even if I see my son
抓住
forever never, get back on the take,
free, black & forty-one.
: Independently
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance, 暂时无效
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
This poem celebrates the poet’s self, but, while the “I” is the poet himself, it
is, at the same time, universalized. The poet will “sing myself,” but “what I
assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs
to you.” The poet loafs on the grass and invites his soul to appear. He relates
that he was “form’d from this soil,” for he was born here, as were his parents,
grandparents and great-grandparents. He is thirtyseven years old and “in
perfect health.” He hopes to continue his celebration of self until his death.
He will let nature speak without check with original energy.”
There are three important themes: the idea of the self, the identification of
the self with other selves, and the poet’s relationship with the elements of
nature and the universe. Houses and rooms represent civilization; perfumes
signify individual selves; and the atmosphere symbolizes the universal self.
The self is conceived of as a spiritual entity which remains relatively
permanent in and through the changing flux of ideas and experiences which
constitute its conscious life. The self comprises ideas, experiences,
psychological states, and spiritual insights. The concept of self is the most
significant aspect of Whitman’s mind and art.
To Whitman, the self is both individual and universal. Man has an individual
self, whereas the world, or cosmos, has a universal or cosmic self. The poet
wishes to maintain the identity of his individual self, and yet he desires to
merge it with the universal self, which involves the identification of the
poet’s self with mankind and the mystical union of the poet with God, the
Absolute Self. Thus the poet’s ecstasy is both physical and spiritual, and he
develops a sense of loving brotherhood with God and with all mankind. Even
the most commonplace objects, such as Leaves, ants, and stones, contain
the infinite universe.
The story concerns his awakening, his transendance into
everything and everyone, the limits of infinite, forays into the
world of masturbation and even subtle hints to his sexuality.
Whitman the poet starts off sitting on grass, he is soon
divided into three separate beings, (Me, I, and I Myself) and
thus he is awoken.
The persona of Whitman is in fact almost a microcosm of the
American self, all encompassing and powerful, but with
limitations and strength
5. Discuss the themes of the following poems.
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
In his poem 揊 ire and Ice?Robert frost compares and contrasts the two destructive forces:
fire and ice. In the first two lines of the poem he presents two options for the end of the
world: an end by fire or by ice. He takes the position of fire in the next two lines and
relates fire to desire. This comparison suggests that Frost views desire as something that
consumes and destroys. Desire does indeed have a way of consuming those it infects.
However, in the next stanza Frost makes the case for the destructive force of ice. He
compares ice to hate. This comparison relates to the reader a view of hate as something
that causes people to be rigid, unmoving and cold. Also, ice has a tendency to encompass
things and cause them to crack and break. The last line of Frost 抯 poem asserts that the
two destructive forces are equally great. Fire, or passion, consumes and destroys quickly,
leaving ashes in its wake. Ice, or hatred, destroys more slowly. It causes object to become so
immovable that they crack from the pressure created, leaving split fragments that once
were whole. From the views frost states in this poem it would be fair to extrapolate that he
believes the world will end in violent war for coveted things. However, Frost also could
conceive of an end of the world caused by people becoming too rigid, unmoving and set in
their ways and ideas that the world breaks apart into factions. Perhaps the destructive
force of ice described in the poem was at work in the 揷 old?war. The Soviet block was set
in its belief in communism, and the NATO countries were firmly convinced of the virtues
of capitalism and individuality. Cracks formed, creating fragments of a former whole,
Europe. Fire was at work in early wars in which nations desired more money and territory.
It may be fitting then that Frost said the second destruction would be brought about by ice.
Fire destroyed Europe in the World Wars, but was rebuilt and then destroyed by ice. Care
must be taken, evidently, to keep the world at room temperature.
(a profound sadness, too much hate)
Fog
What rhetorical device is used here? Explain in detail.
FOG
by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
USA
HE fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Carl Sandburg's poem, "Fog," is among the few exceptions that mark Sandburg's break from free verse poetry. Fog", a mere
six lines long, is written in verse-form and is an innocent expression of finding beauty in an ordinary world.
The poem begins with the simple line, The fog comes / on little cat feet. The narrator is comparing the movement of the
fog to the silent, spry footsteps of a cat, an animal who is able to creep toward its destination without warning. Fog
often arrives quickly, yet completely, as it covers a city or a harbor. Akin to a cat who does as it pleases, fog obeys
no rules,
often shrouding the surroundings like a blanket that does not allow any light. The cat is the ultimate stealth machine
in the warm-blooded animal world, moving silently through its world much as the fog does through its.
The narrator further develops the comparison between cat and fog in the second stanza of the poem. In this stanza, the
fog has arrived above the city where It sits looking / over harbor and city much as a cat does when it arrives at its
destination. The cat will sit and look out over the land or cityscape. Cats, from wild to domesticated, have a habit,
maybe an instinct, of looking over their surroundings from elevated spots. For example, the cougar watches from the
mountaintop or ledge, the lion from a hill overlooks the plains, and the house cat gazes from a tree branch or window
ledge. In each case, the cat acts as if it is the master of its universe, yet it holds many secrets that are never revealed.
Cats are notoriously fickle, refusing to be trained or to succumb to others' expectations of them. Similarly, the fog,
because of its power and mystery, remains elusive to those wishing to break through its impenetrable walls.
Next, the narrator states that the fog is sitting on silent haunches as it looks out over the harbor and city, and, indeed,
few creatures can sit as silently and patiently as the cat. Cats typically sit on their haunches as they stare out at
the world. This particular stance, unique to the cat, enables them to keep watch over their surroundings, but also be
ready to take off if necessary. When a cat is on its haunches, they cannot be captured because it is easy for them to
escape with a quick jump. This stance also implies that their presence is always temporary. Cats, like fog, are always
ready to move on when it pleases them.
Finally, the narrator explains that after looking over harbor and city the fog then moves on. Cats are known to be wandering
creatures, stopping for a time and then moving on from destination to destination. Again, the fog is compared to the cat
in that the fog hovers silently, but it never stays in one place too long. Fog either rolls on to another destination
or disappears altogether.
6. Poetic Devices
a. Explain the personification in the poem by Emily Dickinson
#530
You cannot put a fire out;
A thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a fan
Upon the slowest night.
You cannot fold a flood
And put it in a drawer, -Because the winds would find it out,
And tell your cedar floor.
b. Explain the effectiveness of the personification in the following poem, notice the play of words in the
poem.
Ogden Nash 1902-1971 USA
The Sea Gull
“Hark to the whimper of the seagull.
He weeps because he's not an ea-gull.
Suppose you were, you silly seagull.
Could you explain it to your she-gull?”
c. Identify metaphors, similes, and conceits in the following lines.
(1) My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified And carried Me away And now We roam in Sovereign Woods And now We hunt the Doe And every time I speak for Him The Mountains straight reply -
(Emily Dickinson)
(2)Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire. William Blake
(3) The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning
Wallace Stevens
(4) See! How she leans her cheek upon her hand;
O! that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek
William Shakespeare
(5) The Cambridge ladies...live in furnished souls. (metaphor)
E.E. Cummings’ [the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls] is an enigmatic, ironic and sarcastic poem
which reveals the unreal, fraudulent lives that the Cambridge ladies live. The poetic speaker’s tone is filled
with sarcasm and irony to show the contradiction between the Cambridge ladies’ actions and beliefs. This
discriminating voice is used when speaking of the Cambridge ladies’ Christianity, their communal identity, and
when speaking of their frivolous concerns. Depth and empathy, both of which the ladies lack, are juxtaposed
against the women’s emptiness and indifference. Collectively, the Cambridge ladies share the inability to connect
to their religion and to the exterior world that surrounds them. In addition, Cummings contrasts nature imagery
against the material and socially based Cambridge Ladies. Because these ladies are well endowed and isolated
from the outside world, they are not able to fully comprehend the reality of issues.
Through this comparing and contrasting, E.E. Cummings is able to show the superficial and fabricated world
that the Cambridge ladies have created. Although these women claim to be strict Protestants, their unsympathetic
behavior proves to be less than holy. The Cambridge ladies are not able to fully understand the harsh reality
of a world that lies beyond their trifle lives. Because they have already been given everything they need in
life without working for it, the women are content with their set ways and have “comfortable minds” ([the
Cambridge] ln. 2). These women have never known anything other than luxury and happiness. Thus, the
ladies have no reason to challenge their church’s or society’s customs.
The Cambridge ladies cannot comprehend hardships and therefore cannot internalize or empathize with the
outside world’s problems. Illustrating this lack of knowledge, the Cambridge ladies cannot even recall who or
what they are knitting for: “delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?/perhaps.” ([the Cambridge] lns.
8-9). Since the cause for which the women are knitting is possibly war or for some other seemingly desperate
situation, the adjective “delighted” used to describe the ladies’ hands is quite ironic. If the Cambridge ladies
were truly able to absorb the reason as to why they were knitting, they would be sorrowful and compassionate.
Their hands would not be “delighted” and they would not have “comfortable minds.” They would be very
disturbed and would probably end up questioning Christianity as well as their society’s practices. The consensus
answer to the question of whether or not they’re knitting for the “Poles” ends up being “perhaps,” exposing
the apathy the Cambridge ladies conjointly share about their volunteer work. Even though they have the “church’s
protestant blessings” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3), E.E. Cummings states that “the Cambridge ladies do not care”
([the Cambridge] ln. 11) about anything other than themselves. The word “protestant” is not capitalized,
infering that their Christianity is merely an undertone in their lives. If the ladies were to be good, genuine
Christians, they wouldn’t care about the “scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D” ([the Cambridge] ln. 10)
or about fitting into an idealized role. In effect, religion becomes a trend rather than a belief for the Cambridge
ladies.
e. Comment on the following lines from T.S . Eliot’s Burnt Norton
BUIRNT NORTON
(No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')
T.S. Eliot
I
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
The first of the quartets, "Burnt Norton," is named for a ruined country house in
Gloucestershire. This quartet is the most explicitly concerned with time as an
abstract principle. The first section combines a hypothesis on time--that the past
and the future are always contained in the present--with a description of a rose
garden where children hide, laughing. A bird serves as the poet's guide, bringing
him into the garden, showing him around, and saving him from despair at not
being able to reach the laughing children. The second section begins with a sort
of song, filled with abstract images of a vaguely pagan 异教徒 flavor. The poem
shifts midway through the section, where it again assumes a more meditative
tone in order to sort out the differences between consciousness and living in time:
The speaker asserts, "To be conscious is not to be in time," for consciousness
implies a fixed perspective while time is characterized by a transient relativity
(around the fixed point of the present). However, this statement does not intend to
devalue memory and temporal existence, which, according to the poem, allow the
moments of greatest beauty. The third section of "Burnt Norton" reads like the
bridge section of a song, in which the key changes. In this section, Eliot describes
a "place of disaffection"--perhaps the everyday world--which allows neither
transcendence ("darkness") nor the beauty of the moment ("daylight"). The fourth,
very short section returns to a sort of melody (some of the lines rhyme) to
describe the unattainable, fictional point of fixity around which time is organized.
This point is described as surrounded by flowers and birds; perhaps it can be
found in the rose garden of the first section. The final section of this quartet
returns to reality: Despite the apparent vitality of words and music, these must die;
the children's laughter in the garden becomes a mocking laughter, scorning our
enslavement to time.
The Four Quartets were written over a period of eight years, from 1935 to 1942.
These years span World War II; they also follow Eliot's conversion to the Church
of England and his naturalization as a British subject. These poems are the work
of an older, more mature, spiritually attuned poet, facing a world torn by war and
increasingly neglectful of the past. Each of the Four Quartets considers spiritual
existence, consciousness, and the relationship of the present to the past.
Whereas The Waste Land and others of Eliot's early works take an interest in the
effects of time on culture, the Quartets are concerned with the conflict between
individual mortality and the endless span of human existence. Accordingly, each
quartet focuses on a particular place with its own distinctive significance to
human history and takes off from that place to propose a series of ideas about
spirituality and meaningful experience. Each quartet separates into five sections;
Eliot used these divisions and the transitions between them to try to create an
effect he described as similar to the musical form of the sonata. The Quartets,
thus, display none of the fragmentation or collage-like qualities of Eliot's earlier
poetry; instead, Eliot substitutes an elegant measuredness and a new awareness
of language: Puns and other forms of wordplay occur with some frequency.
Eliot does not hide the ideas behind the poetry here. His meditations on time and
being are stated fairly explicitly and can be easily traced in the poem. "Burnt
Norton" is, however, a poem about distraction, and two of the more interesting
aspects of the poem are also two of its most understated moments. The first of
these surrounds the garden in which the first section is set. Certainly the
garden--"our first world"--references the Garden of Eden: A place of unattainable
peace (and in this case insight) that is normally forbidden to mere mortals but that
exists in memory and in literature as a standard to which everyday existence
must be unfavorably compared. Yet the garden is also a part of the ruined estate
from which this quartet takes its name; it bears the marks of human presence and
abandonment--empty pools and formal hedges gone wild. The wreck of the
garden brings to mind the ruins so prominent in Eliot's earlier poetry, except that,
here, ruins are a symbol of the futility of human aspirations and particularly of the
futility of trying to alter the natural order.
Ruins also call to mind fragments, especially of the kind that make up Eliot's
earlier poetry. The first line of the second section of "Burnt Norton"--"Garlic and
sapphires in the mud"--highlights Eliot's new attitude toward the fragmentary
nature of modern culture. This famous line juxtaposes a series of random things,
but the effect is not the atmosphere of belatedness and melancholy characteristic
of The Waste Land. Rather, the collage-like arrangements of this section form a
nearly coherent whole, a meaningless song that sounds traditional but isn't.
Again fragments and ruins stand in defiance of human aspirations, only this
poem does not lament that things once made sense and have now ceased to do
so; rather, it declares that coherence never existed at all--that meaning and
human experience are necessarily mutually exclusive.
The second center of interest in this quartet is constructed around the Chinese
vase and the ruminations on poetry in the fifth section. This section clearly owes
a debt to Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," with which it shares some of its
thematic concerns and its imagery. The Chinese jar represents the capacity of art
to transcend the limitations of the moment, to achieve a kind of victory over, or
perspective upon, time. In its form and pattern, in its physical existence, the jar is
able to overcome the usual imprecision of human expression. By emphasizing
form and pattern, Eliot suggests that poetry, which takes advantage of the
linguistic versions of these, may also be able to achieve transcendence.
Nevertheless, at the end there still remains the ghostly laughter of children in the
garden, mocking "the waste sad time" of the poet and of poetry. The place of
poetry and Eliot's own poetic practices will be a subject of scrutiny elsewhere in
the Quartets.
Try to find out the ambiguities in the first stanza of Keats’s
To Autumn
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd (葫芦), and plump the hazel （榛子）shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Analysis
Stanza I:
Keats describes autumn with a series of specific, concrete, vivid visual images.
The stanza begins with autumn at the peak of fulfillment and continues the ripening
to an almost unbearable intensity. Initially autumn and the sun "load and bless"
by ripening the fruit. But the apples become so numerous that their weight bends
the trees; the gourds "swell," and the hazel nuts "plump." The danger of being
overwhelmed by fertility that has no end is suggested in the flower and bee images
in the last four lines of the stanza. Keats refers to "more" later flowers
"budding" (the -ing form suggests activity that is ongoing or continuing); the
potentially overwhelming number of flowers is suggested by the repetition "And
still more" flowers. The bees cannot handle this abundance, for their cells are
"o'er-brimm'd." In other words, their cells are not just full, but are over-full
or brimming over with honey.
Process or change is also suggested by the reference to Summer in line 11; the
bees have been gathering and storing honey since summer. "Clammy" describes
moisture; its unpleasant connotations are accepted as natural, without judgment.
Certain sounds recur in the beginning lines--s, m, l. Find the words that contain
these letters; read them aloud and listen. What is the effect of these
sounds--harsh, explosive, or soft? How do they contribute to the effect of the
stanza, if they do?
The final point I wish to make about this stanza is subtle and sophisticated and
will probably interest you only if you like grammar and enjoy studying English:
The first stanza is punctuated as one sentence, and clearly it is
one unit. It is not, however, a complete sentence; it has no verb. By omitting
the verb, Keats focuses on the details of ripening. In the first two and a half
lines, the sun and autumn conspire (suggesting a close working relationship and
intention). From lines 3 to 9, Keats constructs the details using parallelism;
the details take the infinitive form (to plus a verb): "to load and bless," "To
bend...and fill," "To swell...and plump," and "to set." In the last two lines,
he uses a subordinate clause, also called a dependent clause (note the
subordinating conjunction "until"); the subordinate or dependent clause is
appropriate because the oversupply of honey is the result of--or dependent
upon--the seemingly unending supply of flowers.
Comprehensive Analysis
Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The
But
And
And
woods are lovely, dark and deep.
I have promises to keep,
miles to go before I sleep,
miles to go before I sleep.
Iambic tetrameter u /| u/| u/| u/, rhyming
Rhyme scheme: aaba bbcb ccdc dddd
Images of this poem:
The author used inornate （朴素的）language, cantabile （如歌的）rhyme and flowing rhythm in this poem and traced out
a mysterious snowy scene in winter of England. The images in the poem can be divided into two kinds: visual images
(e.g. woods, house, village, snow, lake, harness bell) and auditory images (e.g. shakes of bells, the sweep of easy winds
and downy flake). They correspond to the sensory feelings of the author as well as the readers, and therefore create
vividness.
Theme:
In the poem, the author stands between the nature and the human society watching
the woods covered by the snow. There is no houses or villages even his horse does
not know whether his owner should rest at such a dark and cold place. However, the
boundless charm of the woods makes him get rid of his fear and enjoy the woods in
easy wind and downy flake. Finally the attractive woods makes the author calm down
and recollect his promise determining to fulfill his responsibility.
3. Major theme of the poem
As a traveler, the author stands between the woods and people facing the great attraction from
these two worlds. On one hand, he is tempted strongly by the mystery of the woods, on the other
hand, he also hope that he can reject this kind of seductive temptation and go back to the reality so
that he could be able to carry out hi promise. Here the theme may be the necessity to face the
responsibilities and duties inherent in adult instead of escaping the pressure and sadness of the
circumstance and the weight of responsibilities.
T.S. Eliot
The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot
(1888–1965).
Prufrock and Other Observations.
1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
1917.
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
10
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
20
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
30
In the room the women come and go
35
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
55
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
60
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
65
And how should I begin?
.
.
.
.
.
70
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
.
.
.
.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
.
75
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a
platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
85
Would it have been worth while,
90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
100
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along
the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
110
That is not what I meant, at all.”
.
.
.
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
.
.
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
120
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
125
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century (Williams 49). It is certainly not a love song like any that had been
written before. The second and third lines shock the reader because of their unusual imagery that would be out of place in a traditional love poem, describing the
setting sunlit sky as looking "like a patient etherised upon a table" (Eliot 3). This "etherised" outside world is the key to understanding all of Prufrock's views. He is
afraid of the increasingly industrialized and impersonal city surrounding him, and he is unsure of what to do and afraid to commit to any particular choice of action
(Mays 112). Paralysis is the main theme of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a dramatic poem by genre, because obviously Eliot himself was neither growing bald nor old when he began writing the
poem at the age of twenty-one (Scofield vii). The Prufrock character is perhaps a middle-aged man, going through his mid-life crisis and examining the choices he's
made in his life. Most of all, he takes a look at his regrets, and his failure with women. The main tone of the poem is that of weary, ironic self-deprecation (Mays 110).
Prufrock makes innumerable references to his growing bald, one of the more clever is the image of the grim reaper holding his coat for him so he can leave this
world, and snickering at his bald spot (Rosenthal 79). He attempts to make himself feel young again, by rolling his trousers and parting his hair in a style that young
people wear, but he knows that it is no use; he is growing old (Hammond 1). Prufrock's fear of growing old contributed to his paralysis.
As evidenced by the title of the book in which it was first collected, Prufrock wasn't as much a persona of the poet but an "observation." The poem begins with an
invitation by Prufrock to join him in his travels through a city that is growing increasingly modern, while Prufrock himself is afraid, or unable, to change with it. His
description of the way he sees his environment can elucidate much about the character himself. He describes "cheap hotels," restaurants with sawdust on the floor,
and frightening streets "that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent" (Eliot 3). The fog creeps up on the street as if it were a cat. The yellow lamplight
obscures more than it illuminates. If he is afraid of the modern world that awaits him, why does he wish to enter it? To Prufrock, this world offers him "an
overwhelming question" (Eliot 3). It is unclear whether or not he is physically traveling through the city, or whether he is describing the city so that the reader, his
sole companion, may understand the environment that causes him such distress. The "you" that is mentioned in the opening line is most likely intended to be the
reader. The epigraph preceding the poem, which is from Dante's Inferno 27.61-66. suggests this. The lines are spoken by Guido da Montefeltro, who is a false
counselor concealed within a flame, to Dante, who has entered Hell and is not expected to leave. The lines are translated:
'If I thought my answer were given / to anyone who would ever return to the world, / this flame would stand still without moving any further. / But since never from
this abyss / has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true, / without fear of infamy I answer you' (Ferguson 1230)
In light of this, it is apparent that we are like Dante and Prufrock is Montefeltro, and that his confessions are meant to be heard by only us. Since we aren't able to
escape the industrialized impersonal world any more than Prufrock is, he is safe to expose himself to us as fully as he is able.
The fragmentation of the images in the poem also shed some light on Prufrock's fears. He rarely says what he means, if he is even sure of it himself. Instead, like
the magic lantern throwing "patterns on a screen," the poem "Prufrock" is like a set of slides, showing us Prufrock's failures and experiences he's collected (Jeff 1).
Prufrock moves from streets to woman talking to images of woman and mythological creatures. There is no congruity in the poem.
The name "Prufrock" never appears in the poem, and instead the character asks himself if he should perhaps say he is Lazarus, and makes sure to mention that he
is not Prince Hamlet (Eliot 6-7).
Prufrock is different than Hamlet in several ways. Hamlet, unlike Prufrock, is a man of action. He doesn't ask himself questions like "Do I Dare?" because the
thought of whether he dare or not never occurs to him (Hammond 1). Hamlet is also very young and sure of himself, while Prufrock is neither of these. Hamlet and
Prufrock do share, however, in attempting to express the "inexpressibly horrible" (Rosenthal 83).
Prufrock is a character obsessed with time, most likely because his is running out. He continually tells himself "there will be time" in order to rationalize his lack of
action. To this point he has "measured out his life with coffee spoons" to make a futile attempt to hang on to every moment that passes, even if he doesn't do
anything with the moments that he's been given (Eliot 4). Prufrock is most likely middle aged, and going through his mid-life crisis, which Prufrock alludes to in line
80 by asking himself if he has "the strength to force the moment to its crisis?" (Eliot 6).
Prufrock wants to act and at first asks himself grandiose questions such as whether he "dare disturb the universe." By the end of the poem, he is unsure if he has
the will to do something less spectacular, like daring to "eat a peach" (Eliot 4-7). He asks us if he dares, to which the answer is invariably no.
The poetic form of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is an interesting one. As much as he breaks the traditions of the Romantic poets by introducing nightmarish
imagery about the outside world, Eliot also breaks tradition in the unusual rhyme and meter of the poem. "Prufrock" is not written as free verse as is usually
assumed, but:
tightly metrical blank verse with the five-stress lines frequently broken into two and three feet or one and four feet, these scattered about the poem, and with
scattered rhyme throughout, and the standard blank verse resolving device (as in Shakespeare's scenes) of a terminal rhymed couplet. (Williams 49)
By the end of the poem, Prufrock is imaging mermaids, or man's ideal vision of women sitting on the beach, but even in his imagination they do not sing to him.
When he is awakened from his daydream by a human voice, it is apparent that even in his fantasies Prufrock is paralyzed and non-active (Eliot 7). Paralysis is the
key theme that runs through "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."