Name: _Donna Reed____
Period: ___3rd_____
TP-CASTT
Title: What predictions can you
make from the title? What are your
initial thoughts about the poem?
What might be the theme of the
poem?
Paraphrase: Rewrite the poem in
your own words.
Connotation: Write the connotative
or interpretive meaning of the poem.
What’s below the surface? What is the
connotative meaning of the poem?
Find examples of imagery, metaphors,
similes, etc. and elaborate on their
connotative meanings.
This poem has something to do with the dark and some type of bird.
My initial thought about the poem is that it could just be a description
of someone watching a bird or observing it. The theme of this poem
could be that
When the frost was ghostly gray and the depressing winter landscape
made the setting sun seem lonely and abandoned, the speaker leaned on a
gate. Twining plants, rising high, were silhouetted against the sky like the
strings of broken lyres. All the people who lived nearby were inside their
homes, gathered around their household fires. The countryside looked like a
corpse. The cloudy sky was the roof of the corpse's crypt, the speaker says,
and the wind its song of death. The cycle of birth and rebirth seemed to have
shrunken and dried up, like the spirit of the speaker.
But then he heard the joyful song of a bird, a frail old thrush, coming
from scrawny branches overhead. The song was a joyous outpouring against
the evening gloom. The dreary landscape gave the bird (thrush) no reason to
sing with such overflowing happiness. The speaker wondered where the bird
got this joy from and if it was of some hope of which he was unaware.
Even though it’s cold and sort of dreadful outside and on Earth, as the
speaker makes it seem, the bird has found some joy out of this whole
situation. When the speaker witnesses this action of the bird singing it
changes his mind set and perspective about the things about to happen
on Earth.
Attitude: What attitude does the poet The poet’s attitude towards the subject is envious and life changing.
have toward the subject of the poem?
 “When Frost was spectre-gray”
Find and list examples that illustrate
 “The land’s sharp features seemed to be the Century’s corpse
the tone and mood of the poem.
outleant”
 “In a full-hearted evensong of joy illimited”
 Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware.”
Shift: Is there a shift in the
tone/attitude of the poem? Where is
the shift? What does the tone shift to?
Title: Revisit the title and explain
any new insights it provides to the
meaning of the poem. Discuss the
meaning on an interpretive level.
Yes, the tone goes from dreadful, gloomy, and eerie in the beginning to
calm, hopeful, and life changing towards the end.
The poem is called “The Darkling Thrush” so this poem is set in the
dark and it has to do with a bird, which is the main focus of the poem.
The title does explain certain important aspects of the poem.
Name: _Donna Reed____
Theme: What is the overall theme of
the poem? What is the poet saying?
Period: ___3rd_____
Hope and perseverance
The poet is saying that even though Earth and the people on it are going
downhill, this bird finds peace and happiness through all of this with a
song.