Poetry Questions (ch 5&6)

Bereft (pg. 787)
1. It is the end of the day in the fall. The speaker is standing on the porch of an old house (that is in pretty bad shape). There is a storm brewing.
2. The comparison reflects the apprehension of the speaker for the storm, but at the same time he doesn't feel scared. He doesn't move when the imagined snake moves to attack him and that is why he isn't actually hit by them.
3. A hiss is a sound that usually makes people want to step back. This reinforces the idea that the speaker is alone because all of his loved ones have stepped back from him.
4. The speaker's life is compared to his empty house. The wind is compared to a monster/beast (such as a lion or tiger), reinforcing the speaker's lonliness and helplessness. The door is restive because it has the power to shut things out. Figuratively, this makes the door seem secure because it separates the speaker from his feelings of lonliness.
5. The tone can easily be figured out by the title "Bereft." The speaker feels lost and lonely and the reader isn't reassured by the last line of the poem. They are left to feel bereft just like the speaker.
It sifts from Leaden Sieves (pg. 788)
1. "It" is the snow.
2. (ln. 1-2) the snow is compared to dirt (which is sifted) or metal which has to power to powder trees.
(ln. 17-18) snow is compared to a serving maid who takes care of royalty and dresses the queen.
3. Leaden sieves: this reflects the dark (leaden) color of the clouds that the snow falls from
alabaster wool: this represents purity. Both the reference to wool (baby sheep) and alabaster (very expensive) are meant to reinforce the purifying nature of the snow.
even face: the snow is powerful enough to smooth out mountains and plains
unbroken forehead: no wrinkles to detract from the purity
a summer's empty room: the weather has the power to make people do things, like go outside when it's warm or stay in when it's cold and blizzarding
artisans: the snow is creative and shapes the whole world into something that is smooth and beautiful.
The Subalterns (pg. 791)
1. subalterns: lower in position or rank
wight: a human being; creature
ark: a place of shelter or refuge
fell: of an inhumanely cruel nature; fierce
owned: to acknowledge or admit; to confess
2. All four personifications view humanity as a limitation. They each have the attitude that they say they don't want to harm the speaker, but they have no choice. We know that they actually slightly enjoy their work. They are passive to the human's feelings.
3. The speaker and the four personifications acknowledge and smile at each other. The speaker reckognizes their passive stance on their jobs and feels hopeless in life. He becomes resigned to the fate he has of being weakly mortal.
Exercses on pg. 796
1. Metaphor. Day= haughty. Urn= filled. The day/time passes without consideration for anything else. Because of this, the urn (a person) is filled with fire (life) in order to try and make a difference in the haughtiness. The urn is answering a challenge.
2. Simile. Words= sunbeams. When they are just small or few, they are warm and make you feel content, but when they are condensed together and hit too close to the truth, words have the ability to burn like the sun.
3. Personification. Joy, temperence, and repose= healty people. They don't need the doctor because they aren't sick, so they can shut the door in his face.
4. Metaphor. Pen= weapon. When the pen writes the truth, it can do more damage to a person's life than a real weapon can. It has the power to drive away friends and family and acquaintances.
5. Metaphor. Oath= straw. Blood= fire. The oath is something that is tried by the blood. Straw feeds the fire and makes it burn brighter. For some people, their word is as good as their blood.
6. Literal
7. Literal
8. Personification. Desert= beast. The desert is a dangerous place where many die. Here it is waiting to trap/hunt another person and kill her.
9. Literal
10. Literal
I taste a liquor never brewed (pg. 797)
1. debauchee: a dissolute person or a man who is morally unrestrained
foxglove: a plant with drooping/tubular purple or white flowers on tall spikes
2. The experiences of nature are compared to being drunk.
3. Pearls are too small to be a tankard to a person. This is more to show the narrator's connection with nature.
Molten blue inns= either the sky or some body of water. This helps to show the freedom that there is in this kind of drunkenness. An inn is where the drunks can finds rest.
Snowy hats are meant to reflect the snow-covered tips of the mountains.
4. Comic drunks lean on lamp posts. The seraphs wave at the nature-drunk and the saints run to the window to watch. This isn't a normal response for holy men to drunkenness.
Pink Dog (pg. 798)
1. scabies: contagious, itchy skin infection
sambas: a lively ballroom dance from Brazil
depilated: hair removed
2. The narrator speaks to the dog with a tone of curiosity/sympathy and warning. He isn't scared of it like many other people who pass by. At first, the speaker seems to just be warning the dog not to be caught as a beggar, but then he seems to form a kind of attachment to the dog and tells it to disguise its condition so it can come have fun at the carnival with everyone else.
3. The atmosphere helps the reader to see that the speaker's treatment of the dog might be similar or even better than the way beggars are treated. The speaker says the dog should cover up the nakedness with a carnival costume and a mask so it can go out and have fun. The dog relates to the beggar. They are outcasts, but for one night they can wear costumes and masks and no one will know the difference at the carnival.
To His Coy Mistress (pg. 803)
1. coy: annoyingly unwilling to make a commitment
Humber: a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England
transpires: to give off vapor containing waste products
2. The speaker is trying to get his sweetheart to have sex with him. She is bing "coy" because she doesn't want to lose her virginity before marriage.
3. If I had time to love you as slowly as you want me to, then I would. But time is passing and we are both growing too old for these things. Therefore, we should take advantage of our youth and do it now. The argument is valid in the fact that time is passing them by, but the speaker could eliminate this by just asking for his sweetheart's hand in marriage. He just doesn't want to have to make the commitment to her.
4. Vegetables are ever-growing, which is fitting for the argument the speaker is trying to make. The distance between the two rivers is contrasted by the closeness of the two birds of prey. The speaker would complain about the distance between them when he is by the Humber and she is by the Ganges River.
5. "time's winged chariot": time is running out. It is racing towards them both like a horse in the ancient Greek chariot races.
"deserts of vast eternity": deserts usually represent solitude. The speaker is suggesting that his sweetheart will be alone forever if she doesn't take this opportunity now.
"slow chapped power": they should eat up this moment quickly. If they don't take advantage of it now, it will never happen, not even if they try to savor it.
6. "Sun"= metonym for son. They can't make a child, but they can make the sun run quickly (make time pass swiftly).
7. The poem is principally about time. Making love is a way to make the time pass more quickly. The poet advances the philosophy that the purpose of sex is to make the time worth passing, not to show your complete and utter devotion for a person.
Dream Deffered (pg. 805)
1. "does it explode"= metaphor to a bomb. It is at the end, like the dream is at its end. The explosion is fitting because it destroys completely, just like the lost dream.
2. Knowing that the author was African American might make the reader think the poem is about the dream for equality. The fact that the dream exploded could suggest that there was a little bit of hope, but that was lost very quickly.
The Sick Rose (pg. 811)
1. Personification, imagery. Personification helps with the symbolism of the rose as a person, as one able to hate, love, feel, and die. The imagery helps the reader to better understand the symbol through the suggestion of darkness and secrecy.
2. The poem could also be interpreted as a deception, or a plan for assassination. The exclaimation of sickness in the beginning could be a person acting at their surprise. The worm in the night suggests at a secrecy and the howling storm holds an omen of death. "Found out" suggests that the "rose" was hiding from the killer (someone close to the rose).
3. Night: a time of secrecy and black magic. A time for murder.
Storm: a troubled relationship. This could be suggesting at feelings in the one doing the killing that they're trying to keep hidden because of being shunned before.
Digging (pg. 812)
1. drills: trench/furrow in which seeds are planted
fell to: got back to work
2. The imagery evokes the feelings of love and perhaps jealousy that the speaker feels for his father and grandfather digging in the potatoes. He shows us the physical aspect of planting potatoes and contrasts it with the "digging" he will do with his pen. He will be digging at people by writing harsh things.
Ulysses (pg. 818)
1. lees: the side sheltered from the wind
Hyades: 5 daughters of Atlas placed by Zeus in the heavens
meet: to pay; settle
2. Ulysses plans to sail towards Greece and Troy so that they can see the battlefields and be able to lay themselves/their guilt to rest.
3. Section 1: Ulysses speaks to his people about his unrest. He doesn't want to just be a figurehead who sits around doing nothing. He feels that doing so will destroy his country. Section 2: (still speaking to his countrymen) Ulysses leaves his country under the rule of his son, who he feels will do well with it. Section 3: Ulysses speaks to his mariners about their new journey. He is filled with pride for them and what they're doing, and he wants them to know he's glad to have them with him. I think Ulysses is standing at the front of his ship making the speech as he prepares to leave.
4. Tennyson represents Ulysses as a heroic figure setting out to free his country from the ruld of his idleness. He isn't making a sacrifice to do this because he wants to leave, but at the same time he isn't being selfish either. The author makes it seem like it really is better for his country if he leaves.
5. Ulysses symbolizes the nomadic way of life of a warrior. He travels to bring honor to his country. (lns. 1-4, 22-23, 43, 52)
6. West: the sun sets in the west, so it could symbolize the ending of Ulysses' career as a leader. It could also be symbolizing the beginning of the afterlife because Ulysses and his men are going into the light.
7. (18-21) Everything that I have seen is a part of me. Every experience creates an opening into the things that haven't been explored yet, and it disappears if I don't take the opportunity.
(26-29) Not a lot of life is left, but every moment holds a new experience of something more than death that would be selfish to keep to myself.
(23) A sword that rusts if it isn't used. (48) The good times and the hardships. Free hearts= free people/ no responsibilities. Free foreheads= no worry: free from wrinkles/frowns.
I started Early- Took my Dog (pg. 826)
1. This poem could be an attempted suicide. The woman goes out into the sea to drown herself, but then gets scared and runs out again. She fears that she will be forgotten if her body is taken by the ocean.
2. Sea= male because it's meant to parallel her situation in her home life. She fears that she will be "drowned" if she continues on in her relationship with this man. Ln 9: She wasn't worried by this man until she got in too deep, then she realized that she could really be hurt by him and she had to leave.
3. "My simple Shoe": The man she was involved with may have told her she was too plain and that's why she now views her shoe as being simple.
"overflow with Pearl": the woman has been led to believe that if she lets the man seduce her, then he can make her happy. He does this by giving her expensive gifts (such as pearls) to make her seem less plain.
"the Solid Town": she eventually sees that there is no security with this man/the sea. They are both always changing and unpredictable, so she returns to the place where she feels safe: a place that doesn't change.
4. Mermaids= pleasant. Mythical creatures are usually considered to be beautiful. Silver and pearls suggest at the experience being a "rich" one. The woman is both pleased by the man's attentions to her and scared of her emotions and being hurt.
Exercises on pg. 828
1. a) symbol
b) literal
c) metaphor
d) metaphor
e)symbol
2. "I heard a Fly buzz- when I died" is more symbolic, where Shapiro's poem simply describes the life of a fly and its relationship with people. Dickinson uses the fly's buzz to symbolize the expectation that comes when someone is about to die. The use of the fly shows how the speaker's loved ones sit around in silence as she prepares to die.
3. Blake's tiger symbolizes God and how he can be great and terrible at the same time, depending on how you look at His work.
4. a) symbolic
b) symbolic
c) symbolic
d) symbolic
e) literal
f) literal
g) literal
h) symbolic
i) symbolic
j) symbolic
k) symbolic
l) literal