Poetry Quiz

 

 

Rugrats - Hunter

Serenade by Oscar Wilde. Serenade is about the events that triggered the Trojan War, mainly, the kidnap of Helen. Helen was revered in Greek mythology as the most beautiful woman who had ever lived. The poem is written in iambic pentameter and has some repetition in the stanzas. The stanzas are arranged in a chronological order to tell the story from start to finish in a logical format. The tone of the poem is fairly serious. It has themes of passion and desire, selfishness, longing, and romance, that are conveyed in, at times, a desperate way. The narrator, Paris, the Prince of Troy, is thinking of his desire and what he believes to be love, and is asking his shipmates for reassurances in his quest for Helen. There is an emphasis on the symbolism of ships and maritime life. Many comparisons are made between sea life and the sea and the narrator's plight. Serenade is all about unrequited love and a deep longing for someone the narrator cannot have. The language in this poem is very “pretty”. It uses highly descriptive words and extravagant descriptions for simple things. This could be in an attempt to make the reader sympathetic to Paris, or an attempt to show Paris in a more shallow way due to his hang ups on appearances.

 

Show me your Litties - Jane Elizabeth

The group “Show Me Your Litties” chose to analyze the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth. By solely looking at the title of the poem, it seems as if the author may be lost in life and alone. But, as you continue, the words “fluttering” and “dancing” are used which may suggest the narrator may be lying down in a grass field looking up towards the sky letting go of everything in life and being in the moment. As stated in the analysis, it says the person is compared to a cloud wandering aimlessly through life, which in reality is usually what happens. For a person to be happy with any situation, they must have a positive outlook even when the going gets tough. The narrator also suggests having ago with the flow attitude like a “sprightly” cloud or a “fluttering” flower. The narrator’s heart is compared to a daffodil “dancing,” which suggests he/she may be in a good place.

 

Litaholics - Ryan
William Blake’s poem, The Chimney Sweeper, takes place in England in the 18th and early 19th centuries where child labor was common. The poem is narrated by a young child whose mother died when he was young and whose father sold him into chimney sweeping. The tone of the poem switches from sorrowful to hopeful. Sorrowful is seen when the children are forced out of their childhood into the shocking real world of work. By the end the tone switches to hopeful when the narrator’s friend, Tom, has a dream about being locked in a coffin and an angel comes to set him free. The dream Tom had was referencing to the fact that death will set them free. One major theme in this poem is suffering, all the child chimney sweepers are doing a dirty and hard job at a very early age which is known to cause death. The narrator’s friend, Tom, suffers from getting his head shaved which made him cry until the narrator was able to cheer Tom up. I believe the original audience were adults or educated officials that could see how child labor was causing children to struggle in finding hope that one day they will be freed. I think his main argument could have been that child labor needs to be revaluated.

 

I’d Lit That - Lindsay

The title of their poem is “A Birthday,” which immediately sets a tone of happiness. The narrator is the only character in this poem, and she is a cheerful, dreamy girl who is thinking about her wedding. I could almost see this narrator being a child or a young teenager, because the poem is so light and carefree. I picture the setting as the narrator just sitting in a garden somewhere outside, because she mentions “birds” and “apple trees.” While she sits in the garden, she’s also daydreaming about a beach, because the team’s presentation mentions a “rainbow shell in the water.” The general atmosphere of this poem is wistful and positive, like a happy dream. It seems like this poem would be something you write in a diary not really for any specific audience, just to capture your own happiness that day. I don’t think there is a main argument in this poem, it just seems like the girl is excited. I would explain it to others as a serene, dreamy story about a girl who is admiring nature and excitedly thinking about her future. I think the major concepts in this poem are the scenery the narrator describes and the language that denotes a happy attitude.

 

This class is Lit - Cole

“The Tyger,” by William Blake, is a poem that asks several existential questions about life and creation.  The title of the poem is simple and serves to set up the mysterious, and thought provoking tone of the poem.  The speaker of the poem is an unknown entity who questions why and how the tiger was created.  The poem raises many questions, and does little to supply the reader with answers instead choosing to allow the reader to find the answers themselves.  The poem does not tell of an event, but instead is a series of existential questions about the titular character.  The poem’s structure and rhythm help give it a calm and serene tone despite the fact that it raises several mind bending questions that no one has the answers to.   Due to the fact that the poem is a series of questions rather than the narration of an event it can easily be rearranged, and still have the same effect.  When taken at face value the poem seems to be about someone questioning the reasons for a tiger’s creations, but the poem is not that simple as it uses the tiger as a metaphor for life in general.  Therefore the poem is not so much about why and how a tiger was created, but about why and how anything and everything was created.  This is a deeply thought provoking poem as it raises questions that cannot be answered, questions about not only how we (living creatures) came into to being, but why we came into being.