423: 37. Astarte's bediamonded crescent. Astarte was the Assyrian and Phoenician goddess of the moon, and was usually represented with a crescent or new moon. Note Poe's beautiful imagery here. 423: 39. Dian. Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon, the chase, and chastity. 423: 44. the Lion. The constellation Leo, the fifth sign of the zodiac. 423: 46. Lethean. Causing forgetfulness. oblivion in Hades. Lethe is the river of 424: 64. Sibyllic. Prophetic. In classical mythology the Sibyls are women endowed with prophetic powers. 424 77. legended tomb. Having a legend inscribed on it. THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (r) What is the tone of this poem? (2) Make a list of the principal words and phrases which help to intensify this tone. Have the selection of the time of year and the strange proper names anything to do with the dominant tone? (3) How do you interpret the poet's companion, Psyche? (4) What is the theme of the poem? (5) Make an outline showing the development of the theme. (Suggestion: the setting; mood or state of mind of the lover; the talk with Psyche; the rising of Astarte; Psyche's warning and fearful distress; the calming of Psyche's fears; the tomb of Ulalume; the effect of the memory of her death.) (6) If the rising of Astarte with her crescent, or new moon, means Poe's new love, whom does Dian represent? (7) Could the Lion be taken as the symbolic guardian of the poet's heart? (8) Interpret Psyche's mistrust and fearful distress. (9) How did the poet quiet her fears? (10) What do you think is the full meaning of 'tempted her out of her gloom" and "conquered her scruples"? If Poe was trying to make up his mind to marry, what finally stopped him from doing so? (10) Show why the last stanza is a satisfactory ard artistic close. (Note how it reverts to the opening lines, and how it reechoes parts of the first and third stanzas almost verbatim.) (11) The stanzas range from nine to thirteen lines of three-stressed anapestic rhythm. Scan one or two stanzas, noting any variations or irregularities that occur. (12) Study the rime scheme. Is the model consistently followed? Notice that each stanza is made on two riming sounds, one feminine and one masculine. (13) What repetition and refrain effects do you notice? INTRODUCTORY: Eldorado (Poe) "Eldorado" is one of Poe's latest poems, appearing first in Flag of Our Country, April 21, 1849. EXPLANATORY: 425 6. Eldorado. From two Spanish words, el, the, and dorado, gilded, the name of a fictitious city or country of fabulous gold supposed by the Spaniards to be located somewhere in central South America. Poe uses it as a symbol for the unattainable ideal or aspiration of the human spirit. 425: 21. Valley of the Shadow. Referring to Psalms 23:4, and implying that the ideal is reached only after death. THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (1) What stages of life do you find recorded in the four stanzas? Make a statement of the theme of the poem, and outline it by giving a topic for each of the stanzas. (2) Give details showing the changing mood and appearance of the knight from stanza to stanza. (3) What is symbolized by the "pilgrim shadow" or "shade"? (4) Give your interpretation of the meaning of the "Mountains of the Moon" and the "Valley of the Shadow." (5) Is there a note of resolution or courage in the last stanza? (6) Apply the thought of the poem to Poe's poetical aspirations. (7) Apply it to your own aspirations. Can you draw a lesson from the poem for your own guidance in life? (8) Compare the poem with Longfellow's "Excelsior." (9) Analyze the meter and stanzaic form, noting all irregularities and their effect on the quality of the verse. INTRODUCTORY: Spring (Timrod) This poem was written in 1862, the first year of the Civil War. It indicates the direction Timrod's genius was taking and gives us some hint of what he might have accomplished in poetry had not the war hastened his decline in health and fortune. The last five stanzas show the state of mind of the poet and the people of the South toward an army of invasion from the North. At the close of the terrible struggle, Timrod, though broken in health and spirit, could still write encouragingly to his fellow-citizens, "Spring is the true Reconstructionist,—a reconstructionist in the best and most practical sense. There is not a nook in the land in which she is not at this moment exerting her influence in preparing a way for the restoration of the South." EXPLANATORY: 430 5. jasmine. This is the yellow jasmine, one of the sweetest of all southern wild flowers. 430: 26. spring up all 431 35. the flowers. azure gems. This refers to the tiny little bluets which over the South in the early spring. enamored South. That is, the South Wind in love with 431: 47. Dryad. A spirit or wood nymph whose life is bound up with that of a tree. THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (1) In what tone or mood is the first movement of the poem written? The second? (2) Do you think the two lyric motifs in the poem are successfully blended or do you think the lyric unity would have been better if the last five stanzas had been omitted? (3) What do you understand by "nameless pathos"? (4) Explain the figurative expressions in the second stanza. What do you think of this stanza as to its poetic quality, especially in its appeal to the esthetic sense? (5) In plain prose we say that the sap rises in the trees in the early spring. How does Timrod express this poetically? (6) How does he present the coloring of the maple and the elm buds? (7) What use does he suggest for the bluets? (8) What other flowers are mentioned? Does the poet give simply a catalogue of them, or does he designate each by some significant touch of beauty? (9) Explain lines 29-32. (10) Lowell emphasized June as the month of spring in New England. Is Timrod right in presenting May here? Why? (11) What caused the outburst of feeling in the last five stanzas? (12) Draw the contrast of spring in war time and in peace as suggested by the poem. INTRODUCTORY: Ode (Timrod) This Ode was sung in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, in 1867, on the occasion of the memorial service held on the day set apart for decorating the graves of the Confederate dead. It is one of the last productions of Timrod, and may in a sense be called his swan song. In its classic restraint and finished beauty it may well be considered his finest poem. It is called, simply, "Ode," because of its elevated quality and its seriousness of tone. The English poet William Collins wrote a poem very similar in form and theme, which he called "Ode Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746," commemorating the British soldiers who fell in the War of the Austrian Succession. Timrod has often been compared with Collins, in his life and poetic temperament as well as in individual poems, so it seems desirable to reproduce here Collins's "Ode," that the two poems may be more closely compared. ODE Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746 "How sleep the brave who sink to rest "By fairy hands their knell is rung, EXPLANATORY: 432 2. fallen cause. The cause of State Sovereignty, or the right of the Southern States to secede and form a Confederacy. 432 3. marble column. A commemorative bronze figure of a color-bearer upon a granite base has since been erected in Magnolia Cemetery. 432 5. In seeds of laurel. The laurel or bay has been from ancient times a symbol of honor. The poet here conceives that the honor due to the southern soldiers is yet only in the seed, but in imagination he sees the full-blown blossoms, even while the seeds are still in the earth. 4329. behalf. A poetical condensation for "in behalf of." 432: IO. storied. Containing or suggestive of the stories of valor. Compare Gray's use of the word in his famous Elegy, where storied means pictured images or inscriptions: "Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?" 433 13. shades. Spirits. 433 15. cannon-moulded pile. A lofty commemorative monument made or molded from the brass cannon used in the war. 433 16. bay. Charleston Bay. Locate it on your map. THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (1) What concrete object is given strong emphasis in line 1? This may be called the initial impulse or occasion of the emotion of sorrowful reverence for the dead heroes. (2) Give a phrase for the principal thought in each of the five stanzas. Notice that stanzas I and 2 belong to the first thought movement, while 3 and 4 are the answering thought, and in stanza 5, the most beautiful of all, the two thought movements are united into a grand climax. (3) What figure is suggested by the word craves? (4) Can you think of a fullblown blossom in a seed that is yet in the earth? Can you think of a shaft in the stone "waiting for its birth"? This is an extremely imaginative stanza. (5) What does the poet mean by "blossom of your fame"? (6) Has the prophecy of stanza 2 been realized? (7) Explain "your sisters.' (8) Interpret fully the thought in stanza 4. (9) Exactly what do the words valor and beauty mean? Notice the fine effect of the two adjectives used with these words. (10) Study closely the sad, solemn beauty of the picture in stanza 4. (11) The stanzaic structure is extremely simple and natural, but this quality of simplicity and naturalness adds to the subdued tone and chaste imagery of the whole lyric. Determine the rhythm and the number of stresses in the lines, and read the poem slowly and quietly, to bring out fully its tonal quality. (12) Memorize the last stanza. (13) In a brief composition make a comparison of Collins's "Ode" (see the introductory note above) with Timrod's. INTRODUCTORY: Aspects of the Pines (Hayne) This is a good sample of Hayne's nature lyrics, of which he wrote a great number. THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (1) What is the plan of this poem? Do you think it is a good one? Why? (2) Give a title for each of the three distinct pictures and thus make an outline of the lyric movement. (3) Are the adjectives in the first line well chosen? Why are these adjectives repeated in line 5? (4) Why is the foliage called fadeless, line 3? (5) Trace the effect of the presence or absence of the breezes throughout the stanzas. (6) Do you admire the picture of twilight in the last two lines? Why is the star called tremulous? Composed in Autumn (Hayne) INTRODUCTORY: This sonnet was included in the 1857 volume called Sonnets and Other Poems. EXPLANATORY: 437: 4. augury. Omen of the future, forecast. THOUGHT QUESTIONS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (1) What is the initial impulse of this lyric? (2) Analyze the thought movement by quatrains. (Suggestion: The first quatrain suggests the scene or setting and states the adverse analogies suggested to different minds; the second and third quatrains describe in full the optimistic interpretation of life; the final couplet clinches the analogy by making the comparison suggested in the opening quatrain.) (3) What single figurative idea or analogy runs through the entire poem? Does this help to unify the impression? (4) Work out the rime scheme and determine whether it is the regular (Italian) model or the irregular (English) model. (See the paragraph on the sonnet, in the section on English metrics.) Song of the Chattahoochee (Lanier) INTRODUCTORY: This poem first appeared in Scott's Magazine, Atlanta, Georgia, in 1877. It is perhaps the most widely known of all Lanier's works; and naturally, for it is so simple and beautiful in its conception and so musical and artistic in its execution that even the youngest readers find pleasure in it. Professor Callaway speaks of this as "Lanier's most finished nature poem....the most musical of his productions." It is more than a nature poem, being in reality an artistic expression of the ideal of service. EXPLANATORY: 443 I, 2. Habersham . . Hall. Locate these counties in Georgia, and trace the entire course of the Chattahoochee. 443: 6. or or. Used for either. or, as often in poetry. See if you can find in your reading a similar use of nor . . . nor for neither nor. 443 17. for to. An archaic form, used also in line 43. Can you point out instances of the use of this idiom in the King James version of the Bible? 444 38. Made lures. Offered allurements for the water to stop. The idea seems to be that the water pouring over the stones makes them more dazzling and attractive. 444 43. fain. Willing, yearning. THOUGHT QUESTIÓNS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS: (1) Make an outline of the poem by stanzas, using the five questions following this one for suggestions. (2) How much of the river's course is summarized in stanza 1? (3) What objects are described in stanza 2 as delaying the water? (4) What objects attract the river in stanza 3? (5) What objects offer allurements in stanza 4? (6) What moral is drawn in stanza 5? (7) Apply the progress of thought in the poem to human life, stating just what allurements at the various periods of life tempt one from the course of service. (8) Who speaks throughout the |