Love and Loss
TEARS, IDLE TEARS
List three adjectives that the speaker uses to describe the past and explain how the adjectives are different or similar. Briefly state the tone of the poem. What does the speaker believe is precious about the past?
- Sad as the last which reddens over one
- Dear as remembered kisses after death
- Deep as first love and wild with all regret.
The three of them are different because the first one expresses sorrow, the second one expresses happiness and joy, and the third one refers to deep emotions, not necessary good or bad. The tone he uses to describe the past is the same as the adjectives, sad, strange, fresh, deep and undescribable. What is precious about the past is that it brought us to the present, and he seems very content with what he has done of his life, this meaning that he is sad for the past because he can’t live it again but he would not change anything about it.
Do you think the speaker had a joyous or miserable past? Why?
The speaker had a joyous past because otherwise he would not be sad about the fact that he can no longer live it, but joyful that he moved on from a miserable time. He is only sad because there are certain things he would not be able to experience again, sad because he leaves memorable things behind with no right to claim them back.
THE EAGLE: A FRAGMENT, FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL
Explain how each quotation reveals the message of the poem.
“Close to the sun in lonely lands”
In this poem the eagle is an independent animal, he travels the world alone, and this is how our truly state is in life, we are in fact alone, and yet dependent from many others.
“I could understand what you are… I should know what God and man is”
The speaker says that to understand what the flower is, is the same as to know what God and man is. The message I get from this poem is that there are certain things in life that we will not be able to explain but it is our faith in them that would make them believable.
What is the speaker’s attitude toward nature in each poem? Nature keeps amazing him, he compares flora and fauna with each poem, the eagly completely independant and yet so strong, and the flower coming out of a wall is something he cannot explain.
In what ways are the two poems different? They are both about nature, but one is about an animal, and the other one about a flower. One is about something that he can explain, something concrete, and the other one is about something “abstract” so to speak, something he cannot explain how it got there and what it truly is.
THE LADY OF SHALOTT
What associations do you have with the following words from the poem? Use words, symbols or images to communicate the ideas or emotions you associate with each of the following poem.
Cracked Mirror Curse Shadows.
Explain the meaning of the above words in the context of the poem.
I choose these images because I think they represent exactly what those words communicate to me.
Cracked: when one is feeling broken, incomplete, sad.
Mirror: the way we looks at ourselves in the mirror, the image we have or ourselves.
Curse: something we regret, maybe an action or a decision that is a curse.
Shadows: the past which hunts us down, things we cannot move on from.
Why do you think the Lady of Shalott becomes “half sick” of the shadows she sees in the mirror? Because it was part of her curse, the process of her death was relying on those shadows, from which she becomes half sick.
