The riddle 7 of the Exeter book portrays a swan’s life through its movements using verbal variations, antithesis and various other literary devices. the riddle describes a bird’s passage from treading the land to flying high above in the clouds. The opening line focuses on the bird’s garments and its habits. The next few lines emphasise on the creature’s flight as it flies over homes of men. At last, the bird sings out clear and transforms into a travelling spirit. In addition, the riddle, focuses on the swan’s versatility and its relationship with man. Exeter riddles are known to have a similar meter with a rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Riddle 7 opens with ‘My garment is silent (Hrægl mīn swīgað) when I tread
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The swan has its own habitat and is comfortable enough to interact with the human occupied land. Throughout the riddle there are continuous mentions of the mute swan’s feathers. In lines 6 and 7, the swan’s feathers sing a melody as compared to when they were silent in line 1. According to a certain old myth, it was believed that swans, particularly silent creatures, sing the most beautiful melody just before dying. The use of “traveling spirit” helps solidify the idea of the swan singing the most beautiful melody and soon dying. This aspect of the swan’s life cycle will further be discussed below.
The striking antithesis of “silence” and “sound” in the riddle 7 is one of the most significant features as it draws the reader’s attention of how the mute swan transforms from a cygnet to an adult swan. In fact, from the opening line itself -- Hrægl min swigað, the riddle establishes the contrast between the two. In addition, the riddle utilizes four alliterative verbs swīgað, swōgað, singað, swinsiað which creates a heavy parallelism in midst of the contrast. This adds a rhythmic and alliterative pattern in the riddle, giving it more unity and direction. Furthermore, the rhythmic repetition of the ‘sw’ sound may imitate the sound of the bird’s wings during flight. The ‘sw’ sound can be considered a clue left for the audiences to identify the bird species in the riddle. The
Nevertheless, in the poem ‘Nesting time’, Stewart interprets a personal experience in first person of the appearance of a bird that lands upon his daughter and forgets the thought of the harsh world. Stewart’s descriptive language repeatedly explains the poem as if seen in his viewpoint, beginning with an interjection, ‘oh’ communicating of his incredulity of an ‘absurd’ bird. Symbolizing the bird with strong coloured imagery its ‘mossy green, sunlit’, described to be bright and joyful, with sweetness shown with the type of bird, ‘honey-eater’, Douglas Stewart takes the time to describe its admiration juxtaposed to the dangerous world surrounding it. While visualizing the birds actions, ‘pick-pick-pick’ of alliteration and repetition of its
Among other animal imagery, birds appear frequently throughout the story in times of crisis. The birds often foreshadow dangers that lie ahead. For instance, when Robert's team takes a wrong turn, "the fog is full of noises"(80) of birds. Then the birds fly out of the ditch and disappear. Robert and Poole know that "[there] must be something terribly wrong...but neither one knew how to put it into words. The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them. There was an awful sense of void--as if the world had been emptied" (81). The birds return and when Robert nears the collapsing dike and "one of the birds [flies] up cut[s] across Robert's path" as if it is trying to prevent him from going any further. Robert does not heed the warning and almost dies in the sinking mud.
Birds appear frequently throughout the story, especially in times of crisis. The birds often present themselves as omens for dangers that lie ahead. For instance, when Robert's team takes a wrong turn, "the fog is full of noises" of birds (80). Then the birds fly out of the ditch and disappear. Robert and Poole know that "[t]here must be something terribly wrong...but neither one knew how to put it into words. The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them. There was an awful sense of void--as if the world had been emptied" (81). The birds return and when Robert nears the collapsing dike, "one of the birds [flies] up and cut[s] across Robert's path" as if it is trying to prevent him from going any further. Robert does not heed the warning and almost dies in the sinking mud.
“The only sounds I could hear above the trotting of the pony’s hooves and the rumble of the wheels and the creek of the cart were sudden harsh weird cries from birds near and far.”
In The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall, Arthur is seen as a troubled kid, because of November’s accident. Of course it is not a normal thing to throw a brick at a random person, for no reason. Although Arthur claimed in front of a judge and jury that the reason he threw the brick was not the color of his skin, but because of the hat that he was wearing. The judge then sentenced him to 120 hours of working for James Hampton, the man hit with a brick, while he recovers from his injuries. Arthur goes through an adventure every Saturday. Exploring what is considered a “shady” neighborhood. Arthur’s views of Mr. Hampton change over the course of the 120 mandatory hours. Mr. Hampton is no longer seen as the “crazy junkman” but he’s
Survivors guilt.... An emotion brought on by a traumatic experience. Thing like watching a fellow soldier or close friend die. In the story, “ The Seventh man” The narrator Goes through watching the death of his best friend K. This experience bring on survivor's guilt talked about in the story “The Moral logic of survivor's guilt.” Even though the narrator of the story had watched K die, he should have been able to forgive himself. Although there is a cost to surviving, no matter what he told himself it was not his fault that K had died so tragically.
The poet orders his listener to behold a “solitary Highland lass” reaping and singing by herself in a field. He says that anyone passing by should either stop here, or “gently pass” so as not to disturb her. As she “cuts and binds the grain” she “sings a melancholy strain,” and the valley overflows with the beautiful, sad sound. The speaker says that the sound is more welcome than any chant of the nightingale to weary travelers in the desert, and that the cuckoo-bird in spring never sang with a voice so thrilling. Impatient, the poet asks, “Will no one tell me what she sings?” He speculates that her song might be about “old, unhappy, far-off things, / And battles long ago,” or that it might be humbler, a simple song about “matter of today.” Whatever she sings about, he says, he listened “motionless and still,” and as he traveled up the
Thus, through the initial impression of the man of the bird’s brave and challenging movements by the utilisation of poetic techniques, the reader is able to visualise the bird’s characteristic it inherits and gain a deeper understanding of nature and the impression of humanity distinctively.
The Odyssey is an epic composed by Homer, an early Greek storyteller. This epic was the basis for Greek and Roman education. Epics are long poems marked by adventure. The main character in an epic is an epic hero.
Diction affects the tone of the passage. Starting from line 14, the diction evolves into a more negative view. He uses biblical reference towards the beginning of the stanza. He begins to analyze his surroundings more rigorously, and sees the differences in how they look from a distance, to how they appear close by. Once this negative connotation has begun, the flock is said to be “paled, pulsed, compressed, distended, yet held an identity firm” (Lines 20-21). The author’s choice of words as in “less marvelous” (line 25) indicates his intention for making his lines definite, giving it a solid state of meaning. It symbolizes that the feeling of someone longing for something, and once they receive it are not as impressed by it. The diction plays a critical role when the tone of the qualities of nature are exposed. The author conveys the “trumpeting” of the geese as an exaltation to the beauty and simplicity of nature. “A cloud appeared, a cloud of dots like iron filings which a magnet underneath the paper undulates” (Lines 16-18). The iron filings in this phrase symbolize the issues the man faces. Once he looks closely at the flock, he realizes that these issues are only miniscule and do not add up to life in general. This elates him, thus concluding him to lift his heart.
Hurst uses foreshadowing to convey the narrator’s pride throughout the story. A red bird flies into the family’s yard while they are eating, and makes strange noises like it’s sick or dying. It’s not from the South, and must have been blown in by a storm. The author describes the bird, “At the moment the bird began to
At the bird’s appearance and apparent vocal articulation, he is at first impressed, then saddened. He compares this evening visitor as only another friend which will soon depart, just as “other friends have flown before” (58). But the raven again echoes quite aptly his one-word vocabulary, thus leading the man on to think more deeply about the possibilities that exist at this juncture. Somewhere deep inside him, he has realized that it doesn’t matter what question he poses, the bird will respond the same.
the bird in the fifth and sixth verses, and so the bird returns to its
‘How can a bird, born for joy/sit in a cage and sing?’ PG:48. This poem analyses how, if you are not happy, someone you don’t want to be, you cannot feel joy. A bird is supposed to be free, and how could it be happy if its home is taken away? Someone like Skellig is trapped in a garage, Michael is trapped in his fear, Mina is trapped in her opinions and baby Joy is trapped between life and death, once these three characters find the key and open the door to the metaphorical cage, they can sing once more. William Blake sends meaning through his poems, and now through Skellig; he contributes his poems to the novel as an important and meaningful
Keats artfully notes that the only sound in the night comes from the nightingale’s singing; alternatively, the sole nightingale is the only sound that poet-speaker can hear in his reflection, implying that the bird is as solitary as the poet-speaker, as most birds sing during the day. Yeats, however, comments on his loneliness indirectly with the mention of “nine-and-fifty swans” that he has been counting for nineteen meticulous autumns. Swans, famous for finding mates for life, characteristically live in pairs and are known to create a heart shape with their necks-- Yeats recognizes this explicitly later in the poem by observing that they travelled “lover by lover.” Thus, the inclusion of the odd numbers is not coincidental and raises a question of why Yeats chose to use “59” and “19” in particular. Perhaps the speaker of the poem has lost his spouse and feels lonely, or perhaps he has yet to find a spouse and will soon die-- in either case, the solitude is strongly apparent by the lines, “I have looked upon those brilliant creatures (“lover by lover”) / And now my heart is sore.” Additionally, 59 swans in one area is an uncommon sight and catches the guaranteed attention of any passerby and suggests an element of meticulousness from the speaker. By including the absurd number of swans in his sight, it is as though