Lesson of the Moth Poetry Analysis

“’ But this is merely a negative definition of the value of education’” (23-24). Mark Halliday wrote “The Value of Education” from a first person standpoint. The introduction and the use of “I” demonstrates the poem is about the speaker. Likewise, the speaker uses imagery, self-recognition, and his own personal thoughts throughout the poem. He goes on throughout the poem stating external confrontations he is not doing because he is in the library receiving an education and reading books. With this in mind, the speaker goes on to convey images in your head to show a realization of things he could be doing if he were not in the library getting an education.

Rhetoric devices are often used by writers to clarify ideas, emphasize key points, or relate insights to the reader. In both “The Death of the Moth” and “On Keeping A Notebook, ” the authors heavily rely on such devices to get their points across to the audience, and these devices help strengthen overall theme the authors want to communicate. Though several may argue that Didion’s use of metaphor and rhetorical question compliment her essay very well, the repetition and metaphors Dillard uses are more effective in developing the theme of loss and gain throughout the story.

In “The Conqueror Worm,” Poe writes a compelling drama mankind’s tragic existence. Through biblical allusions and the metaphor of the worm, there is a prominent theme of death. The reference to a real play is shown as five stanzas in the poem parallel five acts in an average play.

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

Clint Smith is a writer, teacher, and doctoral candidate in Education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society. Smith Clint wrote a poem called “Something You should Know.” The poem is about an early job he had in a Petsmart. The poet allows the readers into his personal life, but before he had trouble opening up to people and his work. Moreover, Clint wrote an insight in the poem about relying in anything to feel safe and he says it is the most terrifying thing any person can do.

The Poem “Introduction to Poetry” is by Billy Collins, an English poet, and it is about how teachers often force students to over-analyze poetry and to try decipher every possible meaning portrayed throughout the poem rather than allowing the students to form their own interpretation of the poem based on their own experiences.

In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.

In Robert Frost’s poem “Blue-Butterfly Day” the speaker compares the blue butterflies to “sky-flakes” that fall to the ground in flurries just like snow. What does this comparison say about how the speaker of the poem feels about the butterflies? The speaker could have said the butterflies “dropped to the ground in mangled clumps.” How would that comparison have changed the feel of the poem? In this lesson we will examine how comparisons affect the feel of the poem.

Matt Skiba’s song “Blue In The Face”, performed by Alkaline Trio in 2003, is written in a first person narrative directed towards a former lover. Skiba uses dark connotations and satanic allusions to portray his emotions and describe the various reasons he thinks she left that night, how he feels about the situation that happened and lastly that he wants her back.

In the novel The Once and Future King by T.H. White, White emphasizes the need for education by exemplifying life lessons in unlikely places, rather than being taught with straight-forward instructions. As a result, the Wart learns the most valuable lessons in the chapters of the ants and geese. These lessons were added in the 1950’s so White could provide the Wart with the knowledge of two latest types of government systems. White has Merlyn use unconventional ways of teaching to ensure Wart’s understanding of the failures of the types of governments of the 1950s that are represented through the ant and geese’s society.

In the “Love Poems of Catullus”, Catullus illustrates his emotions through his poems. He shows his audience the love, hope, disillusionment, hate, and his despair throughout his poems.

This poem opens with an extreme and vivid simile, “The bright wire rolls like a porpoise” (line 1). This beginning not only grasps the attention of the audience, but the image intensifying language that Kooser has chosen

The Fish is a narrative monologue composed for 76 free-verse lines. The poem is constructed as one long stanza. The author is the speaker narrating this poem. She narrates a fishing experience. The author is out in a rented boat on a body of water, presumably a lake. She tries to describe the fish to the fullest, which appears to be the purpose of the poem, without saying either the specie or an approximate age. The narration gives the impression that the fish is slightly old. There are a number of reasons as to why that fish got caught by the author, including time of day, the weeds weighing it down, fish’s age, and the fact that it has been previously caught five times.

     The character of the moth and the way that Woolf’s story unfolds makes you, as a reader, feel as if you are there actually watching the moth die. Her descriptions of the moth’s flight and the struggle against death as he lived his life that day involves you in the mourning of someone or something you love dying. You feel every movement that Woolf saw in the moth’s life that day by reading this essay. As Woolf describes how the moth “flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and after waiting there a second, flew across to the other, “ you can feel the moth’s movements (1178).