I. Introduction
For many years, Tennyson has attracted readers by what Edmond Gosse called
"the beauty of the atmosphere which Tennyson contrives to cast around his work, molding it in the blue mystery of twilight, in the opaline haze of sunset." He is one of the greatest representative figures of the Victorian Age. His writing incorporates many poetic styles and includes some of the finest idyllic poetry in the language. He is one of the few poets to have produced acknowledged masterpieces in so many different poetic genres; he implemented perhaps the most distinguished and versatile of all the written works in the
English language.
The first time I read “The Lotus-Eaters”1, I have to admit that I had a hearty dislike
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They ponder about what has changed. At the end, he[Odysseus] concluded “We will not wander more”, meaning that they will just stay put.
B. Style
The first five stanzas are narrative. They are in the Spenserian stanza form, which is associated with tales of adventure and action.
The opening word of Odysseus to his men is courage, an ironic command because the rest of the poem shows their courage ebbing away. Arriving on the shore of this beautiful and dreamy land, the mariners disembark amidst a crowd of the inhabitants, who offer them the fruits of the lotos tree. As soon as they taste the fruit the men feel weary. No longer eager to return home to Ithaca, they are content to rest where they are.
The rest of the poem, from line 46, is the song (choric song) sung by the mariners. In it they express the beauty of lotus-land and their own heavy and melancholy sense of fatigue.
In the fourth stanza of the song, the repeated phrase "Let us alone" captures their feelings. The lines of the song are irregular in length but repetitious in phrasing, giving a lazy and stupor feeling, as if they are in a state of torpor. The stanzas gradually become longer toward the end of the poem, hinting their confusion and ominous feelings.
The last stanza has twenty-eight lines. In it the mariners suggest that they will lie about like the gods on Olympus, who apathetically and carelessly disrupt the
Earlier in the poem, the poet depicts the final words of the last survivor of a forgotten race. He speaks of people “ruined in war” and of piles of armor, jewels, and gold and no one
Since it does, when reading each line, there is a resilient connection that allows the reader to put together and feel for what the narrator is speaking of. As each line is metrically linked, the words are further recited in a durable voice and the poem is virtually put together, musically. In the first and second lines of the third stanza, an apostrophe, a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent person or entity, is presented, “We smile, but O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise.”
HW WEDNESDAY, 3/21: Read "The Lotus Eaters," 649-650; in 3-4 sentences each, #2,3,6. [Optional Extra quiz: Cornell notes.]
In the section, “Lotus Eaters”, the Lotus Eaters are a peaceful group of people; however, the threat lies within their intent to keep Odysseus and his men from wanting to return home after feeding them hallucinogenic lotus flowers.
The image that is firstly drawn in the first stanza is that of a blade of grass amid a field and the
Shortly after escaping the Cicones, the men are presented with another temptation, but their folly blinds them to the consequences of trying to escape from their present worries. Odysseus’ shipmates, unable to resist the temptation, ate the lotus and as a result forget about their journey home where their loved ones and community are waiting for them. They are tempted by the idea that they could stay there forever and never return home. Much like drug users, the Lotus-eaters and anyone who shared in their activity forgot their troubles and earthly concerns for the time being. As the men “grazed on lotus” their “memory of the journey home dissolved forever” (Od.9.109-10). The real temptation was the ability to detach from the world and forget their worries. Ultimately, if they had stayed, not only would life become a
The book “The Captain’s Verses” by Pablo Neruda, there are many love poems. Poems that express different ways of loving someone. I decided to pick Neruda's body of work because of how smooth and elegant his poems sound. They express so much passion towards a person and also send a message. When reading his poems I would be able to understand the emotion the poem carried. This is the first thing that caught my attention from his poems. The emotions each and every one of them carried.
The structure of the last three stanzas leaves us hanging from each one. If there was a song to this as music would rise in volume and pitch at each of the final stanza lines. If you read the poem right, the lines seem to echo in your head and slow your progress to the next stanza.
“From the sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the poems of others with more and more unallayed pleasure, and had thought more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have confessed to me, that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a meditative mood.” (2) (paragraph 31).
you shall possess the origin of all poems,/ You shall possess the good of the earth and sun" (25). His poetry is
Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than
The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in
The poem begins with the narrator's describing the poem as a 'dream' that ''was not at all a dream'', which already causes doubt and tension within the reader. The narrator then goes on to talk about
Here is the interpretation and analysis of the poem based on the sections that respect the grammar and meaning of its sentences:
and includes some of the finest idyllic poetry in the language. He is one of