... they lived in as dark, drab, ugly, and decaying. In Robert Lowell's poem "Skunk Hour," the speaker carries these same qualities. He sees his own town decaying and then sees in himself the decay in his life, with only one gleam of hope to contrast it with: a skunk. To help the reader ... interpret the decline and decay in his life, Lowell begins the poem by setting the scen in a New England fishing town. The speaker starts by describing the people that live there and how they themselves have declined in their lives. The heiress, who is "in her dotage" ... moonlight for a bite to eat" (38...

• Word Count: 1048
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... ridiculous - Metre: 1. Colloquial and aggressive 2. First person 3. Conversational 4. Dramatic 5. Questioning 6. Follows natural speech 7. Transforms confines of iambic pentameter form of sonnets - Strong lined - Violent changes in tone: 1. Pathos quite common 2. Wide variety of rhythmic patterns - Wide-ranging emotionally - Earnest and challenging, even when appearing casual, never trivial - Struggle between spiritual and bodily impulses - New use of ... learning. Imagery in s poetry is not something -tacked on to make it more -poetic and difficult, but it is a focus for seeing experie...

• Word Count: 7662
• Approx Pages: 31
• Grade Level: High School

... Exposure'' suggests open revealed and bare. It is negative because it feels like that you are open to attacks. On the first line it says Our brains ache' the Our' is significant, it is almost as if the poet is involved in the play and it is a good technique to get the audience involved. ... , it questions whether if he was dying. The sixth stanza is the same as the fifth stanza. The last line is significant We turn back to our dying'. This is shocking. He returns to reality. The line is quite depressing and it is centred on the last line. The seventh stanza is religious ... been cheated o...

• Word Count: 3174
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

... still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or ... that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell Why thou ....

• Word Count: 1446
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... someone who is riding into Baltimore for a trip of some sort, happy about his/or her arrival into town. Not long after that incident he/or she sees a boy starring straight at them as they are coming into town. "Now I was eight/and very small, / and he was no whit bigger/," this section of the ... young as well and feels relaxed knowing that they are alike. The tone changes at this point though the next lines in the poem read, "And so I smiled, / but he poked out His tongue, / and called me, "Nigger". /" This is the change in tone, from excited to be in Baltimore, to being almost slapped ...

• Word Count: 676
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... and though it is silent, he believes its images can tell the tale more effectively than his poem is able to: "who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:" The events occur in a "leaf-fring'd" setting of "deities or men" in "mad pursuit" of reluctant "maidens", a passionate, heated courtship scene, paradoxically portrayed on a cold, motionless urn. In the ... such a world? Keats must feel that it is better to hope for the best than be disillusioned if reality does not prove to be all he has longed for. His tone is ecstatic in the third stanza, seeming almost to env...

• Word Count: 1153
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... unravish"d bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme The setting, as the trend is in every scene-stanza of the play poem, comes divided into an external setting_ where the metanarrator observes ... watching a silent urn relating to them more expressive stories than poetry does, they are, in a similar manner, prepared to appreciate " ditties of no tone", not with their ears, but with their "spirit". In scene-stanza 4, the narrating director stands once more confounded before the playf...

• Word Count: 1325
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School