Name: Brad Bates
Date:
English | Graded Assignment | The American Renaissance Mid-Unit Test, Part 2
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Graded Assignment
The American Renaissance Mid-Unit Test, Part 2
Answer the questions using complete sentences.
Total score: ____ of 55 points
(Score for Question 1: ___ of 18 points)
How does Poe use language to create mood in “The Raven”? Besides language, what other factors contribute to the mood of this poem? Discuss two additional factors, chosen from the following list: rhyme and repetition, the speaker’s despair, the raven itself, the poem’s conclusion.
Answer:
Poe is a very complex writer who loves to experiment and the poem "The Raven" is a valid proof of Poe's understanding of symbols in universal literature and his wish to explore and have control upon words and rhythm. The repetition of the word 'nevermore' comes to amplify the elegy that mourns the loss of the beloved Lenore. The effects the long vowels produce is shivering the readers' heart. Lord Byron himself experimented the play upon sounds in his poems before. Raven is the metamorphosis of a tragic love, a favorite symbol of death in many pieces of literature from ancient times. The visual contrast of a white bust like a ghost to the dark black raven in a "bleak" December, like in Dickens's "Bleak House", reinforce the tone of mourning a dear person.
In point of rhyme composition, the poem is fully based on Elisabeth Barrett’s' sophisticated rhythm and rhyme of "Lady's Geraldine Courtship" poem. The rhyme scheme is ABCBBB. The heavy use of alliteration, "doubting dreamy dreams..." plays huge role in the musicality of this beautiful narrative poem of 18 stanzas in which every B line rhyme with the obsessive "nevermore".
(Score for Question 2: ___ of 18 points)
In “The Birthmark,” what does the birthmark represent for the two m...
