The Man He Killed

1) Half-a-crown is a coin formerly used in Great Britain, worth two shillings and sixpence.

2) The poem was mainly written as a “what if” piece. It is about an infantry soldier who was forced to kill a man in battle and he wonders what would it have been like if they had met in a bar as regular men instead. There is broken syntax at the beginning of the third stanza, I shot him dead because—Because he was my foe. He is trying to justify why he had to kill this man because he is having a hard dealing with the aspect of war that is “kill or be killed,” and he isn’t comfortable taking another man’s life. This most likely means he is not an experienced soldier. The fact that he puts although at the end of the third stanza just reinforces the idea that even though he can justify it, it still doesn’t make it right in his eyes. In the first stanza it says, had he and I but met by some old ancient inn, this plays into he “what if” thinking of had they met in any form of traditional way, such as through friends, at a store, at a bar etc., then he wouldn’t have had to or been allowed to kill him.

3) Hardy uses words such as nipperkin, traps and half-a-crown, which are all examples of dialect. He also uses exact rhyme, such as perhaps/traps and down/crown. By using dialect and exact rhyme it helps makes it a well-written piece of poetry.

The Telephone

1) The speakers here are lovers who are in two different places. The first speaker is trying to connect and keep her distant love alive. They are connected through the telephone and the flower that they each have, it is a symbol of their love. the line, Having found the flower and driven a bee away (11), the flower here has two possible meanings. One being, its literal meaning as a flower that shows that he is protecting their love but swatting the bee away, showing that nothing and no one can steal or suck the life out of their love. The second possibility is that the flower is actually the telephone itself, which makes the most sense because they are talking into it and the bee is the phone interference they are hearing.

2) The telephone is the only thing that is connecting the two characters, other then their love of course. Unfortunately, having a phone relationship really wont suffice if they want it to work out. It is easy to talk on the phone and tell the other person what they want to hear, but it is hard to really connect with out physical contact so you can really observe one another and get inside each other’s heads.

3) The first speaker is a man who is very confident in himself and he is very confident. He knows that she loves him and he is trying to get her to admit it again, which is why he refers to her as the someone. However she is stating that she only thought it and never actually said it, but nonetheless he was right in the end and he went to her.

4) The second speaker is a woman who is not willing to admit her love for the man on the other end of the telephone. However when she says, I may have thought as much , but not aloud, she it telling him that she never said she loved him, but she really does, and she finally admits it to him.

5) Their whole relationship revolves around communication through technology. Ironically enough the man does all the talking, trying to get the woman to admit she loves him, until she finally says that she does. Frost has a very philosophical tone throughout the poem, which is what gives the poem its calm perception.

The Road Not Taken

1) He doesn’t feel as though he has taken the wrong road as much as he wishes that he could take both paths and that he doesn’t have to choose, especially since he doesn’t know what lies ahead down the road so he doesn’t know what he is missing. He will be telling it with a sigh because that is really all you can do after all is said and done. You cannot go back in time and change your decision so you just have to sigh and accept it and make the most of the life you choose. I don’t really think he regrets anything. The poem ends saying and that makes all the difference which doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing. And it sounds he is the type of person who doesn’t regret things, he just accepts his choices and moves on.

2) Every decision you make, big or small, alters and shapes your future. So although the paths are similar, the slightest difference between them could lead completely different lives.

The Road Not Taken is about making decisions throughout your life and accepting them, no matter the outcome. It is good to take risks and travel on the road less traveled, but you also have to be willing to accept the end results and embrace them. I think that is what the poem is really trying to get across, that you can make the best of what ever decision you make therefore you should take risks and don’t look back.

After Apple-Picking

1) The imagery the Frost uses in this poem really helps you convey the poem through his eyes. When he uses organic imagery it lets you know what he is feeling inside, you are able to recognize this often when poets use the word “I,” such as “I have had to much…” or,” I am overtired.” This tells you that he is mentally and emotionally tired of the life that he is living and that he is also physically tired of apple-picking. In this case his physical exhaustion could also be thought of as Kinesthetic Imagery, which focuses, obviously, on how that narrator feels externally. After climbing up and down the ladder for a long time his fee sort of mold to the shape of the ladder and constantly ache from it. The imagery I have explained evokes a lot of sadness and depression for the narrator.

2) Even though he used to be very happy and content with his job at one time, after years and years of repetition he is getting sick of it. lately he has started to get a careless, leaving a few apples on the ground. He realizes that he isn’t going to do as good of a job as he used to so he really isn’t all that dissatisfied.

3) Most likely, much like his life, this is a repetitious dream that he has every night, therefore he tells it to us what the dream will be about because knows what to expect.

4) Sleep is supposed to be a time where you can, in a sense, get away from your life. However since he is either apple-picking or dreaming about apple-picking he really has no escape, so yes he is probably afraid of sleep. Usually if you have a repetitious life sleep will always be a change for you, because of random dreams or nightmares you may have. Unfortunately his life purely revolves around apple-picking which means he probably dreads being awake and sleeping, which means he dreads his life.

5) A) the ladder is most likely symbolizing his life. He was gradually climbing up the ladder and now that he is at the top it is almost the end of his life. B) It’s harvest time which means winter is creeping closer and closer, which symbolically means death is creeping closer. During winter everything dies: grass, trees, the farmers crops and so on. Therefore usually winter symbolically means death or loss. C) Most likely when he harvests, or picks, his apple he is picking off days or parts of his life. Since he keeps growing the trees though he keeps living because there are still apples for him to pick. D) He could be watching through the pane glass and seeing what his life could have been and it could be causing him pain. Essence of winter sleep most likely means death. Winter meaning death and sleep meaning escaping from your life, this probably means he can tell he is going to die soon.

6) Woodchucks hibernate in the winter and as we know humans sleep and wake up everyday. Hibernating is sleeping for a very long time so to the apple-picker would be like dieing,

After reading this I was under the impression that it is about a man who is ultimately coming to terms with dieing and realixing that he hasn’t really lived. His way of life was good at first but then he realized falling into the same old pattern every day makes your life go by quickly and not very memorable. He sees death coming in winter and all he has to do is finish this years harvest, or taking of days off his tree of life, then he can finally escape his monotone life and be free with death.

Literary terms 5-6

Theme:

· Example: Theme of tradition and customs in Beowulf

· Function: The tradition and customs that were in place during Beowulf are much different then the traditions and customs we share today. To us, the principals from the medieval times (where Beowulf was set) sound ridiculous and silly. Such as always paying money to the family of anyone you kill to prevent a blood feud. And always having to avenge any lost family member. Normally when people boast or brag around you it’s irritating and obnoxious. However in Beowulf boasts are a common occurrence and a traditional part of their culture. Boasts are basically ways of passing out their resumes and telling people their qualifications. Other warriors judge each other based on how well they can talk themselves up.

Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material and/or readers. Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.

· Example: Beowulf

· Function: The narrator of Beowulf, who ever he may be, uses many different tones through out the story while at the same time always keeping a formal tone. The whole epic is told in a calm, serious and quite often stiff manner. There are three main tones that he also shifts between throughout the story; laudatory, pious and mournful. Laudatory, or praising, is shown when a character, most often Beowulf, is acting especially heroic. Pious, or religion, is shown when the narrator reminds us that is God’s decision for what will happen to us and that he sets our fate. And of course the mournful tone is shown when Beowulf is loosing or in trouble.

Literary terms 3-4

Soliloquy: an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, esp. by a character in a play.

· Example: To be, or not to be, that is the question…The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons, Be all my sins remembered.

· Function: To be, or not to be" is the opening line of a soliloquy from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet (written about 1600), Act III, Scene 1. It is the best-known quotation from this particular play and one of the most famous in world literature. In this soliloquy Hamlet speaks it to himself, alone onstage. All others leave the room with the king, Claudius, and the queen, Gertrude. Hamlet struggles with his internal conflict of whether or not to kill himself in light of recent events which have depressed him greatly.

Sonnet: fourteen-line rhyming poem with set structure: a short poem with 14 lines, usually ten-syllable rhyming lines, divided into two, three, or four sections. There are many rhyming patterns for sonnets, and they are usually written in iambic pentameter.

· Example: Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

· Function: this is a prologue written as a sonnet. Sonnets were a popular form of poetry in Shakespeare's time; they were a traditional and respected poetic form that usually dealt with a theme of requited love. A sonnet has 14 lines with a set rhyme scheme and a fixed rhythm called ' iambic pentameter' (di-dum/di-dum/di-dum/di-dum/di-dum); this helps to create a sense of harmony and acts to link the ideas expressed in the sonnet.

Literary terms

Syntax: the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language

Example: “To your house we are going" vs. “we are going to your house”

Function: The first quote would be an example of awkward syntax. You understand it, but it sounds odd. The reason a poet would use syntax is the same reason anyone would use it, because it makes your writing understandable. Syntax is sort of the bases of the way we speak today and the way we form sentences. This becomes important in poetry because many times poetry is hard to understand as it so making sure there is good syntax will help the writing and overall meaning of the poem. Syntax is important because the structure of a sentence gives it meaning. Two sentences can be similar in the words it uses but the way the sentence is structured can vastly change the sentence's meaning.

Tragedy: A play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, esp. one concerning the downfall of the main character. (I choose this definition because I thought it pertained more to the poems we will be reading)

Example: Romeo and Juliet

Function: William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a tragic drama about two star-crossed lovers written in the mid-1590's. The protagonists here are faced with a momentous obstacle that results in a horrible and fatal conclusion.