Monday November 9

There have been several requests for another bonus; so here goes: last week you had a list of the seven deadly sins. These tie into Hawthorne and Melville's antitransendentalism, as they were obsessed with sin. For 50 points (yes, a large one, which is much needed), take the first letter of each of the seven deadly sins and create an acronym. Then come up with a sentence that will enable you to quickly learn them. Be prepared to recite your sentence. Leave the response under the hole puncher, as usual.

Melville response due today. Turn in signed grade reports.

In class today: we'll go over the Melville / Hawthorne discussion questions that were posted last week.
We are putting Emerson and Thoreau on hiatus, as Ms. Anderson is going to be working with you for four weeks, starting next Monday. The blog will remain current, so check it as usual. As well, you will be meeting with me for individual writing conferences, but more on that later.
On Tuesday and Thursday we'll look at some Romantic poems in terms of both figurative language elements and what conceptual qualities make them Romantic.
review: onomatopoeia, metaphor, simile, alliteration, consonance, assonance, oxymoron, hyperbole, litote, imagery, symbol, personification, synecdoche, paradox and irony.

For Tuesday: familarize yourself with the following poems. Read them aloud (at least in your head) a couple of times. Be comfortable and fluid with the language. We'll go over the study questions in class, but as a head's up, you'll see this material on the final with excerpts from the poems.

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls by

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 5

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 10

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore.
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 15

Study questions for the above:

1.What is the setting of the poem?

2.What do the “little waves” do in lines 8-9?

3. What happens in the third stanza?

4. What line is repeated three times in the poem?

5. What details of the setting in the first stanza
suggest that the traveler is nearing death?

6. What details in the second stanza suggest the traveler
has died?

7. What does the poem suggest about the relationship between
humanity and nature?

8. What do the details in lines 11-13 suggest about Longfellow’s
attitude towards life?

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
by: Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main, --
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 5
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell, 10
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed, --
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil 15
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door, 20
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 25
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: --

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll! 30
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 35

Study questions for the above:

1.What has happened to the nautilus the speaker is describing?

2. What did the nautilus do “as the spiral grew” (line17)?

3. What does the voice that rings ‘through the deep caves of thought” tell the speaker?

4. Each year throughout the course of its life, the nautilus creates a new chamber of shell to house its growing body. How does Holmes compare this process to the development of the human soul?

5. What is it about the chambered nautilus that makes it appropriate for Holmes? And what can be learned from the life of the chambered nautilus?