blank

Question 1

‘from blank to blank-

A treadless way’

Answer 1

allusion + ‘blanks’ = conceit
repetition and split tetrameter line + slant rhyme
theseus’s labyrinth but a maze of ‘blanks’ = conceit of labyrinth representing meaningless of speakers psychological state.
accentuated ny repetition og ‘blank’ + severing tetrameter line harnesses empty space at end of line to imply emptiness of mind
‘threadless’ implies Sisyphen meandering/ slant rhymes defer acoustic expectation = sense of ends nearly arrived at but never realised - therefore speaker is alienated evoking protomodern themes

Question 2

‘I pushed mechanic feet’.

Answer 2

• metaphor
  -verb connotations
  metaphor= despairing mental state= moving mechanically through life/ going through motions in detached fashion
  verb ‘pushed’= heaviness often seen poems regarding despair eg ‘funeral’= poems of ‘boots of lead’
  sense of ‘pushing’ own feet= detachment from own body / experience

Question 3

‘to stop- or perish- or advance’ ‘ Alike indifferent-‘

Answer 3

dashes and parallelism
dishes represent the speakers halting steps as they may consider options ( to stop or to die, or to keep going) but polysyndeton and parallelism = numbing equivalence of each option
by end of stanza one speaker appears to suffer from a form of despair rooted in a feeling of meaningless which engenders a fatalistic attitude towards their existence.

Question 4

‘if end I gained’

‘It ends beyond’

Answer 4

allusion and plosive alliteration
L 6 and & 7 refers back to allusion to labyrinth, unlike Theseus who escapes speaker reaches ‘end’ points, only for these 2 to be deferred ‘beyond; = sense of inescapable recursion wishing own psychological suffering.
consonance and plosive d = sense of entrapment

Question 5

indefinite disclosed

Answer 5

plosive d consonance and paradox
‘disclosed; appeasers in initial and terminal position = entrapment.
paradox of ‘indefinite’ = vague, while ‘disclosed’= something made clear therefore only thing ‘clear’ to speaker = lack of clarity themselves

Question 6

I shut my eyes- and groped as well

twas lighter- to be blind-

Answer 6

in despair speaker closes eyes as if in ‘blindness’ = decreased burdensome (lighter) than active contemplation of their own suffering + meaningless in the scheme of the universe. however the final cutlet also contains turn typical of ED’s poem about despair/ speaker seems to suggest that going by feel rather than sight may thread a path towards something lighter, or more illuminated