Echo

Question 1

Echo: Title

Answer 1

Reference to Greek myth - echo the nymph - reduced to an inability to speak = voiceless female?
- mimicry, unoriginal fading

Question 2

Echo: Stanza 1
1. ‘Come’

Answer 2

1. ‘come’ - anaphoric, imperative repeated = urgent & lonely tone is established, frustrated by the absence of someone or something.
   Presents the persona as unfulfilled - sexually or spiritually?

Question 3

Echo: stanza 2
1. ‘Oh dream h s, t s…t b s’
2. ‘the s d w l i l n o’

Answer 3

1. ‘oh dream how sweet, too sweet…too bitter sweet’ = triadic devolution of the dream suggests a regret or a tragic inability to regain or claim this ‘dream’ in reality.
2. ‘slow door’ - metaphor for the gates of heaven = more rewarding love, threshold imagery = new opportunity that heaven & spiritual existence proffers, ‘slow’ however = protracted process, suggesting that before we attain the reward of heaven we must first endure the arduous slog that is day-to-day existence.

Question 4

Echo: stanza 3
1. ‘Pulse f p/B f B’

Answer 4

1. ‘Pulse for pulse/Breath for Breath’: physical symbiosis of this couple suggests the true intimacy at the core of this desired spiritual union with God.

AO3: ‘breath for breath’ = perhaps a biblical allusion to teh creation of Adam, unifying with God will allow for a rejuvenation of this speaker as God will similarly ‘breathe’ life back into her.