echo Flashcards
what is echo and interpretation of
The poem is a Pre-Raphaelite interpretation of the Roman Myth by John William Waterhouse ‘Echo and Narcicuss’.
anaphora of ‘come’
symbolic of myth of echo’s fate, shows supressed passion in speaker just like mythological figure echo
(echo was condemned to partial silence when she betrayed hera by having an affair with zeus- echo falls in love with narcissus but can’t communicate as she can only echo last words of his own speech, narcissus falls in love with his own reflection, story of unrequited love)
sibilance of ‘silence’ and ‘speaking silence’ first stanza
introduces hushed/ reflective tone
‘soft rounded cheeks’
illusion the heaven (shows idea of a cherub, enforces idea of state between life and death)
‘speaking silence’
direct reference to echo
oxymoron of speaking and silence shows irony (thin line between life and death)
‘sunlight on a stream’
direct reference to narcissus falling in love with own reflection (suggests danger of self indulgence)
‘too bitter sweet’
oxymoron suggests thin line between love and hate and reality and fantasy (echos oxymoron in first stanza, alludes to myth)
‘Paradise’
capitalisation- heaven
longing for death suggested (desire to be with god, peace and pain of reality)
significance of dreams last stanza
suggests memory is immortal amidst impermenance of life
‘pulse for pulse, breath for breath’
-plosive sounds disrupt gentle tone (urgency and imagrey of pulse and breath: signifies sudden awareness of physical existence, could also reflect desire for physicfal contact with lover/god)
‘death’ ‘breath’ rhyme
rhyming opposites- represents instability of boundaries between life and death
meter
The iambic pentameter creates a melodic nature of the poem, and like the rhyme scheme also enhances the theme of an echo.
enjambment
he continuation of phrases across lines, flowing,ethereal rhythm. Mirroring memories, flowing leads on from life to dream, two states intertwined
rhyme scheme
regular rhyme scheme: lyrical and soothing
