ED-Blank

Question 1

From Blank to Blank —A Threadless Way

Allusion + ‘blanks’ = conceit
Repetition + split tetrameter line
slant rhyme

Answer 1

→Theseus’ labyrinth but a maze of ‘blanks’ →conceit labyrinth rep meaninglessness of speaker’s psych. state
→accen. by rep ‘blank’ + severing tetrameter line harnesses empty space at end of line to imply emptiness
→‘threadless’ implies Sisyphean meandering / Slant rhymes defer acoustic expectation: sense of ends nearly arrived at but never realized.
→t/f speaker= alienated (protomodern)

Question 2

I pushed Mechanic feet —

Metaphor
Verb connotations

Answer 2

→Metaphor = despairing mental state →moving mechanically through life/going through motions in detached fashion
→Verb ‘pushed’ = heaviness often seen poems re. despair (‘heft’ in Slant+ ‘boots of lead’ in Funeral)
→sense of ‘pushing’ own feet = detachment from own body/experience

Question 3

To stop —or perish —or advance —Alike indifferent —

Dashes
parallelism

Answer 3

→dashes rep speaker’s halting steps as they consider options (to stop, or to die, or to keep going) but polysyndeton + parallelism →numbing equivalence of each option (fatalism
)→By end S1 speaker appears to suffer from a form of despair rooted in a feeling of meaninglessness which engenders a fatalistic attitude towards their existence

Question 4

If end I gained It ends beyond

Allusion
Plosive /d/ consonance

Answer 4

L6+7 refer back allus. labyrinth: unlike Theseus, who escapes, speaker reaches ‘end’ points, only for these 2 be deferred ‘beyond’ →sense inescapable recursion w/in own psych. suffering. cons. plosive /d/ →sense entrapment

Question 5

Indefinite disclosed

Plosive /d/ consonance
paradox

Answer 5

‘disclosed’: /d/ appears in initial and terminal position: again, entrapment
paradox: ‘indefinite’ = vague, while ‘disclosed’= something made clear ∴ only thing ‘clear’ to speaker = lack of clarity itself

Question 6

I shut my eyes —and groped as well ‘Twas lighter —to be Blind —

Paradox
TURN

Answer 6

In despair. sp closes eyes, as if ‘blindness’ = burdensome (‘lighter’) than active contemplation of their own suffering + meaninglessness in scheme universe
HOWEVER: final couplet 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