in drear nighted December Flashcards
what is poem about
poem is about the human condition and about nature not knowing what they are missing with the cold and the warmth.
its better to be sad and alive than not feel anything and dead.
first line
echoes the title.
‘drear’ the long vowel sounds and alliteration of the d phenome- aural imagery reflects the dragging feeling of winter. additionally, the heavy thudding of d sounds creates a slow heavy mood with a sense of dread
too happy, happy tree
juxtaposes the plosives here to the d in first line. repetition of happy suggests forced nature and also perhaps Keats thinking its weird that the trees are so happy in the cold.
cold imagery throughout
not cannot undo them
with a sleety whistle through them
sibilance immerses the reader into the ice and the cold. could also be used as aural imagery to here the wind literally rthrough the trees.
nor frozen thawing glue them from budding at the prime
winter wil not stop them from coming back in the summer. they know they will bloom again so aren’t worrying about coming back to life
in drear nighted December
anaphora/.anaphoric chorus suggests the strength Keats feels about the winter and that it is monotonous and repetitive, cant escape it. also an extended metaphor.
allusion to apollo
allusion to greek mythology and summary imagery. the god fog sunlight, prophecy music and poetry.
sweet forgetting
oxymoron- negative capapbility
they stay their crystal fretting
sibilance and t sounds mimic the ice cracking. again linking to icy imagery.
nor numbed sense to steal it, was never said in rhyme.
you cant take your mind off of death. there is nothing you can do to heal the pain. you have to feel it in order to get out of it. the only way not to feel sadness is to be dead and no one wants to truly die.
metaphor for humanity- everyone feels this easy in winter. there are better times in life- everyone thins this.. all apart of the human condition.
parallel lines/parallelism.
semantic field of frozen
unable to escape the winter and misery that comes round every year
written in iambic trite meter
da dum sounds
creates momtone dragging feeling of winter.
