Like Rain Flashcards
Like Rain it sounded till it curved
Simile verbs
+ and then I knew ‘twas Wind
Simple diction pun
→confusion re. what ‘it’ is being described.
→Ostensibly ‘it’ = rain, but aural verb ‘sounded’ + kinetic verb ‘curved’
→sense of strange + elusive referent.
→L2 rain = ‘wind,’ but simple diction contains pun: ‘wind’ = Pentecostal wind of God’s holy spirit incarnated in nature or ‘wind’ = processes of poetic genius ‘winding’ sublime experience into slanted. lang. of dazzling beauty.= both the Pent’talwind of God’s majesty which the poet-vatehears whistling alliteratively (‘walked as wet as any wave’) = but also the poetic genius which ‘winds’ sublime experiences into lang.
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
Anaphora+ Liquid consonance (/l/) + personified verb
It pulled the spigot from the HillsAnd let the Floods abroad —
MetaphorLiquid consonance becomes fronted
It loosened acres, lifted seas
Imagery + continued liquidity + anaphora
Then like Elijah rode aw
ay Upon a Wheel of Cloud.
allusion
Increased momentum of anaphora escalates rain’s impact upon environRain initially ‘pleases’ earth but threat of its inundation foreshadowed gurgling liquidity of /l/ (filled, wells)
→Rain intensifies: metaphor ‘pulls spigot from road’ = man’s inability to measure + contain N’s power→as storm becomes violent it ‘let floods abroad’ + /l/ consonance previously embedded w/in words becomes fronted, leading to sense of rain’s terror and plenitude
→rainstorm reaches final apocalyptic crescendo + destructive imagery (‘loosened acres’ and ‘lifted seas’) →sense chaos, as if N’s temporal + spatial coordinates collapsing/ continuation of /l/ initial position)→Ironically, while N struggles contain its own force, sp-poet excelling at evincing N’s power in words
→final couplet’s allusion to Elijah = both storm’s sudden disappearance + sense that speaker-poet has become an Elijah figure, lifted up to the heavens, made almost God-like by their unique perception of N + their ability to inscribe it in lang.
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