Narrow fellow

Question 1

No quote
Subject (snake) X named

A narrow Fellow in the Grass His notice sudden is –
Alteration of idiomConnotationsConcealed sibilance

The Grass divides as with a Comb –A spotted shaft is seen –
SimileFronting of sibilanceOblique metaphor / phallic imagery

Answer 1

→exaggerates menace of snake (link w. Hope, bird X named) never named as bird) (→D’sonenraged w. title ‘the snake’ when pub. Springfield Republican)

→alters idiomatic ‘snake in the grass’ 2 include both affability (‘fellow’) w. connot. constriction (‘narrow’) S’s (& ∴ N’s) duplicity exagg. by sibilance concealed w/in or @ end words,like S concealed in plain sight, until moment it comes into view

Vivid simile →tension →S = malicious + beyond sight→prosaic ‘comb’ (like ‘fellow’) implies s’thingfamiliar When S seen, it’s a ‘spotted shaft’ = another oblique desc. snake; sense that although S in full view it’s still concealed **phallic connotations (hostility in N often masculinized, as in Frost)∴by rep. snake this way, D’soncharac. N = both commonplace + threatening, destabilizing rom. + trans tenets positioning N. as refuge / N becomes a realm of hidden terrors (hinge)

Question 2

No quote
Switch to tighter iambic trimester to relate boyhood encounter

But when a Boy, and Barefoot -I more than once at Noon
Plosive alliterationimagery

Have passed, I thought, a Whip LashUnbraiding in the Sun
Bracketing commas

When stooping to secure itIt wrinkled, and was gone
Imagery of the snake’s departure →stanzaic break (stanza previously compressed into octet)

Answer 2

→trimeter = tighter + reflects the speaker’s breathless terror as they recount their memory

→+ plosive allit + imagery = sp’s percussive heartbeat as they recall ‘barefoot’ vuln. 2 concealed danger →destab. trans. tenets man’s easy communion w. nature; on the contrary, humans vuln @ place where human body meets ground

→Bracketing commas ‘I thought’ →retrospective voice draw attn. 2 distinction btw. N’s benign appearance + malevolent reality, like S disguised ‘at noon’ in plain sight

As S ‘wrinkles’ and is gone, departure →stanzaic break / tension (previously compressed into octet) finally dissipates; ∴ longest lexical unit takes place in proximity w. S itself, w. stanza refusing a break or relaxation until S moves away, much like encounter itself

Question 3

Nature’s PeopleI feel for them a transportOf Cordiality -
Return to presentdiction

But never met this FellowWithout a tighter breathingAnd Zero at the Bone -
ConjunctionDiction imagery

Answer 3

→return to present / after traumatic memory S reaffirms the ‘cordiality’ he feels w. other animals (‘Nature’s People’); attempt 2 reassure N can still function 4 him (as it did 4 other Transcendentalists) as a realm of benevolent “transport”

→‘But’ dismisses self-persuasion of previous stanza as naiverecollection of S’s (+ N’s) hidden dangers brings only ‘tighter breathing’ (evoking perhaps, the act of serpentine constriction) + ‘Zero at the Bone,’ an embodied sense of annihilation (‘zero.’)