Quiet

Question 1

-‘There’s somethingquieter than sleep’+‘And will not tell its name.’
Implicit metaphor Pronoun / high modal verb Slant rhyme
-‘Some touch it, and some kissit -/some chafeits idle hand’
Anaphoric spondeesverb connoations
-‘It has a simply gravity/I do not understand!’
ParadoxSimple syntax + full rhyme

Answer 1

• reader assumes it’s death w/in ‘inner room’ but implicit metaphor →ED’s characteristic view death’s unknowabilitypronouns = impersonality of corpse + modal ‘will’ = death concealing its mystery∴ Strong slant rhyme ‘room’ + ‘name’ reinforces speaker’s (+ perhaps ED’s) = cognitively + emotionally at odds w. death’s inscrutability
• Aggressive interrup. iambic rhythm →sepaker. crit. mourner’s actions as sonically intruding upon quietude corpse‘chafe’ = unwelcome + abrasive nature mourner’s attentions
• Paradox = uncomplicated profundity of death Full rhyme + simple syntax →tone childlike astonishment, exhorts readers to acknow. unadorned mystery of death, rather than overlaying it w. noisy mourning rituals

Question 2

-I would notweep if I were they’ + ‘How rude in one to sob!’
Subjunctive moodExclamative sentence
-‘Might scare the quietfairy / Backto her native wood!’
Contrasting adjectives + metaphorsEnjambment + plosive

Answer 2

Subj mood = judgement mourner’s grating sobs, combines w. excl. sentence to reprimand them for debasing + distracting from death’s quiet dignity
-Contrasting adjectives →noisy mourners scare ‘fairy’ (soul) back into ‘native wood’ (body)Enjamb+ plosive ‘back’ accentuates sense of soul’s disturbance ∴performative sobs PGD not just distracting + demeaning, they may also interrupt ↑profound spiritual processes (transmigration of soul)

Question 3

-‘We –prone to periphrasis’+‘chat’+ “early dead” +‘remark’+ ‘birdshave fled’
Inclusive ‘we’Verb contrastCondescending tone+ metaphor
-‘prone to periphrasis’
Latinate diction

Answer 3

Incl ‘we’ →Sp(and perhaps D ) identifies themselves with the poets ‘prone to periphrasis’Verb contrast (vacuity of ‘chat’ comp to insightfulness of ‘remark’) estab. condesc. tone in which poetic speaker = superior pedestrian intellects + imaginations of mourners which fixate on youth of speaker (“early dead”) rather than more profound truth: ‘bird’ soul has ‘fled’ to heaven, and/or will be reborn in the cycles of nature (transcend. view)
-H/W apparent confidence speaker’s vate-like capacity discern broader truths = undercut by latinatepomposity ‘Periphrasis’: perhaps speaker fears poetic rendering of truth = evasive, talking around mystery of death rather than illuminating it (in this sense they are no better than the mourners)