Shortened Rhapsody quotes

Question 1

when was rhapsody published

Answer 1

1911

Question 2

What did eliot use to modernise the poem

Answer 2

exploration of the freudian conceit of memory

Question 4

what is paragraph 2 about

Answer 4

deconstruction of the modern individual amidst industrialisation

Question 5

quote 1

Answer 5

by juxtaposing the similes, “Every street lamp that I pass/Beats like a fatalistic drum” and “Midnight shakes the memory/As a madman shakes a dead geranium”,

Question 6

explanation 1

Answer 6

where the succession of morbid images reflects the loss of the old hopes and ideals of Romanticism (the geranium) amidst routine.

Question 7

quote 2

Answer 7

the personification, “the memory throws up high and dry/As if the world gave up/The secret of its skeleton.”

Question 8

explanation 2

Answer 8

This sickly action, symbolising the brutal deterioration of memory, frames the dehumanising representation of the person as being reduced to a ‘skeleton’

Question 9

quote 3

Answer 9

The dismal climax in the last stanza, “Memory! …Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life./the last twist of the knife”

Question 9

explanation 3

Answer 9

reducing the persona to a desperate incoherent cry pushing the reader to share in Eliot’s fears about the soullessness of industrialisation