slant Flashcards
‘certain slant of light’ + ‘winter afternoons’
paradoxical connotations of ‘slant’ suggest that this light engenders not clarity or warmth but despair and dislocation, similarily the appearance ‘winter afternoons’ destabalising romantic faith in nature’s regenitive powers as here it serves as a reminder of the speakers inevitable mortality, triggering psychological discomfort.
‘oppresses, like the heft
Of Cathedral tunes’
ponderous diction and similie insinuates the speaker’s sense of melancholy from death in nature. Furthermore, the reference of religious music, meant to provide comfort and solace, further subverts the transcendentalist faith in god aswell as this only intensifies the speakers despair
’ internal difference
Where the meanings, are-
No scar’
sharp I assonance evoke S despair with painful sharpness, cutting through and affecting us @core ‘where the meanings are’ = ungrammatical comma implies disturbance @ heart of identity
image of ‘no scar; evoking isolating invincibility and alienation caused by despair
‘heavenly hurt it gives us’ + ‘imperial affliction’
oxymoron and diction of regality inclusive ‘us’ = god sends desperate through nature pf all humanity ‘us’ oxy+ diction evokes speaker’s ambivalence regarding powerful ;imperial’ god thought to be ‘heavenly’ but who deliberately ‘hurts’ humankind from a distance = s seems to lament the cruelty of god who creates humanity only to make them suffer and die
‘shadows-hold their breath-‘
personification shadows hold breath bc light fades towards its death, they will too die therefore poem ends on note of death with which it began
‘we and ‘us
the inclusive pronouns of poem remind readers human pain and mortality = shared fate, making ED poetry an occasion for human connection even admits suffering
