unit 2 exam Flashcards
self reliance
ralph waldo emerson 1841
- very convincing
- we must believe in our own opinions not wait for someone else to say them
- society rejects individuality, more about majority
- believes in nonconformity
- believes in constant contradiction of self
- travel is a “fools paradise”
- aphorism: concise statement of a principle
- similes
- metaphors
1: importance of self reliance, 2: self reliance and individual, 3: self reliance and society
trancendentalism
all knowledge of the world all begins with yourself, you have to understand yourself before you can understand earth.
- offshoot of american romanticism
- a human is the center of the spirit of nature
- all knowledge begins with self knowledge
- nature is symbolic
- happiness depends upon: the expansive (self transcending) desire to embrace whole world, and contradicting (self asserting) desire to withdraw and remain unique and separate
- expects movement from contracting to expansive
- human soul is part of the Oversoul
- death is never to be feared
- foolish to worry about consistency
civil disobedience
henry david thoreau 1849
- calls for conscience always
- hates government
- Massachusetts
- if a person supports the government in any way they are just as injust as it
- people lack self reliance
- calls the government a “machine”
- people have a duty not to cause evil but they dont have a duty to help others not
- he hasnt paid taxes for 6 years and spent a night in jail
- the state can only punish his body, they cant punish his mind so they are powerless
- hates lawyers and legislators
- wants people to live independently of gov
- slavery is a moral evil
- paradoxes
song of myself
walt whitman 1855
- ellipses
- olfactory, gustatory, tactile
- oversoul
- rhetorical questions
- repeats “I guess” “It may be” “I know” “Earth”
- Tone: questioning, comforting, meditative, calm, philosophical, accepting, fatherly, matter of fact, persuasive, call to action, patient
- motif: grass, old v young, death, world, universes, earth, night, lists, human body
- imagery: grass blades, hieroglyphic
- word choice: informal but very thoughtful
- metaphors
- message: something eternal about the self, soul, inconsistency of life, take a chance, start on your own
- personify: Body, Soul
- exclamations
- anaphora: many lines begin the same way
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman 1887
- Captain: Lincoln, Ship: USA, Prize: preservation of union
- Rhyme scheme: aabbcded, (stanza 1 perfect rhyme, 2 off with “bells and trills”, 3 reestablishes rhyme
- no defined meter
- anxious worried tone
- apostrophe: speaking to dead
- extended metaphor
- tone: anxious, excitable, worried
- auditory and visual imagery
- parallelism
- symbolism
I hear america singing
walt whitman 1867
- hears multiple artisans
- tone: pride of america
- patriotism
- free verse
- auditory and visual imagery
- parallelism
- repetition
i sit and look out
walt whitman 1867
- anaphora: repetition of first word “i sit, i hear, i see, i mark, i observe”
- tone: pessimistic
- imagery: gruesome
- anaphora
- free verses
- visual and auditory imagery
- repetition
success is counted sweetest
Emily Dickinson
- rhyme: abcb x3
- theme: individuals struggle w god, assertion of the self
- motifs:unique poetic voice, 1st person, sight and self
- auditory and visual imagery
because i could not stop for death
personified: Death as He, Carriage, Ourselves, His, Civility, School, Chuldren, Recess, Ring, Fields, Gazing Grain, Setting Sun, Dews, Gossamer, Gown, Tippet, Tulle, House, Ground, Roof, Cornice, Centuries, Horses’ Heads, Eternity
- tone: polite, lighthearted, creepy, thankful, accepting
- symbols: death (extended metaphor), carriage, sunset, house, houses
- meter: hymn like iambic meter in quatrains
- themes: mortality, immortality, spirituality, love
- free verse
- visual and auditory imagery
The gettysbrug address
Abraham Lincoln 4 score and 7 yearS: 87 -begins with dec. of ind. ends with const. (allusions) -personified: Liberty -begins with logos: past, present, purpose, future -humilty: pathos -uses "we" and "us" -call to action -tricolon -anaphora -tetracolon -tautology -antithesis -oxymoroon
tricolon
- 3 successive clauses, each beginning with the same words
- any series of 3 coordinate items
anaphora
-greek for “to bring forth again”
-repetition at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses
-is to the phrase or clause as alliteration is to the word
anaphora and tricolon are natural companions
tetracolon
-4 items in a series
tautology
-deliberate repetition of an idea for emphasis
antithesis
the balanced pairing or opposites, usually on either side of a coordinating conjunction
“nor long remember” as opposite of “never forget”
