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Word Choice and the Value of a Dictionary

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Word Choice and the Value of a Dictionary For Lessons 1–5, begin discussion of each poem by reading it aloud in class. Before a poem can be appreciated for its deeper meanings, it must first be read literally. We often overlook words we can already define. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Nature, “Every word … if traced to its root, 1 is found to be borrowed from some material appearance. Right means Lesson One straight; wrong means twisted. Spirit primarily means wind; transgression, the crossing of a line; supercilious, the raising of the eyebrow.” Encourage your FOCUS: students to utilize the footnotes or endnotes when reading poetry. They should even look up words that are commonly understood, to understand Word Choice better the careful, conscious choices poets make. To develop your students’ and the Value of vocabulary, several words from each lesson’s assigned texts are defined in a Dictionary the margins of these lessons. ?? Discussion Activities and Writing Exercise ? The poem “Romance” is one that students may not fully understand, especially because ? they are likely to be familiar with only one meaning of the title word, which is a very modern one. The 1913 edition of Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, for instance, gives five definitions for “romance,” but doesn’t even include “a love affair or relationship between lovers.” Poe uses “romance” in the sense that was common to his time, to signify the VOCABULARY WORDS spirit of imagination or fancy (itself a term whose appropriate meaning may have to be From “Romance”: supplied). Explain to your students that words sometimes change meanings over time, and that the poem must be read in light of the earlier meaning of the title in order to be properly Romance, n. understood. 1. A love affair 2. Inclination toward the romantic or Read the poem aloud. The two stanzas contrast the freedom to indulge the imagination in adventurous; romantic spirit the idleness of youth with the lack of such opportunities in the careworn, workaday world Condor, n. of maturity. Lead your students to see how these contrasting states are symbolized by the A vulture of the Western Hemisphere contrasting symbols of the parakeet and the condor. Read the poem again, and follow with Lyre, n. a discussion focused on understanding the meanings of the terms in the poem. Have the A stringed instrument of the harp family students write a one-page essay to explain how those terms are relevant to the meaning of the poem. Does this new awareness change their first reading? Does it deepen their understanding of the poem? ?? Homework Distribute Handout One: Poe’s Theory of Poetry. Read the poems “The Bells” and “The City in the Sea.” Pay attention to sound and tone in the poems as ways of creating mood. THE BIG READ • NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. More than any other form of writing, poetry communicates not only through the meanings of the words it employs, but also through elements that transcend dictionary definition, especially the sound values of words (the sounds that they make, both individually and in combination with 2 one another) and its tone and rhythm. In reading a poem, we should first Lesson Two relax and experience the poem’s music. Learning to hear how a poem communicates is often an important first step in understanding what it FOCUS: communicates. Sound, Tone, ?? Discussion Activities and Rhythm Like many other poets and critics, Poe likened poetry to music. If possible, play a recorded recitation of “The Bells” to the class. Ask the class to characterize the tone and rhythm of each section of the poem. Point out how the third line of each section sets its “key”— “merriment,” “happiness,” “terror,” and “solemn thought,” respectively—and encourage students to find words in each section that help create that mood, such as “tinkle,” “liquid,” “scream,” “groan,” etc. Discuss the use of sound values to underscore these effects—e.g., the e sounds in the third section (“scream,” shriek”) and the o sounds in the fourth (“groan,” “monotone,” “tolls”). Give an essentially flat and uninflected reading of “The City in the Sea,” and then play a professional recording of the poem. Ask your students the following questions: What is the VOCABULARY WORDS intended effect of “The City in the Sea”? What specific sound devices are used to try to achieve that effect? How successful is the poem in achieving its intentions? From “The Bells”: Euphony, n. Agreeable sound, especially in the ? Writing Exercise phonetic quality of words ? Ask students to examine the four sections of “The Bells” and then write a paragraph for Expostulation, n. Earnest reasoning in an effort to each section, describing its dominant mood and pointing out key terms or poetic devices dissuade or correct used to create that mood. From “The City in the Sea”: Pinnacles, n., plural ?? Homework 1. Small turrets Read the poems “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume.” Keep in mind the details of Poe’s life as 2. Pointed formations; peaks given in “Edgar Allen Poe, 1809-1849” and “The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe” from 3. Highest points; culminations the Reader’s Guide. Viol, n. Early stringed instrument played with a curved bow NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS • THE BIG READ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Examining an author’s life can inform and expand a literary text. Biographical criticism is the practice of analyzing a literary work through the lens of an author’s experience. Some poems depend on a reader’s knowledge of biographical facts. However, readers should be careful not to assume that 3 the speaker of a poem is necessarily the poet. When we read a poem, one of Lesson Three our first questions should be: whose “voice” is speaking to us? Sometimes a poet will create a persona, a fictitious speaker. This speaker may not always FOCUS: be human. A speaker may be an animal or object, and good poems have Biographical been written from perspectives as various as a hawk, a clock, or a cloud. The frequency with which Poe, in both poems and short stories, presents Criticism and a despairing man mourning the untimely loss of his beloved, coupled with his assertion in “The Philosophy of Composition” that “the death … of a the Speaker of beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world,” a Poem has obvious roots in the illness and death of his wife, Virginia, to whom he was intensely devoted and upon whom he was deeply emotionally dependent. She was ill with tuberculosis—at that time an irrevocable death sentence—for several years before her death in January 1847 at the age of twenty-four. Nonetheless, her death was a shattering event, from which Poe never fully recovered. VOCABULARY WORDS From “Annabel Lee”: ?? Discussion Activities Lore, n. Virginia’s death was almost certainly the basis for “Ulalume,” written later in 1847. “Annabel 1. Teaching; instruction; something taught Lee,” published after Poe’s death, is one of his most popular poems and commonly 2. Knowledge or learning assumed also to refer to Virginia (though several of Poe’s childhood sweethearts later claimed to have inspired it). Lead a discussion of the two poems’ treatments of the theme Ember, n. A glowing piece of coal, wood, etc., from of the death of a beloved. Have students focus on both similarities—the use of repetition a fire for emotional effect, the speaker’s feelings being thwarted by “high-born Kinsmen” in one poem and Psyche in the other—and dissimilarities—the light and airy “kingdom by the Lattice, n. 1. An openwork structure of crossed sea” vs. the dark and haunted forest; the obsessive vigil at the beloved’s sepulcher vs. the strips or bars futile effort to forget her loss and avoid her tomb. 2. A door, gate, shutter, trellis, etc., formed of such a structure Obeisance, n. ?? Writing Exercise 1. A gesture of respect or reverence, such as a bow or curtsy Despite similarities of subject matter, “Annabel Lee” has always been a much more popular 2. The attitude shown by this; homage; poem than “Ulalume.” Have the students write a one-page essay arguing which of the two deference poems more effectively deals with the theme of loss of a loved one. Ask them to give the Seraphim, n. reasons for their choice and to support it with passages from the text. Any of the highest order of angels, above the cherubim ?? Homework Read the poems “To Helen” and “Sonnet—To Science.” Ask students to research Helen of Troy. THE BIG READ • NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Poems will often make reference to a person, place, or thing that might be unfamiliar or seem out of place at first. These allusions are often brief, sometimes indirect, references that imply a shared set of knowledge between the poet and the reader. They may appear in a poem as an initial 4 quotation, a passing mention of a name, or a phrase borrowed from another Lesson Four writer—often carrying the meanings and implications of the original. Brief as they are, the poems “To Helen” and “Sonnet—To Science” FOCUS: make fairly extensive use of allusion, especially to figures from Greek (and Roman) mythology. The references give a weight and dignity to Allusions both poems consistent with their subject matter and their themes. In “To Helen,” the subject’s very name establishes a connection with Helen of Troy, the great beauty of the ancient world.
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