Molly Smith Professor Heather Trommer-Beardslee TAI 170 Tues/Thurs 3:30 13 December 2012 Poetry Assignment For my three

poems I chose to perform Because I Could Not Stop For Death by Emily Dickinson, an excerpt from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, and Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas. These poems are all connected by the theme of death. The poem Because I Could Not Stop For Death by Emily Dickinson, is a non-fictional persona because it is the author's interpretation of what she will see looking back on her life as she nears death. Dying is in the scope of imagination and thinking about what death will be like is a plausible scenario. In the third stanza, Dickinson writes how she passed the school, where children strove at recess and she passed fields of gazing grain and the setting sun. This is Dickinsons view of what all she will remember about her life as she passes away. Because she wrote this poem during the time of the civil war and many of her close family friends were killed during in battle, I believe this is her way of dealing with their death similar to a journal. She uses the word civility almost as a hint toward the civil war. Because this poem is about the meditation of life and death, and never addresses anyone, the poem is a reflective poem. Dickinsons stance throughout this poem is one of peacefulness. The subject of this poem is death, however, she does not fear or fight it, rather is enjoying the ride. Her willingness and amiableness toward death never changes throughout the poem. Her word choice such as kindly and slowly as well as her nearly sanguine tone help to express Dickinsons stance. When looking at the structure of this poem, I first noticed it is set up in six stanzas, each containing four lines. She uses periodical rhyming, varied punctuation and capitalization, and several

dashes. The use of alternating iambic meters creates the back and forth sound, almost as if she is using this to describe the motion of the carriage as the horses pull it. She also uses the repetition of We passed then lists a setting creating a list of the multiple memories when looking back, creating a nostalgic tone. The use of language such as, kindly, slowly and civility to describe death makes the poem seem almost as if this was a dream that Dickinson secretly longed for. Dickinson also uses personification and metaphor throughout this piece. She personifies death as the driver of the carriage and immortality as a passenger. In the first stanza, Because I could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for me-The Carriage held but just Ourselves- And Immortality, she implies that Death is the driver of the carriage and Immortality is another passenger. She also capitalizes both death and immortality as if they were names of people. The carriage is then used as a metaphor for her death as she willingly passes into eternity. This metaphor, along with the authors language creates a serene and positive image of death for the reader. After analyzing this poem I considered what ways I will portray this message to my audience. I will make sure to perform this poem slowly with several pauses after phrases such as we slowly drove, for his civility, or rather, he passed us my tippet and the cornice. I will also be sure to sound at peace and content as I perform; emphasizing words with smiles and facial expressions. For example when I talk about the school, fields of grain and setting sun, I will look to my sides as if actually passing them by and smile with delight. The line that states, The Dews drew quivering and chill, I will slightly shudder as to appear cold. The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe is a fictional story of a mans delusions after the loss of his love. One of the biggest reasons this poem fictional is because the character is speaking to a raven that terrorizes his thoughts. A talking raven is out of the scope of imagination. This nearly impossible tale helps allude to the characters madness. The poem is directed to a general audience. Poe writes this

poem as if he is telling a story, rather than reflecting on an event. The use of all past tense verbs as well as the opening line, Once upon a midnight dreary, sets up a story for an audience. This poem is about Poes growing insanity after the death of his lovely maiden, Lenore. His mind progressively becomes less and less sane as the poem goes on. At the start of the poem, Poe hears a noise and is frightened by his unknown visitor. Poe uses words such as rapping, terrors, darkness, fearing, doubting and threat to express his anxiety and fear toward this unwelcome guest. The fright then shifts to sorrow once the raven enters his home. At first he is able to somewhat contain his sorrow over his loves death, but as he speaks to the raven and slowly loses his mind, he is filled with sorrow over his lost Lenore. Poe once again uses words such as lonely, melancholy, burden, grim ominous, and loneliness to capture his mourning. This poem contains nineteen stanzas with almost all of them having six lines. Each ending line of the stanzas ends with the or sound and is always shorter than the rest, emphasizing its importance, and creating a rhythmic pattern. He uses varied punctuation such as: dashes, several commas, periods, exclamation points, quotation marks, apostrophes, and semi-colons. Poe also capitalizes the beginning word of each line. The structure throughout the poem remains the same; the shifts instead occur in the language. Poe uses eerie words and images to create both an ominous and depressing mood. In the beginning of the poem, he uses several sharp letter sounds such as p, r t, and a to create the sound of someone tapping outside the door. It then shifts to long letter sounds such as o g s and w to add to the despairing tone. Poe also uses the repetition of more or nevermore at the end of every stanza which gives the poem rhythm. He also uses the raven as a metaphor of death; both a reminder of Lenore's death and the death of his sanity. He describes the raven as a grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore who has fiery eyes [that] burned into [his] bosom's core.

While performing this piece, I will emphasize the sharp letter sounds that occur in my excerpt and speak in a fairly rapid pace in order to seem jumpy and frightened. When there are lines when he is speaking out loud, I will change my voice slightly to sound more shaky and jittery. In the third stanza, the line that says, Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before I will grow louder and almost more excited to show his progressively worsening sanity. I will get quiet and slow down on the last line of my excerpt that states, Darkness there, and nothing more. Dylan Thomas's poem, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night is a non-fictional persona intended for the audience of his dying father. It is obvious that this piece is both non-fictional and for Thomas's father because in the last stanza he addresses his father- and you, my father- as well as the footnote at the bottom of the page. The subject of this poem is the illness of Thomas's father and the death that will soon follow. His stance is one of exasperation. He so badly wants his father to fight against death and not leave him. Thomas's stance is at first one of persuasiveness as he tries to convince his father to fight against death by telling how every kind of man resists death. He starts by saying, old age should burn and rave at close of day. The last stanza, it shifts to being more of a desperate plea when Thomas directly addresses his father. He cries out to his father, I pray, do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. This poem is composed of six stanzas, all but the last containing three lines. Poe uses repetition of the phases, Do not go gentle into that good night and Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It is not until the last stanza that he uses both of these lines together. Having the last stanza be longer and containing both alternating phrases puts more of an emphasis on it. The alternating repetition inf the four middle stanzas are used to tell stories of men who have fought against death. However, in the last stanza these repeating lines are used together as a plea to keep his father from giving up.

Thomas uses words such as rage, lightning, bright, sun, and blaze all to contrast the dark image of death. When describing the four different type of men, Thomas tells of how although the wise men's words had forked no lightning, the good men's frail deeds failed to dance in a green bay, the wild men learn too late, and the grave men have blind eyes, they all still refuse to let death take them easily. He describes these men as having imperfections, but still rage against death. The poet becomes much more personal in the last stanza when he uses my father and allows the audience to see his emotions by the line curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. This last stanza where he is begging for his father to stay with him has touching connotations for the reader. As previously discussed, Thomas uses repetition to create rhythm and emphasis on the last stanza. For my performance decisions, I plan on sounding as if I am convincing someone that they need to continue fighting. I will then look only at one person in the audience- preferably a male- during the first and last stanza to seem as though I am talking to my father. In the last stanza, I will slow down my pace and get quieter in order to have a sad and desperate tone as I plead for my father to stay. In the second line of the last stanza when he states I pray, I will put my hands together and urge him with all my strength to not give up. I will place pauses at many of the commas to add dramatic effect.