诗歌赏析

Philip Freneau

1. The Wide Honey Suckle 野金银花

Background: Freneau was inspired by the beauty of the wild honey suckle when he was walking at Chaeleston. As is displayed in this poem, honeysuckle, instead of rose of daffodil became the object of depiction; it is “wild” just to convey the fresh perception of the natural scenes on the new continent. The flowers, similar to the early Puritan settlers, used to believe they were the selects of God to be arranged on the abundant land, but now have to wake up from fantasy and be more respectful to natural law.

Understand the title: 1. The name honeysuckle comes from the sweet nectar that the flower produces to intoxi cate the greedy bee. Its powerful fragrance seduces the human senses as it pervades the air. The perfume of this passionate plant may turn a maidens head, hence wild honeysuckle is a symbol of inconstancy in love.

2. The word “wild” implies her living place; she lives in wilderness not in paradise or house; so she will not be appreciated by others and feels sorrowful. Also it implies the nature, so we can say the writer is describing the nature.

Rhyme and analysis: Four six-line stanzas ? iambic tetrameter 四音步抑扬格

Following the traditional European model, the lyric is written in regular 6-line tetrameter stanzas, rhyming “ababcc”. But in order to accord with the change in tone and topic in Stanza 3, the rhythmic pattern is varied.

In the first two stanzas, to start with, Freneau devoted more attention to the environment of the flower in which he found it than to the appearance of the flower per se. He commented on the secluded nature of the place where the honey suckle grew, drawing a conclusion that it was due to Nature’s protectiveness that the flower was able to lead a peaceful life free from men’s disturbance and destruction. But the next stanza immediately changed the tone from silent admiration and appreciation to outright lamentation over the “future’s doom” of the flower --- even Nature was unable to save the flower from its death. Actually no flower, or no living being, can escape. Not even the flowers that used to bloom in Eden.

Thus from the flower in nature the poet started to ponder over the fate of man, who was bound to fall from his innocence and suffer from the despair of death as the result to his exile from Paradise. Just as kindly as nourished and protected the honey suckle in spring and summer, Nature will destroy ruthlessly the flower with its autumn and winter weapons.

Theme: the mutability of flowers and by extension the transience of human life. Time is constant but the time of a life is short. Flowers were born, blossomed and declined to repose, and human beings would exist in exactly the same way. In this poem, the poet expresses a keen awareness of the loveliness and transience of nature. It implies that life and death are inevitable law of nature.

William Cullen Bryant

2.Thanatopsis（对死亡的冥想）Theme：The author’s view about death.

3. To a waterfowl

Arranged in alternating rhymed quatrains, it expressed b oth the poet’s grateful view, at the close of a day of self-doubt and despair, of a solitary bird on the horizon, and his sense of a divine power guiding and protecting everything in nature.

Edgar Allan Poe

4.To Helen

The theme of this short poem is the beauty of a woman. she treated him kindly and may have urged

him–or perhaps inspired him. The theme of this short poem is the beauty of a woman with whom Poe became acquainted when he was 14.

The poet compares himself to be Odysseus, who wandered for ten years to get home. Helen, the beauty, is his guide to come home.to write poetry. Beauty in the poem appears to refer to the woman's soul as well as her physical appearance. As is typical with many of Poe's poems, the rhythm and rhyme scheme of "To Helen" is irregular but musical in sound. The poem consists of three stanzas of five lines each, where the end rhyme of the first stanza is ABABB, that of the second is ABABA, and that of the third is ABBAB. His concluding image is that of light and Helen is the beacon of him in the life.

In the first stanza, Helen’s beauty is compared to the Nicean barks --- a suggestion of classical associations; what’s more, “of yore” instead of “before” or “long ago”, is applied to add the classical atmosphere to the poem. As the ancient ships had transported the ancient hero --- Ulysses --- home fro Troy, so will the beauty of Helen lead the poet to the home of art.

The second stanza starts with “On desperate seas”. Actually, the transferred epithet is used just to show

the p oet’s cordiality to the goddess of art. In classic myth, the flower Hyacinth preserved the memory of Apollo’s love for the dead young Hyacinthus (who is a very handsome young man of Greek myth and the object when Apollo was gaming and dead soon. Very disappointed by that, Apollo changed him into the plant of hyacinth which had been taken as a symbol for affection). All these, the hyacinth hair, the face of classic beauty and the expression of Naiad, are charming enough to lead one to the home of art --- ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

In the third stanza, Helen is directly compared to goddess Psyche from the Holy Land. Through his description of his passion to Helen, Poe expressed his pursuit and sincere devotion to beauty.

In the poem, three beauties in ancient Greek mythology --- Helen, Naiad and Psyche --- are mentioned just to show that beauty is something that existed; it is very holy but it is hard to reach.

5.Annabel Lee

Content:The love between the narrator and annabel lee is very strong and pure. Though annabel lee was k illed by a chilling wind sent by people who envy their love , the love of them remains alive –eternal –because t he souls of the lovers remain united .

Theme the poet looks back into the distant past to a time in a kingdom by the sea where he and his lover a nnabel lee lived. their love was so great that even the highest rank of angels,envied them for it. It’s in memory of his dead wife,the general tone of the poem is sad.

Rhyme:Traditionally, most poems are stanzaic. The poem of Annabel Lee is written in six stanzas, each stanza being composed of six to eight lines. The lines of each stanza seem to alternate. Part of the reason for the alternation of lines may be due to the aspect of rhyming and rhythm. In the instance where the lines vary, the flow of the poem would be disrupted if it were changed in any way.

The repetition of the melodious long rhyme “see, Lee, me” gives a sense of solemnity and melancholy. The poet also uses internal rhyme, such as “beams” rhymes with “dreams”, “rise” with “eyes” and “tide” with “side” to make the poem musical. The sound is like the insistent tolling of a bell, not unlike that sound of church-bells at a funeral, heavily beating on reader’s hearts. The poet places their great love “in a kingdom by the sea”, which indicates European classical flavor. The sea and the bank symbol death and life. In this poem, there is not shinning sun and bright smile but colorless moonlight, billow sound and lonely sepulcher, which successfully evokes an air of sadness and desolation.

Figures of speech:

In this poem ,the poet pay great attention on alliteration to create pleasing sound patterns.

Walt Whitman

6.Song of Myself

Theme"Song of Myself" is all about the human experience. The human experience, here, means what men of t he past, present and future have seen, touched, smelt, and heard. In this poem Whitman is explaining how all of humanity is like one living organism, and no one part is more important than the other.

Analysis

In section 44 of "Song of Myself" Whitman says, "We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers , there are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them. Births have brought us richness and variety, And other bi rths will bring us richness and variety. I do not call one greater and one smaller, That which fills its period and place is equal to any." It is clear that Whitman had a perspective of the human race and its history that escaped most writers. More specifically, Whitman speaks of equal contribution to the human experience in section 42: " Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking, To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning, Tic kets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going, Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and the n the chaff for payment receiving, A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming. This is the city and I am one of the citizens, Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets, newspapers, scho ols, The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.

Emily Dickinson

7.I Died for Beauty-But Was Scarce

The last stanza shows the whole theme of the poem. No matter what people died for, their names would be faded away after time passed.

Summary

The speaker says that she died for Beauty, but she was hardly adjusted to her tomb before a man who died for Truth was laid in a tomb next to her. When the two softly told each other why they died, the man declared t hat Truth and Beauty are the same, so that he and the speaker were "Brethren." The speaker says that they met at night, "as Kinsmen," and talked between their tombs until the moss reached their lips and covered up the na mes on their tombstones.Dickinson used personification and the conversation to create a kind of life situation to the performance of the theme and to make it be more vivid and drawing close to life．In the poetry，death seem8 that the person moved home from a familiar place to a stranger one—tomb，at first he”was 8care e, Adjusted”，then there was another arrived in the next room and they became close neighbor，through communication，they found they were brothers．Then they talked leisurely”between the Rooms Until the Moss had reached our lips一一And covered up—our names 一”，no w the tomb became their”room”．Going to Heaven is just like going home，death is immortality．This manner of presentation belongs to Dickinson uniquely．Emily Dickinson had used metaphor and symbolism to make her Poetry vivid and symbolic．The moss described by the Poet is not just a plant，but also is one kind has the symbolic significance thing．The moss grow mostly in the unvisited place，the moss therefore sires people one kind of silent even desolate feeling．This suggests the poet choose Solitary life in order to seek beauty and shows the determination to die for beauty．

Overall．the poetry”I Died for Beauty—-But Was Scarce”is not sorrowful but deep，simple but rich philosophical．．Her main key is positive and noble.The poetry is the beautiful symbol. And she devoted her life to seeking beauty in the poetry kingdom．To die for the beauty，this spirit is also a kind of immortality，to enter the eternal．The death is a real existence in the world，the poet studies death from different angles，it just shows her pursuit of truth．Her confusion with death is actually her deep understanding of life and love for the earthly life．

8.Because I Could Not Stop for Death

" Because I Could Not Stop for Death", which brims over with religious theme. As Dickinson’s poems usually had no titles, and the first sentence of a poem is taken as its title.The poem begins with a leisurely image. At first, the protagonist feels totally at ease and the usually frightening death is described as if a familiar friend, gentle and polite. Continuingly, the poem is developed upon a basic metaphor that life is a journey. It was truly rather old a comparison, but Dickinson enriched it with her creativity and imagination: "School, where Children strove" --childhood; "Fields of Gazing Grain"--maturity; and "Setting Sun"--old age. Then “the Dews drew quivering and

chill-” makes the protagonist feel terribly cold, which may mean that they are getting nearer and nearer to the tomb. But at last, his companions, Immortality and Death, finally desert him and leave him alone to go toward Eternity.So it seems that though death cheats him and at the same time deserts him, the experience of death itself is not painful. Emily Dickinson’s poems just explain this kind of essence of life, which then lead you to a world of im agination and thinking.

In this poem, Dickinson describes dying and immortality in the dominant metaphor of a carriage on a journey.In Stanza 1, Death, accompanied by Immortality, stops to pick up the speaker in a carriage. In stanzas 2-4,they journey, leaving earthly life behind them (labor, leisure, children, grain, setting sun). In stanza 5, they pause before the grave (swelling of the ground), and stanza 6 depicts the speaker centuries later, speaking from eternity.

Ezra Pound

8.In a Station of the Metro

这几张脸在人群中幻景般闪现；

湿漉漉的黑树枝上花瓣数点。（飞白）

Theme: This poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station or a descript ion of a moment of sudden emotion at seeing beautiful faces in a Metro in Paris. He

sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half re sisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.

The one image in this poem: This poem is probably the most famous of all imagist poems. In two lines it com bines a sharp visual image or two juxtaposed images . "Petals on a wet， black bough" with an implied meanin

g. The faces in the dim light of the Metro suggest both the impersonality and haste of city life and the greater tr

ansience of human life itself. The word "apparition" is a well-chosen one which has a two-fold meaning: Firstly , it means a visible appearance of something real. Secondly, it builds an image of a ghostly sight, a delusive and unexpected appearance. Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, which is the princ iple of the Imagist poetry. This poem looks to be a modern adoption of the haiku form of Japanese poetry whic

h adapts the 3-line, 17 syllable and where the title is an integral part of the whole. The poem succeeds largely b

ecause of its internal rhymes: station/apparition; Metro/petals/wet; crowd/bough. Its form was determined by t he experience that inspired it, involving organically rather than being chosen arbitrarily. This short piece illustr ates his imagistic talent because the entire poem deals with images alone. It is not complex; rather, the two-line poem is straightforward and to the point. The poem is extremely short, but it seems intriguing and has a deep message about the beauty of human beings.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

9.Richard Cory

Content:The poem is divided into four quarters, a total line of sixteen. The poem was written from the perspective of ordinary working class who regard the Cory a sketch the fate of beloved. Richard Cory is a handsome gentleman , who was well- educated with good manners .Besides ,in the eyes of the town inhabitants, Cory’s possessions make him just like a rich king. People admired him so much. Everyone has desire to have

a luxury life just like he did. But in a quiet night, Cory ends up his own life with a gun.

Theme: the value of the life is not measured by how much money you have, When a poor man wants to pursue happiness for the material wealth. When a person can have it all, then what he should pursue another one .

That’s what we should cherish ---the spirit of human. Form this point; we know that the nature of human is spirit, emotion, not the money, or something in appearance.

Analysis:This vanity behind everything ended with a gun shot. Cory's end of this gun is not only his own tragic ending, but also broke the people to pursue luxury life in dream. His death left numerous questions about the town people. Behind the Vanity the end means what? What is happiness? Which we should also have implications for contemporary people: When a poor man wants to pursue happiness for the material wealth.

When a person can have it all, then what he should pursue another one . That’s what we should cherish ---the spirit of human. That is the most necessary for all human-beings. In the poem Cory seems have everything, but he couldn’t find the “light” in life. All“night” give him no hope ,no pursue ,finally only the cold bullet could accompany him. Form this point; we know that the nature of human is spirit, emotion, not the money, or something in appearance. Robinson's poetry is on people's life chances and deep thinking about the value of life. So we can say, having a deeply emotion to read this poem, the poet is not only the expression of their own experiences, but also the people who living in the society . No one is beyond life and death of. What we should consider is that what is the value of life and spirit. Robinson clearly seen the shortcomings of American society at that time. He sensitively realizes at that time a common psychological problems in American society: the collective ideas of modern civilization destroyed, turning them into isolated in the community outside the edge of people and society. They live in loneliness, failure, decadence and despair. He believes that in this confusion of modern society, life itself is hard, and only the courage to face the reality and can put up with hardships in order to understand the meaning of life. Only through this way people can get the pleasure of life. Indeed, just as the saying goes, true warrior dare to face the bleak life, and have the courage to face dripping blood. Open the window let the sunshine in.

10.Miniver Cheevy

Robert Frost

11.The Road Not Taken

The Road not Taken is Robert Frost’most widely anthologized poem. It tells how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverged in a wood on an autumn day.

The theme： This poem seems to be about the poet， walking in the woods in autumn, hesitating for a long ti me and wondering which road he should take since they are both pretty. In reality, this is a meditative poem sy mbolically written. It concerns the important decisions which one must take in the course of life, when one mus t give up one desirable thing in order to possess another. Then， whatever the outcome, one must accept the co nsequences of one's choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently. In th e poem, he followed the one which was not frequently travelled by. Symbolically, he chose to follow an unusua l, solitary life； perhaps he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some common profession. But he always remembered the road which he might have taken， and which would have given him a different kind of life.

Frost claims that he wrote this poem about his friend Edward Thomas, with whom he had walked many times i n the woods near London. Frost has said that while walking they would come to different paths and after cho osing one, Thomas would always felt wondering what they might have missed by not taking the other path. About the poem, Frost asserted, ―You have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem– very tricky.‖ Superfici ally, the poem has been and continues to be used as an inspirational poem, encouraging self-reliance, not follo wing where others have led. But a close reading of the poem proves not so.

Language: This poem is written in classic five-line stanzas, with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-a-b and conversation al rhythm. The poet uses "the road " to symbolize life's journey.

12. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

The poem is one of Robert Frost’s most anthologized lyric poems consisting of four stanzas. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter quatrains. This seemingly simple and fresh tells that in the winter twilight the poet stops his horse to observe the beauty of the forest scene. The poet is so fascinated by the lovely nature that he almost forests his journey. His horse shakes its bells and the poet is reminded to continue his journey. In the poem “promises” may mean one’s life missions to fulfill. Symbolically, “sleep” refers to “die”. The poem seems to say that life is a journey and that no matter what attracts you on the way you have to continue your journey and fulfill your life promises before you take your “final rest”. The poem also reveals the speaker’s desire for a momentary relief from the obligations of the world.

The theme: This is a deceptively simple poem in which the speaker literally stops his horse in the winter twilig ht to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey. Philosophically and sym bolically, it stems from the ambiguity of the speaker's choice between

safety and the unknown.

Appreciation

This poem suggests deep thought about death and about life. The strange attraction of death to

man is symbolized by the dark woods silently filled up with the coldness of snow.

Metaphor:Frost frequently uses the technique of symbolism in his poetry. Some critics think that the "village" stands for the human world， "woods" for nature， "horse" for the animal world， and "promises" for obligati ons. The poem represents a moment of relaxation from the burdensome journey of Stopping by Woods on a S nowy Evening life， an almost aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty which is wholesome an d restorative against the chaotic existence of modern man. The last stanza shows a kind of sad， sentimental bu t also strong and responsible feeling. The attraction of the beauty of the nature makes the speaker stop in the jo urney. He finally turns away from it， with a certain weariness and yet with quiet determination, to face the ne eds of life. This stresses the central conflict of the poem between man's enjoyment of nature's beauty and his re sponsibility in society. This shows a man's despairing courage to seek out the meaning of life. In the last stanza

， the three adjectives "lovely" "dark" "deep" reinforce one another. Not only do they represent beauty and terr or of nature symbolize d by the dark woods， but they also reveal the speaker's love for nature and human isola tion from it. Besides， the word "sleep" here means "die"symbolically.

Wallace Stevens

13Anecdote of the Jar坛子的故事

Theme: It is only about a jar literally, but figuratively reflect more about the relationship between nature and humans, the meaning of art, as well as the philosophy of comprehending the world which we are living in every single second. Stevens portrays the complex relationship of human to nature through confusion of who is greater than whom, how they depend on each other, the connection between the two, and the form the poem is written in. Stevens forces the reader to feel the confusion and chaos present between the jar (a symbol for humans) and nature. This relationship can be felt and read through the form the poem is written in.

Lines:The poem uses confusing wording to show the relationship of humans to nature. For example, line 9 says, "It took dominion everywhere." "It" referring to nature, means the power that nature has over the jar (humans). Nature's dominant overpowering weakens humans. Humans then become powerless and vulnerable to whatever nature has become. Another line proving this dominance states, "The jar was gray and bare." This line describes the jar of being plain and simple. This normalcy becomes ineffective and powerless. The ordinary doesn't have as much power as the objects that stick out from the crowd. Humans don't seem to stand out in the vastness of the wilderness. The next line turns the control in an interesting way: "It did not give of bird or bush." Because the jar was in the previous line, it is natural to think "it" in this line refers to the jar. The plot begins to thicken as it was previously suggested that the wilderness had all the control in the relationship. The jar now becomes an authority because it will not give into the natural world. To the reader, the relationship just became undefined. The power was turned over from nature to man.

Analysis: Without a jar, the wilderness is the wilderness.The living things there have their own ways to live without any order among them. Birth, existence, survival and death, no emotion, no more thought, the circulation of species would be impassively on-going. This quietness of nature can be maintained millions of years if no interruption occurs. Till appears the jar, everything in the wilderness changed dramatically. Imagine that you are standing in the wild Tennessee and looking around, you must see nothing but the jar---definitely the focus. You would think how it is there? why it's been left there? Whether it is nice? What your feelings are when seeing it? etc. Suddenly, the whole place of Tennessee becomes meaningful and it's no longer desolate anymore. The jar means humanity, means culture, means art and artistic imaginations. With a jar being there, the wilderness got a center, and then, an order for everything. The soil, the sand, the patches of grass and clumps of bush are soon under dominance of it. The jar adds some thought to this place, just like art, turning the dead to live. Art is magic. It fantasize the nature. Without art, we are nothing and dead.

A Psalm of Life Hurry Wadsworth Longfellow(over 400 words)

In the poem, the poetry made Longfellow’s voice of the life is short; instead, the art should be eternal. In this case, human should no fear of the death, but be always moving forward, to cherish the time and take every single opportunity met on the way. Also, Longfellow expressed in this poet that we should be brave of facing each challenge, no afraid of the unknown future nor waste time in doing the meaningless autistic thinking. Young people should never draw themselves at the moment of the present. The dream couldn’t be accomplished without the actions being put now. In this poet, Longfellow chose to face the death directly, with an optimistic attitude. The poetry denied the “life is but an empty dream” in the opening thesis of the poet. In his opinion, human’s soul would be died immediately by the time that fal ls asleep. He also pointed out that human’s body would be grown old and become senium, but the spirit should always being moving forward to chase the original objection.

The poetry used the trochee which leads the whole poet read rhythm and lively, and give person a kind of uplifting strength. The poem take the rhyme, for instance, “numbers” and “slumbers”; “dream” and “seem”;

“earnest” and “returnest”; “dead” and “o’erhead”; and “face” with “wait”. etc. There are 18 reims in total, which makes the whole poem read in a specific way of being beautiful and relaxed. In the same time, the poetry used the alliteration, such as “art” and “and” in the 4th section; “in” and “in”, “be” and “be” in the 5th section; the “footsteps” and “footprints” in 7th section; the “sailing” and “seeing” in 8th section and the “let” and “learn” in the 9th section.

In this poem, we can also see the quotation from the Bible “Dust thou art, to dust returnest”. The poetry regarded life as the camping of the soldiers’ “Bivouac”, to emphasize the shortness of human being’s life, as well as to suggest that life is also a fight filed which contains a lot of struggles.

The whole poem, given the rhythm and urged human to progress, as if contain s the infinite vitality. The poetry highly spoken of that life is struggle. The spirit could be ever lasting though the one’s body has already gone. Life isn’t matter in the faith one people hold, but to live a heroic life. In the last section, Longfellow called on everyone brave to face the fate of any challenge, in short life of struggle to wait, continuously enterprising and after for an ideal life.

T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.

On the surface, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" relays the thoughts of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man who wants to say something but is afraid to do so, and ultimately does not.The dispute, however, lies in to whom Prufrock is speaking, whether he is actually going anywhere, what he wants to say, and to what the various images refer.

The intended audience is not evident. Some believe that Prufrock is talking to another person or directly to the reader, while others believe Prufrock's monologue is internal. Perrine writes "The 'you and I' of the first line are divided parts of Prufrock's own nature", while Mutlu Konuk Blasing suggests that the "you and I" refers to the relationship between the dilemmas of the character and the author. Similarly, critics dispute whether Prufrock is going somewhere during the course of the poem. In the first half of the poem, Prufrock uses various outdoor images (the sky, streets, cheap restaurants and hotels, fog), and talks about how there will be time for various things before "the taking of toast and tea", and "time to turn back and descend the stair." This has led many to believe that Prufrock is on his way to an afternoon tea, in which he is preparing to ask this "overwhelming question". Others, however, believe that Prufrock is not physically going anywhere, but rather, is playing through it in his mind.

Perhaps the most significant dispute lies over the "overwhelming question" that Prufrock is trying to ask. Many believe that Prufrock is trying to tell a woman of his romantic interest in her, pointing to the various images of women's arms and clothing and the final few lines in which Prufrock laments that the mermaids will not sing to him. Others, however, believe that Prufrock is trying to express some deeper philosophical insight or disillusionment with society, but fears rejection, pointing to statements that express a disillusionment with society such as "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" (line 51). Many believe that the poem is a criticism of Edwardian society and Prufrock's dilemma represents the inability to live a meaningful existence in the modern world. McCoy and Harlan wrote "For many readers in the 1920s, Prufrock seemed to epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual. He seemed to represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment."

As the poem uses the stream of consciousness technique, it is often difficult to determine what is meant to be interpreted literally or symbolically. In general, Eliot uses imagery which is indicative of Prufrock's character, representing aging and decay. For example, "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table"

(lines 2-3), the "sawdust restaurants" and "cheap hotels," the yellow fog, and the afternoon "Asleep...tired... or it malingers" (line 77), are reminiscent of languor and decay, while Prufrock's various concerns about his hair and teeth, as well as the mermaids "Combing the white hair of the waves blown back / When the wind blows the water white and black," show his concern over aging.