Name: Period:
Musical device: A literary technique in which the author gives some sort of musical quality to the poem. This can be done through use of any of the following: Alliteration, Assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, and repetition.
Directions: For each of the following poems, identify as many musical devices as you can. (Underline them, and write to the left what it is an example of.) Then, read the poem, identify speaker, and paraphrase.
John McCrae: “In Flanders Fields” (1915)
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
"The Kraken" (1830)
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
by Robert Browning
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low:
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
“Reapers”
by Jean Toomer
Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones
Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones
In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done,
And start their silent swinging, one by one.
Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,
And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.
His belly close to ground. I see the blade.
Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
Review and Assess
- Respond: Which of these four poems seem most relevant to your life? Why?
- (a) Recall: Who are the speakers of “In Flander’s Field”?
(b) Interpret: What is their urgent message?
3. (a) Recall: In “The Kraken,” what is the Kraken doing, and how do you know?
(b) Infer: According to the poem, what is the only thing that would cause a change in the Kraken’s activity?
(c) Analyze: What would be the outcome of such an event?
4. (a) Recall: Describe the journey of the speaker in “Meeting at Night.”
(b) Interpret: At the end of “Meeting at Night,” what is the reason for the “tap at the pane”?
5. (a) Recall: In “Reapers,” what do the reapers do before they start swinging their scythes?
(b) Compare and Contrast: Identify two items that the reapers cut, and explain the difference in the actions.
(c) Infer: How does this contrast relate to the central message of the poem? Explain.
6. Apply: In what kinds of situations are poems or songs used to stir people’s emotions?
7. Relate: Which of these poems do you think focuses the most on handing down something from the past? Explain.