英美文学下诗歌整理

Moby Dick

1. Detailed Character Analysis of Ahab and Ishmael and symbolic meaning of their names

Ahab is monomania. Unlike Flask, he thinks and interprets. Unlike Stubb, he believes that he can alter his world. Unlike Starbuck, he places himself rather than some external set of principles at the center of the cosmic order that he discerns. Ahab stands for spite怨恨 and revenge.

Ishmael: The narrator of the story. Ishmael means being discarded. Ishmael is translated literally as “God has hearkened”, suggesting that “a child so named was regarded as the fulfillment of a divine promise.

2. Detailed Character Analysis of Queequeg, Starbuck, Stubb, Flask

Starbuck: Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition

Stubb: Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over 负责his whaleboat捕鲸船 as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests

Flask: He is a short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered 3. Symbolic Meanings of Moby Dick and its Whiteness

Moby Dick: symbol of nature for human beings because it is mysterious powerful, unknown. It is the Symbol of evil for the captain Ahab. It is the Symbol of good and purity because of its whiteness.

Whiteness: On one hand, whiteness enhances beauty, standards for gladness, majesty, purity and innocence. On the other hand, whiteness terrifies people, symbolizing nothingness and meaninglessness.

4. Symbolic Meanings of Pequod, Queequeg’s Coffin and the Voyage.

The pequod: doom. 1. named after a native American tribe in Massachusetts 2. did not long survive 3. painted gloomy Hack and covered in whale teeth and bones 4. the mementos of violent death 5. likes a primitive coffin

Queequeg’s coffin: life and death

Land: a symbol of safety sea: adventure and danger

\to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. Raven

1. What was the narrator doing when he first heard the tapping? He nodded, nearly napping.

2. What did he see when he opened the door?

When he opened the door, there was nothing, only darkness. 3. What did he see when he flung挥动 the shutter百叶窗?

With many a flirt and flutter, a stately raven of the saintly days of yore stepped in my house. 4. Where was the raven? And what did it look like?

It perched upon a bust of Pallas just above the narrator’s chamber door. It wore the grave and stern decorum of the countenance.

5. Why did the narrator associate the raven with an agent of the supernatural?

Because the narrator thought the raven was incarnation or symbol of death. It was a grim冷酷的，残忍的, ungainly笨拙的，不雅的, ghastly可怕的, gaunt憔悴的，枯瘦的, and ominous不吉利的 bird.

6. What was the only word that the raven spoke? Nevermore

7. Why did the narrator think that the raven spoke only one word?

Because the raven steadily repeats the word “nevermore” no matter what questions the narrator asked. He then realizes that this is the only word the bird probably knows; taught to him by some unhappy master who used to own him.

8. What did he guess the word “Nevermore” mean? Impossible

9. What did he ask the bird to do toward the end of the poem?

He asked the raven to get back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! 10. Did the bird leave the narrator alone at the end of the poem?

No, it didn’t. It still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above the narrator’s chamber door. 1. What do you think the raven symbolizes? Why?

The raven obviously symbolized death. Because it was a grim冷酷的，残忍的, ungainly笨拙的，不雅的, ghastly可怕的, gaunt憔悴的，枯瘦的, and ominous不吉利的 bird.

2. Evaluate the narrator’s emotional state at the beginning of the poem, in the last but one stanza, and in the last stanza.

“Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling.\By this, the speaker means that at first the raven turns his sad, mournful face into a smile. After this initial response, and still in the same stanza, his next response is to question who this raven is and why it came.

After this first reaction, the speaker starts to see the raven in a different light; it becomes more evil than good.（ The speaker at first enjoys the company of the raven. However after hearing \）

3. In this poem the raven steadily repeats the word “Nevermore”. What do you think is the poet’s intention of letting the raven repeat this word?

“nevermore.” Obsessively pushing his need for self-torture to its ultimate extreme, the young man calls for the bird to take its beak from its heart and its form from his door, once again knowing what response he will receive. Although the poem is often dismissed as a cold-blooded contrivance, it is actually a carefully designed embodiment of the human need to torture the self and to find meaning in meaninglessness.

4. What is the theme of this poem? Is it Poe’s favorite theme?

The theme of \自讨苦吃的. You have a guy who has just lost his loved one \in his sorrow. Enter the raven. He asks the raven what its name is and it sates \is finished the bird again says \He then realizes that this is the only word the bird probably knows; taught to him by some unhappy master who used to own him. So he knows the only word the bird will ever say is \et he still asks questions that could cause him pain, such as when he asked the bird if there was a maiden in heaven with the name Lenore. He knew that the raven would only say nevermore. But he asked anyway.课文简介

So the theme of this dark and depressing poem, is that people, maybe especially when they have just suffered from a horrible loss, are masochistic, and want to cause themselves pain. He probably

doesn't mean everyone is masochistic to the same extent, but that there's a little bit of it in each of us.

5. Poe often uses sound devices to produce a musical effect. Find out and discuss the sound devices that he uses to produce a musical effect in the poem.

The most prominent poetic device used in \Raven\is alliteration. This use of alliteration seems to thrust the poem forward, as if hastening to a conclusion. There are many internal rhymes throughout the poem. Poe uses similes and metaphors throughout \Raven.\Poe's major contribution to poetry was in his symbolism. The raven obviously symbolized death. Poe also emphasizes the “O” sound in words such as “Lenore” and “nevermore” in order to underline the melancholy忧郁的 and lonely sound of the poem and to establish the overall atmosphere.

the repetition of \ gives a circular sense to the poem and contributes to what Poe termed the unity of effect, where each word and line adds to the larger meaning of the poem.

6. Bust of Pallas: it symbolizes that what the raven says should be considered as truthful and wise. 7. The night’s Plutonian shore: refers to the afterlife. Nature—the Bible of transcendentalism

We are one with nature more focus on soul try to know by intuition 狂喜的原因：无缘由的突然开心， Maybe communicate with nature “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”

Color : the state of mind; emotion

自然会影响我们的心情，我们的心情也会影响我们队自然的感受。

Nature can affect the state of one’s mind; our emotion can affect our understanding of nature. A psalm of life—it was first published in Voices of the Night; it is the first English poem translated into Chinese Rhyme scheme: abab

Express not a empty grandiloquence but an active, positive and optimistic attitude towards life. Mater: trochaic tetrameters

Figures of speech: alliteration and assonance谐音

Punctuation: exclamation感叹，惊叹词, dash破折号

Rhetorical devices: simile and metaphor, parallelism平行结构, allusion电柜

Acknowledges that life is inherently difficult, is a constant struggle and will never be easy. Last sentence: echo the beginning ones and offer perhaps the most important advice in a poem that is chocked full of it. 其余看课件 Because I could not stop for death Iambic tetrameter and iambic trimester

Figures of speech: alliteration, anaphora, paradox, personification

大写字母与破折号的运用达到了突出意象，强化诗意效果，14处破折号：突出解释强化或省略作用

Dickison personifies him (death)as a gentleman caller who takes a leisurely carriage ride with the poet to her grave. She also personifies immortality.