2021年美国文学诗歌赏析

1. Analyze the poem “The Wild Honey Suckle”

欧阳光明（2021.03.07）

Understand the title: 1.The name honeysuckle comes from the sweet nectar that the flower produces to intoxicate the greedy bee. Its powerful fragrance seduces the human senses as it pervades the air. The perfume of this passionate plant may turn a maiden’s 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.

2. Analyze Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (Over 200 words)

"Song of Myself" is all about the human experience. The human experience, here, means what men of the 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. 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 births 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, Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going, Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then 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, schools, The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.

3. Emily’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (Over 300 words)

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 essen ce of life, which then lead you to a world of imagination and thinking.

4. Appreciate the poem “In a Station of the Metro”.

The poem is essentially a set of images that have unexpected likeness and convey the rare emotion that Pound was experiencing at that time. Arguably the heart of the poem is not the first line, nor the second, but the mental process that links the two together. "In a poem of this sort," as Pound explained, "one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective." This darting takes place between the first and second lines. The pivotal semi-colon has stirred debate as to whether the first line is in fact subordinate to the second or both lines are of equal, independent importance. Pound contrasts the factual, mundane image that he actually witnessed with a metaphor from nature and thus infuses this “apparition” with visual beauty. There is a quick transition from the statement of the first line to the second line’s vivid metaphor; this ‘super-pository’ technique exemplifies the Japanese haiku style. The word “apparition” is considered crucial as it evokes a mystical and supernatural sense of imprecision which is then reinforced by the metaphor of the second line. The plosive word ‘Petals’ conjures ideas of delicate, feminine

beauty which contrasts with the bleakness of the ‘wet, black bough’. What the poem signifies is questionable; many critics argue that it deliberately transcends traditional form and therefore its meaning is solely found in its technique as opposed to in its content. However when Pound had the inspiration to write this poem few of these considerations came into view. He simply wished to translate his perception of beauty in the midst of ugliness into a single, perfect image in written form.

It is also worth noting that the number of words in the poem (fourteen) is the same as the number of lines in a sonnet. The words are distributed with eight in the first line and six in the second, mirroring the octet-sestet form of the Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet. 5. Appreciate the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snow Evening”.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” like many of Frost's poems, explores the theme of the individual caught between nature and civilization. The speaker's location on the border between civilization and wilderness echoes a common theme throughout American literature. The speaker is drawn to the beauty and allure of the woods, which represent nature, but has obligations—“promi ses to keep”—which draw him away from nature and back to society and the world of men. The speaker is thus faced with a choice of whether to give in to the allure of nature, or remain in the realm of society. Some critics have interpreted the poem as a meditation on death—the

woods represent the allure of death, perhaps suicide, which the speaker resists in order to return to the mundane tasks which order daily life.

6. Analyze the poem “The Road Not Taken”.

the poem is inspirational, a paean to individualism and non-conformism.

The poem consists of four stanzas. In the first stanza, the speaker describes his position. He has been out walking in the woods and comes to two roads, and he stands looking as far down each one as he can see. He would like to try out both, but doubts he could do that, so therefore he continues to look down the roads for a long time trying to make his decision about which road to take. The ironic interpretation, widely held by critics, is that the poem is instead about regret and personal myth-making, rationalizing our decisions.

In this interpretation, the final two lines:

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

are ironic : the choice made little or no difference at all, the speaker's protestations to the contrary. The speaker admits in the second and third stanzas that both paths may be equally worn and equally leaf-covered, and it is only in his future recollection that he will call one road "less traveled by".

The sigh, widely interpreted as a sigh of regret, might also be interpreted ironically: in a 1925 letter to Cristine Yates of Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the sigh, Frost replied: "It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life."

7. Analyze the poem “Anecdote of the Jar”.

This famous, much-anthologized poem succinctly accommodates a remarkable number of different and plausible interpretations, as Jacqueline Brogan observes in a discussion of how she teaches it to her students.It can be approached from a New Critical perspective as a poem about writing poetry and making art generally. From a poststructuralist perspective the poem is concerned with temporal and linguistic disjunction, especially in the convoluted syntax of the last two lines. A feminist perspective reveals a poem concerned with male dominance over a traditionally feminized landscape. A cultural critic might find a sense of industrial imperialism. Brogan concludes: "When the debate gets particularly intense, I introduce Roy Harvey Pearce's discovery of the Dominion canning jars (a picture of which is then passed around)."

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

(Over 500words)

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.