An Analysis of After Apple-Picking
"After Apple-Picking" has often been compared to Keats' "Ode to Autumn," as if it were primarily a celebration of harvest. But its elevated diction as well as its images, mood and theme, all suggest a greater affinity with Keats' :Ode to a Nightingale." In that weary, drowsy poem the speaker longs to escape through art, symbolized by the nightingale, from the pain of the real world and wants to melt into the welcome oblivion of death:
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk,
Frost's narrator, standing on the earth but looking upward, is also suspended between the real and the dream world:
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill.
The long and short lines, the irregular rhyme scheme, the recurrent participles (indicating work), the slow tempo and incantatory rhythm all suggest that repetitive labor has drained away his energy. The perfume of the apples - equated through "essence" with profound rest - has the narcotic, almost sensual effect of ether. Frost's speaker, like Keats', is suffused with drowsy numbness, yet enters the visionary state necessary to artistic creation:
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough.
The glassy piece of ice - which distorts, transforms and makes the familiar seem strange - is, like Keats' nightingale, a symbol of art. In his dream state (the word "sleep" occurs six times in the poem),
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear,
and he rhythmically sways on the ladder when the boughs bend with his weight. As the apples are gathered - and the poem written - he becomes both physically and mentally exhausted:
the surface structure of these poems appears simplistic, but subtle changes in tone or gesture move the reader from the mundane to the sublime. In an attempt to sleep, the speaker in "Insomnia" moves from counting sheep to envisioning Noah's arc to picturing "all the fish in creation/ leaping a fence in a field of water,/ one colorful species after another." Collins will tackle any topic: his subject matter varies from snow days to Aristotle to forgetfulness. Collins relies heavily on imagery, which becomes the cornerstone of the entire volume, and his range of diction brings such a polish to these poems
...tremity of his withdrawal from society, he succombed to the forces of nature and cast a negative light on the idea of transcendentalism. The protagonists exhibit their transcendentality in conflicting yet converging ways including the specific occurrences which cause this diverging from society, the positive and negative effects which happen to them as a result, and the picture that is portrayed by the finale of each tale.
Zora Neale Hurston uses many symbols throughout her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, to represent many different things. Symbols are important in a novel because they reveal ideas and qualities beyond the literal sense of the symbol. Symbolism also helps the reader better understand the deeper meanings of the book. Zora Neale Hurston uses various symbols such as a horizon, Janie’s hair, and a pear tree in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Research Question: To what degree are lobbyists’ successful at influencing the legislative process in Congress?
Did you know that the Ancient Indian people of the Southwestern United States have dated back to the year 10,000 BC? First appearing toward the end of the last Ice Age, they were the first “Americans.” (Noble, 1998) When Christopher Columbus arrived in the America’s in 1492 and seeing the people of this land for the first time, he thought that he had landed in India, thus giving them the name “Indians.” (Noble, 1998) However, he was nowhere near India, or that region of the world. Because the Ancient Indians were nomadic people, (people who wondered the lands with no permanent home) through the years they developed, separated, and re-located their clans, developing into what we know today as the American Indian. One group or tribe, are the Hopi Indians. Although the Hopi are still a tribe today, mostly living in Arizona, their population, traditions, skills, and crafts have dwindled throughout the years. Let us sit back, relax, and explore the ancestor’s of the Hopi tribe and learn about their traditions, skill, and crafts.
Duffy, D. L., Hsu, Y., & Serpell, J. A. (2008, December). Breed differences in canine aggression. Applied Animal Behavior Science, 114(3 - 4), 331 - 460.
Of course, promoting the common pronunciations as “wrong” ones would ensure many controversies and chaos. Since the standard relies only on the outdated Guangyun, many pronunciations in modern Hong Kong did stay the same in the way of how the characters should be pronounced hundreds of year ago. This induced considerable amount of confusion in identifying correct pronunciations for the mass public.
... imagery, as both meanings could describe Keats longing, as he could wish to remain for as long as possible in the embrace of his lover, but also how he could wish to continue to hear her ‘tender-taken breath’, in which the alliteration portrays his lover as beautiful and inviting, further showing how Keats now prefers the life of reality. He forgets about the impossible, and being immortal and being alone, but rather embraces the temporary and exhilarating.
Frost uses different stylistic devices throughout this poem. He is very descriptive using things such as imagery and personification to express his intentions in the poem. Frost uses imagery when he describes the setting of the place. He tells his readers the boy is standing outside by describing the visible mountain ranges and sets the time of day by saying that the sun is setting. Frost gives his readers an image of the boy feeling pain by using contradicting words such as "rueful" and "laugh" and by using powerful words such as "outcry". He also describes the blood coming from the boy's hand as life that is spilling. To show how the boy is dying, Frost gives his readers an image of the boy breathing shallowly by saying that he is puffing his lips out with his breath.
Gaurav Sharma Professor Sherry Sharifian Texas Government 2306 SLO#2 April 23,2017 Lobbyists and Interest Groups in Texas Lobbyists and Interest groups are generally significant in the country as they have the ability to influence decision making. Lobbyists are hired to specifically influence he decision makers in order to pass laws that are considerate depending with the interests of their employers. However, Lobbyists and Interest groups spend a lot when they arrange meetings with law makers in a bid to persuade them (Ramsey: 1).
The first stanza begins with Keats painting a picture of Autumn as being a “season of mist and mellow fruitfulness”. This is used in conjunction with the use of the image of a “maturing sun” which ripens the Autumn harvest of views and the fruits. The excessiveness of the Autumn harvest is achieved with the use of hyperbole. He describes the fruit being ripened to the core, the gourds are swelled, the hazel nuts plumped and trees bend from the weight of the apples. So the first stanza describes quiet vividly the fullness and abundance of life.
It might seem that the poem is about apple picking and hard work but it is actually about the nature of death. Poets use events in their lives as a... ... middle of paper ... ... y. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
This has the effect of portraying the love as fresh, new, and colorful, combined with the imagery of lute pipes and incense only serves to amplify Keats’ joy. The poem is full of life and color, much like the love that Keats feels for Psyche.
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...
In this poem he now talks about water. The reader can see how powerful the water is when it eats away at the cliff. The shore was lucky by being backed by the cliff. Once again Frost is discussing water which goes back to stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by stating the water because there is water in this poem with snow Frost keeps bringing up water and snow.