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The dream of the rood themes significance
The dream of the rood themes significance
Themes of the dream of the rood
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“The Dream of the Rood” “There powerful enemies took me, put me up to make a circus-play to lift / up and parade their criminals” (37). In “The Dream of the Rood,” a classic and holy story is told in a different light from the way it is written in the Bible. It recounts the story of Christ dying on the cross and resurrecting, but with a twist: It is written partly from the point-of-view of the cross that he was crucified on. Throughout “The Dream of the Rood”, the author of the poem reveals their style through first-person point of view, alliteration, and their tone. First, the author reveals their style through the first-person point of view that they use throughout the poem. The entirety of the poem is written in two characters’ perspectives, …show more content…
The alliteration in the poem serves a purpose, creating a mood for each section and segment of the story. An example of the alliteration being used to set the mood for a scene is when the tree is described as being “[gleaming, gold, with gemstones gleaming down to it’s foot]” (7). The author is describing the cross to be important and perhaps even royal. The mood quickly changes as the tree starts “bleeding on the right side” in which the dreamer describes being “bereft with sorrows; that splendid sight made [him] afraid” (CITATION) The harsh consonants indicate a change in the mood to one of sadness and sorrow. It caused me to feel sad for the cross in this case, feeling sorry for the dreamer and the cross. Yet another example of alliteration can be found when Jesus is being nailed to the cross. The tree describes as the men make “marks of malice”, piercing through him (47). The alliteration here is an indication of the pain. I could almost hear the nails piercing through the wood as I read through that part. Using alliteration in this poem gives it the right rhythm. In important scenes, there are often more uses of alliteration which tend to draw your attention to them, such as the nailing of the cross and the burial and …show more content…
The tone of the author in this poem changes throughout the events that occur in the poem. For instance, when Jesus is being crucified, the author uses a lot of negative tone words, such as; mocked, malice, cruel, and dire. The use of these words communicates the sorrow and mourning of the scene in which the Lord is suffering and dying upon the cross. It also indicates the humiliation of both Jesus and the cross during this part of the poem. Later on, the cross is exalted and the tone changes becoming more positive. Some of the positive tone words include; exalted, glory, and might. This is showing how the cross went from humiliation to glory throughout the course of events. The author is trying to convey the sense of something heavenly and joyous with the positive tone towards the end that causes you to want to tell others about what you have read about.When reading the poem, I could feel the emotions that the author meant for the audience to feel. During the crucifixion and burial scenes, I felt great sorrow as the death was described in detail along with the darkness and storm clouds that were
The poem is written in the style of free verse. The poet chooses not to separate the poem into stanzas, but only by punctuation. There is no rhyme scheme or individual rhyme present in the poem. The poems structure creates a personal feel for the reader. The reader can personally experience what the narrator is feeling while she experiences stereotyping.
The alliteration used is to emphasize rhythm in the poem. On the other hand, the poet also depicts a certain rhyme scheme across each stanza. For example, the first stanza has a rhyme scheme of this manner a, b, c, d, e, a. With this, the rhyme scheme depicted is an irregular manner. Hence, the poem does not have a regular rhythm. Moreover, the poet uses a specific deign of consonance, which is present in the poem (Ahmed & Ayesha, p. 11). The poet also uses the assonance style depicted in the seventh stanza, “Seven whole days I have not seen my beloved.” The letter ‘o’ has been repeated to create rhythm and to show despair in the poem. On the second last line of the seventh stanza, the poet uses the style of consonance, “If I hug her, she’ll drive illness from me. By this, the letter ‘l’ is repeated across the line. The poet’s aim of using this style of Consonance is to establish rhythm in the poem and add aural
The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love
Kenyon’s choice of a first person perspective serves as one of two main techniques she uses in developing the reader’s ability to relate to the poem’s emotional implications and thus further her argument regarding the futility of mankind’s search for closure through the mourning process. By choosing to write the poem in the first person, Kenyon encourages the reader to interpret the poem as a story told by the same person who fell victim to the tragedy it details, rather than as a mere account of events observed by a third party. This insertion of the character into the story allows the reader to carefully interpret the messages expressed through her use of diction in describing the events during and after the burial.
In the first stanza, it is established that the poem is written in the first person, when “I” is referring to the speaker, which illustrates this person’s point of view concerning the tragedy of 9/11 during a whole day of events. The speaker begins by setting a tranquil mood as the opening of a long list of last names. In line 1, he says: “Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.” He describes the night like a tropical tree gently swaying in a peaceful beach setting. He calmly observes the gentle raindrops dripping slowly down his windows until they disappear in “A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze, / And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,” (2-3). For a brief moment, he enjoys going outside to his garden at sunrise to forget the sorrow that death brings when “In the morning, I walked out barefoot / Among thousands of flowers” (11-12).
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
The Anglo-Saxon poem known as, The Dream of the Rood is the reverse image of the crucifixion. The Dream of the Rood is unique in describing the crucifixion from the vantage point of the Cross, and within the framework of a dream. In comparison, The York Play of the Crucifixion discusses each step in the process of tying Christ to the cross. Both representations of the crucifixion compare and contrast each other.
The phrasing of this poem can be analyzed on many levels. Holistically, the poem moves the father through three types of emotions. More specifically, the first lines of the poem depict the father s deep sadness toward the death of his son. The line Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy creates a mental picture in my mind (Line 1). I see the father standing over the coffin in his blackest of outfits with sunglasses shading his eyes from the sun because even the sun is too bright for his day of mourning. The most beautiful scarlet rose from his garden is gripped tightly in his right hand as tears cascade down his face and strike the earth with a splash that echoes like a scream in a cave, piercing the ears of those gathered there to mourn the death of his son.
The first set of bells that we come across in this piece are the silver bells. These bells represent the first stage of human life: youth. Firstly, the color silver is pure and shiny. This is the way humans come into the world: pure, without harshness. Silver bells are associated with the winter season, which, to some, appears beautiful and untouched, just like a child. The words "merriment" and "jingling",along with the line "In the icy air of night", seem to infer that these bells are being rung around the holiday season. The ringing of these bells brings to mind a child-like anticipation of what the season will bring. The words in this first stanza are light-hearted, giving it a jubilant feel. It is also interesting to note that the first stanza has fourteen lines, making it the shortest stanza in the poem. This goes back to the idea of youth.
The Dream of the Rood is a poem that illustrates the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the perspective of the cross. The illustration comes together in a dream. The rood or the cross communicates with the Dreamer, to give him hope in the future return of Christ and eternal glory. Additionally, the rood encourages the Dreamer to share his dream with others and point them to the cross. This poem is meaningful to me because it prompted me to reflect on the cross and what it represents. It is a symbol of God’s love and what He did on the cross, so we could be saved from our sins.
To begin, the sound of this poem can be proven to strongly contribute an effect to the message of this piece. This poem contains a traditional meter. All of the lines in the poem except for lines nine and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of eight syllables. This is relevant in order for the force of the poem to operate dynamically. The poem is speaking in a tenor of veiled confessions. For so long, the narrator is finally speaking up, in honesty, and not holding back. Yet, though what has been hidden is ultimately coming out, there is still this mask, a façade that is being worn. In sequence, the last words in each of the lines, again, except for lines nine and 15, are all in rhythm, “lies, eyes, guile, smile, subtleties, over-wise, sighs, cries, arise, vile...
thoroughly a few times we learn that there are many underlying themes and tones to this poem. For example the many biblical references “immortal” meaning to not die, “fire” related to hell “heaven” related to God and “wings” also relate...
The construction of the poem is in regular four-line stanzas, of which the first two stanzas provide the exposition, setting the scene; the next three stanzas encompass the major action; and the final two stanzas present the poet's reflection on the meaning of her experience.
The poet mourns the death of his loved one and wants the world to grieve with him. His wants his subjective to be objective. The first stanza links everything to noise. He wants to 'silence the piano ' for example, showing how he wants no more noise in the world. Throughout the poem, there are many imperatives. This relates back to Remember, where the poems title is included in the imperatives. The third stanza has no imperatives at all, and many antonyms. This is the poets way of saying they meant everything to him. The second stanza uses 'scribbling ' to personify a plane. The use of personification in the poem links back to Do not go gentle into that good night. The first stanza contains references to things that can be easily done like 'stop all the clocks '. The second has things that are theoretically possible but a bit harder to do. The poem seems to get less and less realistic as it goes on. The final line, 'For nothing now can ever come to any good ', is quite bleak, showing how the death of his partner has affected the poet. It gives him no good feelings
...za there is personification in the line, “the vapors weep their burthen to the ground”. There is also a sense of irony with, “man comes and tills the field and lies beneath” because its humans working the land for crops that help them survive, only to be buried beneath it when they pass away. In the second stanza, the God granting his wish is described by the smilie, “Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, like wealthy men who care not how they give”.