Remixing the Textbook

 Sonnet 89: by Pablo Neruda
When I die, I wish your hands upon my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass once more their cool touch over me:
to sense the softness that changed my fate.

I want you to live while I, asleep, await you.
I want your ears to go on hearing the wind.
I want you to smell the sea's aroma we loved so together,
and to go on walking the sands we walked.

I want what I love to go on living.
And you, whom I loved and sung above all else,
for all that, flourish again, my flower,

to reach for everything my love demands of you,
so that my shadow is passed through your hair,
so that all can know the reason for my song.

1. Dramatic Situation:

• A man who is deeply in love; in his thoughts about death and what he wants after death takes him.

2.  Structure:

• blank verse, four lines in the first two stanzas and three lines in the last two stanzas.

3. Theme:

• The desire of wanting something better for someone else than you wish upon yourself; true love.  

4. Grammar and Meaning:

• The man in speaking in the poem lists out his desires for the woman he loves. She is what he looks forward to for all of eternity (even after death).  

5. Images and Figures of Speech:

• He speaks of the softness of the woman that he so much longs to have pierce his body again.
• Metaphor: "my flower" he has completely pictured the woman of his dreams as perfect as a flower.

6. Important Words:

• All of his diction was understandable however two of his more influential words were: flourish and aroma; adding to the imagery as well as developing his theme.

7. Tone:

• Peaceful, melancholic 

 8.Literary Devices/Techniques:

• Metaphor
• Anaphora (I want..)

9. Prosody:

• The writing style had a relaxed tone which had no rhyme to the poem. It was more of a way to free ideas/thoughts that had been harvested in their minds.

She Walks in Beauty: by Lord Byron
 

She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart whose love is innocent!

 

1. Dramatic Situation: 

• A man who is blinded by innocent love; England

2. Structure:

• Rhymed Stanza, alliteration

3. Theme:

• Love can cause a man to go blind especially if the innocent loved one is so sweet and pure.

4. Grammar and Meaning:

• Uses many descriptions to make the image of the woman and separates his thoughts using commas.
• He is basically building the character of the beautiful woman through descriptive words.

5. Images and Figures of Speech:

• The last stanza is what puts together most of the physical characteristics of the woman.
•  "Soft..tender...pure.."

6. Important Words:

• Many adjectives used to describe the scenery and woman.

7. Tone:

• Calm, peaceful

8. Literary Devices/ Techniques:

• Simile
• Personification
• Metaphor

9. Prosody: 

• The rhyming scheme was abab

Sonnet 69: by Pablo Neruda
 Perhaps not being is being, but without you,
without your setting out to cut the noon
like a blue flower, without your walking
later on across the bricks and the fog,

without that light you carry in your hand,
which maybe others will not see turned to gold,
that maybe no one even knew was growing
like the red origin of the rose,

without your being, in the end, without your coming
excitedly, abruptly, to know my life . . .
gust of rosebushes, wheat of the wind,

and since then, I am because you are.
and since then you are, I am, we are,
And through love I and you and we will be.

1. Dramatic Situation:

• A man talking about how his life was changed by the one decision that the girl made; to be with him. 

2.Structure:

•  blank verse, first two stanzas with four lines, last two stanzas with three lines.

3. Theme:

• One small action can cause many reactions and long-lasting effects.

4. Grammar and Meaning:

• The meaning of the poem is to emphasize how prominent careless actions can truly be.

5. Images and Figures of Speech:

•  The light she carries in her hand that turns to gold.

6. Important Words:

• colloquial speech

7. Tone:

• gratitude

8. Literary Devices/ Techniques:

• Personification
• simile
• metaphor 

9. Prosody:  

•  No rhyme