Practical tasks

1. Overall stylistic analysis.

Exploring the use of style in literature helps students understand how language conveys mood, images, and meaning. In this activity, students first find examples of specific stylistic devices in sample literary passages. They then search for additional examples and in a whole-group discussion, explore the reasons for the stylistic choices that the author has made. The examples for this lesson include prose abstracts from any literary work.

2. Review the literary elements in lyric poems. Compare different types of lyric poems and appreciate them from different perspectives. Dwell on the problem how the stylistic techniques used in the poems help illustrate the theme.

General procedures:

• What's the title of the poem? Who is the poet?

• What is described in the poem?

• Who is the speaker (may not be the poet)? What's the tone?

• Give two examples of stylistic devices used in the poem.

• The best line(s)-the most beautiful, or impressive or vivid, etc.

• Give one example of the unusual choice of words. Explain why.

• What emotions are evoked? Use one word to describe the feeling.

Activity 1.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: 10 Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, 20 They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. 1804.

(a)Discuss the following themes: memory, nature (b) identify and analyze the use of personification in the poem

(b)Answer the following questions:

• Describe the scene the speaker suddenly comes upon in his wandering.

• Find two similes in which the comparison is indicated by the word "as". In each simile, what is compared to what? What is suggested by each simile?

• What effect does the scene have on the speakers while he is present? What "wealth" is he later aware of?

• According to the speaker, in what activity do the flowers take part?

• What was the speaker's mood before he saw the daffodils? How do you know?

• Find three examples of personification in the poem. What human characteristics are given to nonhuman things?

• What is the speakers" inward eyes"? Why is it the "bliss of solitude"?

• Of what value to humans are natural scenes as the one presented in the poem?

• Wordsworth once described poetry as "powerful feelings recollected in tranquillity". Explain how this famous phrase relates to "I Wonder Lonely in the Clouds".

Activity 2

"I Hear an Army" by James Joyce

I hear an army charging upon the land, And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their Knees: Arrogant, in black armor, behind them stand, Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the Charioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle-name: I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter. They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair" They come out of the sea and run shouting by the Shore. My heart, have you not wisdom thus to despair? My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

(a)Discuss the theme: nightmares

(b)Identify the use of onomatopoeia (imitation of sounds)

(c)Discuss the following questions:

1. How do your moods influence your dreams?

2. Describe the army that the poet hears.

3. What has the speaker's love done to him?

4. Is the army the poet describing real? Explain your answer.

5. How do words like "plunging". "fluttering", "whirling", and "clanging" contributes to the mood of the poem?

6. A famous poet once said that it is easier to write about heartbreak than about happiness in love. Comment on this remark.

Activity 3.

" The Sky is Low" by Emily Dickinson

The Sky is low-the Clouds are mean A Traveleling Flake of Snow Across a Barn or through a Rut Debates if it will go-

A Narrow Wind complains all Day How some one treated him. Nature, like Us is sometimes caught Without her Diadem.

(a)Discuss the theme: nature and human nature

(b)Identify the use of personification in the poem.

(c)Discuss and answer the following questions:

1. Why do you think people so often interpret natural phenomenon terms of human nature?

2. Describe the scene in the poem.

3. What does " mean" suggest about nature?

4. What does "debates" suggest about the movement of the snowflake?

5. What impression of the wind do you get from lines 5-6?

6. Restate in your own words the meaning of lines 7-8.

7. How would you reply to someone who said that this poem is merely a weather report in rhyme?

8. Point out two examples of personification in the poem.

Activity 5.

"Women" by Alice Walker

They were women then My mama's generation Husky of voice- Stout of Step With fists as well as Hands How they battered down Doors And ironed Starched white Shirts How they led Armies Headdragged Generals Across mined Fields Booby-trapped Ditches To discover books Desks A place for us How they knew what we Must know Without knowing a page Of it Themselves.

(a)Discuss the following themes:

• relations between generations

• social change

(b)Identify and analyze the use of imagery and parallelism in a poem

(c)Discuss and answer the following questions:

1. From what generation do the woman of the poem come?

2. What physical characteristics are given the woman in the first 6 lines?

3. Find three activities of these women. What three things did they discover?

4. What words and images in the poem shoe the strength of the women?

5. Explain the last 5 line of the poem. Why do you think the poet italicized the word "must"?

6. What improvements does the poem imply have taken place from one generation to the next? What has been lost?

7. Explain how sacrifice and hardship can be positive experience.

Activity 6.

"maggie and milly and molly and may" by E.E. Cumming

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriend a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles and

may came home with as mooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose(like a you or me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea

(a)Discuss the following themes:

• the effect of nature

• self-awareness

(b)Analyze the total effect of the poem, including the use of alliteration, assonance, and figurative language.

(c)Discuss and answer the following questions:

1. Where did Maggie, Milly, Molly, and May go? Why?

2. What did Maggie find? What effect did it have on her?

3. Describe the item that Milly "befriended".

4. Give two details to describe the thing that chased Molly.

5. What item did May bring home? Explain the only capital letter in the poem.

6. Why do you think the speaker choose not to name the "horrible thing" that chased Molly?

7. Explain the last two lines of the poem.

8. What can we infer about the personality of each girl from what she found in the sea?

The scheme of overall stylistic analysis

1. Author as a creator of the text. Time and place of the text creation.

2. Define the general topic of the text, its main idea, genre and style, colouring and composition.

3. Define the type of narration, dialogue, polylogue, intertextuality, etc.

4. Artistic system of the text, dominating images, key concepts.

5. Means of cohesion.

6. The analysis of the language means (phonetic, graphical, lexical, morphemic, lexical, syntactic) that bear the main aesthetic load and make the basis of the system of tropes and stylistic devices.

7. Define the role of the stylistic devices in the development of the main idea and imagery structure of the text.