Assays on the Poems Excelsior and The Raven Shaimardanova Alina

Шаймарданова Алина

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Assays on the Poems: «Excelsior» and «The Raven»

«Excelsior»

The main idea of the poem - journey is a symbol for life itself.

“Excelsior” teaches us never to give up even when we are faced with temptations and adversity.

Throughout Excelsior, Longfellow discusses the idea that there is such as thing as aiming too high, and warns his readers not to lose sight of the world around them.

The poet use in poem next devices:

Simile: (This rhetorical device is used when an overt comparison is made between two different things. In this poem, the poet uses the device of simile in the 1st and 2nd lines of the 2nd stanza when he compares the young man’s eye with a falchion sword, since both are shining brightly, and also uses the word “like” while making this comparison. He again uses this device in the same way in the 3rd and 4th lines of the 2nd stanza when he compares the voice of the young man speaking in Swiss with the sound of a clarion blown in wartime. He uses it for the last time in the 5th line of the 9th stanza when he compares the falling of the young man’s voice with that of a falling star.

Metaphor: This rhetorical device is used when a covert comparison is made between two different things or ideas. In this poem, the poet uses the device of metaphor in the 3rd line of the 3rd stanza when he compares the white colour of a glacier with that of a ghost.

Transposed sentence: Poets often change the sequence of words in their lines in order to maintain the rhyme scheme chosen by them for that particular poem.

In this poem, the poet uses the device of transposed sentence in the 2nd line of the 4th stanza when he writes “Dark lowers the tempest overhead” instead of writing “The tempest lowers overhead darkly”, the latter being the more grammatically correct of the two. He again uses it in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines of the 7th stanza when he writes “as heavenward/The pious monks of Saint Bernard/Uttered the oft-repeated prayer” instead of writing “As the pious monks of saint

Bernard uttered the oft-repeated prayer heavenward”. He uses it for the last time in the 1st and

2nd lines of the 8th stanza when he writes “A traveller, by the faithful hound/Half-buried in the snow was found” instead of writing “A traveller was found half-buried in the snow by the faithful hound”.

The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image; and is repeated.

The poet used anaphora at the beginnings of some neighboring lines. The same words a, beware are repeated.

The poet repeated the same word excelsior at the end of some neighboring stanzas. The poetic device is a kind of epiphora.

Thus, various devices in this poem were considered.

«The Raven»

The Raven‘ by Edgar Allan Poe is a dark and mysterious poem in which the speaker converses with a raven.

Throughout the poem, the poet uses repetition to emphasize the mysterious knocking occurring in the speaker’s home in the middle of a cold December evening.

In ‘The Raven,’ Poe engages themes that include death and the afterlife.

Poe makes use of several literary devices in ‘The Raven.’ These include but are not limited to repetition, alliteration, and caesura. The latter is a formal device, one that occurs when the poet inserts a pause, whether through meter or punctuation, into the middle of a line. For example, line three of the first stanza. It reads: “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping.” There are numerous other examples, for instance, line three of the second stanza which reads: “Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow.”

Alliteration is one kind of repetition that’s used in ‘The Raven.’ It occurs when the poet repeats the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “weak and weary” in the first line of the poem and “soul” and “stronger” in the first line of the fourth stanza.

Throughout, Poe uses repetition more broadly as well. For example, his use of parallelism in line structure and wording, as well as punctuation. He also maintains a very repetitive rhythm throughout the poem with his meter and rhyme scheme.