English HL Literature Paper 1 (self.IBO)
"Meditation on a bone" by A D Hope
I basically discussed the ideas of hatred, revenge and legacy. I think one of the best (i.e pretentious) thing I wrote during my essay was the fact that there were two interpretations of the piece. You could see it as the guy having the ultimate revenge by having killed his enemy and making his sin of adultery known forever but also that this is tragic because the only legacy left by the guy will be misery and hatred. I actually really liked the poem on its own and thought it was interesting.
I did the poem and basically just discussed the timelessness of human emotion and feeling and the remnants of life we leave behind. I used the enjambment across stanzas and caesuras in the last stanza to show the emphasis on the metaphor of the pen and the question at the end.
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I may have gone out on a limb, but I talked about how the structure of the poem was a replication of the inscription itself, giving the poem an archaic feel from the time period. This allows the reader to put their self into the time period and become absorbed by the unsettling mood.
I also talked about how the scholar became the writer of the inscription merely by rewriting the words of hatred that were on the bone, creating a cycle of hatred that keeps recurring no matter how hard you attempt to hide it.
Lastly, the final stanza was simply a reflective piece. It ends on a question that makes the reader ponder whether they are leaving behind a good or bad 'bone,' or something to be remembered by. I then added another perspective saying that our thoughts may be enough to be remembered by because the title of the poem is simply "Meditation on a Bone." Just threw in some counters and stuff.
I also talked about the quick little exposition thing above the poem and related back to it many times, alluding to possible scenarios of which the inscription was written. One scenario was the scribe of the bone had only slept with Erlend's wife while Erlend is alive, and stopped after murder because it hurts more while Erlend lived and his wife doesn't deserve it. I had a few more, but I did a lot of this.
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That little exposition really screwed me up. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to reference it or not.
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I had interpreted the exposition as the scribe refusing to sleep with Erlend's wife despite Erlend's sleeping with his. The line "better she should be a widow" I saw as a confirmation that the guy was not going to make her suffer as well.
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Interesting view. The reason I thought he had slept with Erlend's wife was due to the quote in the middle stating "I loved her as a maiden." But honestly, it wouldn't matter which one of us is roght, as long as there was support. :)
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I did the poem as well. A few of my classmates ended up discussing the 6 syllable meter and they connected it to Hell which was interesting. XD
The prose was definitely no good.
I talked about how the bone releases ur inner self and crap, was it actually six stanzas? Cause I wrote five on the structure I think. I said things like "misery is an eye rhyme to alert the reader of the time phasing shift in the next line" and sum crap like that.
It was five stanzas. Six syllable lines and six lines a stanza, but only five stanzas.
I did the poem! I talked about how the author of the poem characterized the writing on the bone as one with passion and confliction. I feel like the poem had a lot of interpretations, which makes it interesting. I spoke a lot about the literary devices the authors used, hopefully everyone picked up on personification!
I think my favorite line in the poem was the last one, when the scholar questions "what bone will speak for me?". It really puts the whole poem into context. The inscription on the bone was pretty general, and the rest of poem reveals the tone scholar interpreted it as. I think this line reveals the authors ignorance toward the true tone/context of the inscription - which makes him wonder what "bone"/"part" of his life will be found, and how it will be "interpreted"/ in what ways it will speak for him.