Part One: the Sound of the Poem

Part One: the Sound of the Poem

Name and Date: ______

Mrs. DeMella: English 2H

Poe: The Raven

Class Work # ______

Directions: Read the poem. You may read it aloud in your group if you like. Then, number the stanzas, annotate the poem, and complete all the questions. Again, you may work in groups if you like. If you finish this in class, give it to the substitute. If you do not finish it in class, complete it over the weekend and be prepared to hand it in on Monday.

Part One: The sound of the poem

1)Identify the poem’s meter and verse. What is the pattern for each stanza?

2)Find four examples of alliteration. Copy the lines they are in, and underline all instances of the repeated sound.

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3) Find four examples of internal rhyme. Copy the lines they are in, and underline the rhyming words.

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Part Two: The meaning of the poem

  1. Summarize the plot of the poem. Be sure to include a description of the first person narrator. What is he doing at the beginning of the poem, and what happens?
  1. Describe the setting of the poem, and describe the mood (feeling created for the reader) of the poem.
  1. Where do you think the shift is located? Why do you believe that this is the shift? Explain how the meaning changes or deepens.
  1. What do you think the raven symbolizes (How is it a metaphor)?
  1. What do you believe is the theme (message) of the poem? What does it tell us about human nature?

The end!

Name and Date: ______

Mrs. DeMella: Eng 2H

“Literary Elements”

Meter: in verse and poetry is a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Syllable: unit of sound in language consisting of a consonant sound and a vowel sound

Stressed syllable: an accented or long syllable.

Practice with METER

FEET

Iambic unstressed + stressed (two syllables): The mouse ran up the clock

Trochaic stressed + unstressed (two syllables): Peter Peter pumpkin eater

Spondaicstressed + stressed (two syllables): baseball / ice cream

Anapesticunstressed + unstressed + stressed (three syllables):

with a leap and a bound

Dactylicstressed + unstressed + unstressed (three syllables):

Hickory Dickory Dock

LENGTH OF LINES

Monometer

Dimeter

Trimeter

Tetrameter

Pentameter

Hexameter

Heptometer

Octameter

(catalectic foot = half a foot – accented syllable only)

Identify:

1)

TygerTyger burning bright

In the forests of the night.

2)

For I have thought thee fair and sworn thee bright

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night

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