Study Suggestions for Egyptian Poetry and Genesis 1-3

Egyptian Poetry

  • Reread each poem several times
  • Write a brief summary of each
  • Review packet
  • Know definition of pastoral poetry
  • Depicts pleasures of simple rural life
  • Speakers express emotionsthat are pure and direct
  • Contains dramatic message
  • Each has unique tone (note tone changes within poems)
  • Use of diction– the diction of each poem is appropriate to its speaker (note use of humor).

“Your Love Dear Man, Is as Lovely to Me”

  • The speaker uses similes to tell the man she loves just how much she loves him. (Identify them).
  • Identify the mood of this poem. Which specific words contribute to mood?
  • Use of concrete images – oil, ritual, robes, and incense- appeals to senses.

“I Think I’ll go Home and Lie Very Still”

  • The speaker expresses his lovesickness for his beloved.
  • What role does irony (the difference between appearance and reality) play in this poem?
  • Why will the specialists “snarl their teeth?”

“The Voice of the Swallow, Flittering, Calls to Me”

  • The speaker tells of her love for and devotion to her lover.
  • The speaker is a bird catcher who captures and tames wild birds
  • How does the poet weave this occupation into almost every line?
  • How does the poet play with themes of wildness and tameness?
  • Poem is songlike in its simplicity and directness of emotion.

Genesis 1-3REREAD!

  • Genesis, Chapter I opens with the words “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” It proceeds to describe the acts of creation, the culmination of which was the creation of man.
  • Contains tone of satisfaction between God and man.
  • Chapter 2, verse 4, is the transition point from one version of the creation story to another, quite different one.
  • Unlike the first version, the second reveals an anthropomorphized God—a God who creates man out of dust the a potter creates a pot out of clay, a God who plants gardens the way a farmer would.
  • Chapter 2 describes the acts of creation, but in an order opposite of that in Chapter 1.
  • The culmination of Chapter 2 is the creation of woman.
  • Chapter 3 of Genesis recounts the fall of Adam and Eve.
  • After eating the forbidden fruit, the first man and woman are punished by God, who expels them from Eden.

Important Themes

  • The role of humans in the universe
  • Origination of suffering – purpose of Creation and Fall story
  • Development of relationship between humans and God
  • Theme of Temptation
  • Good and Evil – God links knowledge of good and evil with death
  • Naming

Archetypes in Genesis 1-3

  • Ocean – associated with world in its unformed state (oceans are formless).
  • Trees of knowledge and life – many cultures associate an archetypal world tree as a link between the human and the divine realms, earthly and spiritual worlds.
  • Light and darkness
  • Light is associated with form and all that is good.
  • Darkness is associated with formlessness and confusion.
  • Evil snake- inspires both fear and fascination (the serpent has an almost hypnotic power over Eve.
  • Garden of Eden – represents a perfect, ideal world that symbolizes human innocence.
  • Adam and Eve – represent all human beings.
  • Eating the forbidden fruit – represents the misdeeds that all human beings are capable of. Within the context of this story, it seems to represent disobedience.

Repetition

  • The use, more than once, of an element of language – sound, word, phrase, clause, or sentence, grammatical or rhythmic pattern – to achieve a rhetorical effect.
  • The repeated words and phrases in the prose of Genesis, like repeated lyrics in a song, serve to emphasize certain ideas (lend a lyrical quality to the prose).
  • One function of repetition is to emphasize the stately progression of creation and the key role God plays in this process.