The poem describes a speaker's deathbed scene surrounded by loved ones. As the speaker prepares for death, which is viewed as a journey to meet "the king", their attention is distracted by a fly buzzing around. The fly's interruption contrasts the significance of the speaker's death with the mundane insect. The fly may symbolize the devil disrupting the passage to heaven, or represent the circle of life continuing as death occurs. The poem has a hymn-like form and uses religious imagery to depict the personal account of the dying speaker.
A beautiful poem covering syllabus of Class IX English. Entire poem is included in this powerpoint presentation. Stanza-wise Explanation is also given.
I have attached 3 videos in the power point so that it is easy to explain in the class. you can ask power points any topics even in science, social and any other general topics
A beautiful poem covering syllabus of Class IX English. Entire poem is included in this powerpoint presentation. Stanza-wise Explanation is also given.
I have attached 3 videos in the power point so that it is easy to explain in the class. you can ask power points any topics even in science, social and any other general topics
Writing 10618 October 2017Poetry from the American Movement.docxambersalomon88660
Writing 106
18 October 2017
Poetry from the American Movement
The American Poet Movement progressed with poems such as Robert Frost’s, “Design” and Emily Dickinson’s, “I Heard a Fly Buzz.” The images of the two poems are so completely different that they almost demand a different set of ideas and concepts when dealing with their creations. It would be impossible for Robert Frost to approach “I Heard a Fly Buzz” because “Design” has a different perspective on viewing death in the world. Although both authors use the same theme of death ,they have a different perspective on how death can look like. Even though we notice a difference in the discussion of deathly you can also notice a correlation between both poems,being the common theme and the poetic techniques such as similes and imagery.
In “Design”, Robert Frost uses death as a symbol to express his thoughts on the universe or something he believes to be a god. He explores the idea of the world being created by a god or an evil god. He questions nature and tries to understand how can the spider attack this innocent moth. Frost suggests there is innocence and evil within the flower the supporting lines “What had that flower to do with being white,The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?” (Frost). Gives great understanding as to what Frost was trying to convey with spider. The white color represents the innocence potentially evil design that Frost creates while describing the relationship between moth and spider. Their relationship is the spider preying on the moth but the repetition of the word “white” makes this simply action so much more, meaning that the innocences of the moth may be intimidating for the spider and he has to show his dominance.
According to Carolyn Morningstar in the article Devouring the sonnet, a white spider catches and dismember its prey the white broken wing of the moth remains. The narrator settles on the fact the moth was pure and innocent but since the moth was attacked by the spider the narrator ponders on the thought that all things that seem evil can be good as well.However, Robert Frost suggests “What but design of darkness to appall?...If design govern in a thing so small” (Frost 13). The final lines of the poem may give explanation on why Frost feel so connected to this theme of death and why he use these insects to interpret this feeling. As the poem discover that there may be universal god or a evil god that makes all things possible Robert Frost finish the thought of wanting to have the answers and question the universe. Robert Frost uses death as a way of showing the progression of life by giving the spider complete control to prey on the moth which shows a very innocent and vulnerable role, as the spider hold a dominant role the moth feels a bit vulnerable since he is being preyed upon. Frost introduce the other idea of “Then steered the white moth to thither in the night?” (Frost) guiding the moth to another world or maybe the new world.
Emily .
1. Framework for Analysing
Dying
Overview ( Content/Context):
The speaker of Dickinson’s poem describes her own deathbed scene, surrounded by loved ones
who look on and wait for the moment of passing. Death is viewed as a journey, ‘the last onset’
before meeting ‘the king’. The enormous significance of the speaker’s death is contrasted by the
essentially mundane appearance of a fly that distracts the speaker.
Several readings are possible here: the fly stops the speaker from seeing ‘the light’ as they die and
so might be seen as a metaphor for a version of Beelzebub (the Lord of the Flies) coming between
the dying and God / heaven; the fly is a symbol of on-going life (characterised by its ‘buzz’) and
Dickinson is deliberately juxtaposing its sound with the silence of death to evoke the circle of life
Statement
Structure
and Form Four quatrains, taking its form from the common hymn books of
Dickinson’s childhood, rhythm 8, 6, 8, 6 and some use of half rhyme,
‘room’ / ‘storm’
caesura ‘and then it was…’ (line 11) as the fly interrupts the deathbed
scene, so it interrupts the line, and third stanza, of the poem,
enjambment (lines 12-13);
Narrative
Stance personal account in the first person, ‘I…’,
Grammar
and
Sentence
Structure
Declarative mood, opening complex sentence, line 1 where main
clause misleads reader, ‘I heard a fly buzz’, and subordinate clause
shocks reader, ‘when I died’, past tense, ‘I heard’, has implications for
the speaker (who has died but is narrating poem), parallel syntax lists
what the speaker has done to prepare for death, ‘I willed my
keepsakes, signed away…’;
Lexis and
Imagery
Simile ‘the stillness in the room was like the stillness in the air between
the heaves of storm’, religious imagery ‘the king’, metaphor for sight
‘the windows failed’, juxtaposition of stillness and storm, oxymoron ‘last
onset’, metonym, the people surrounding the speaker on her deathbed
are described through body parts, ‘the eyes around’, ‘breaths were
2. gathering’;
Lexical sets of death, ‘died’, ‘last onset’, ‘willed’, ‘failed’, first person
singular pronouns, ‘I’, ‘me’, pre-modified noun phrase describes the fly,
‘blue, uncertain stumbling buzz’, syndetic pair ‘the light and me’, adverb
‘then’ lends the poem (and the moment of the speaker’s death) some
immediacy, ‘And then’, ‘and then’, abstract nouns ‘stillness’, ‘heaves’,
‘breaths’, repetition of verb ‘to see’ as sight fails in the last line;
.
Phonology
and Sound
Patterning
Assonance ‘between the heaves’,
onomatopoeia ‘buzz’,
sibilance ‘stillness’, ‘storm’;