1. Answer questions 1a,b - 2a - 3a (Poems are down below) 1. a. In...
Answer questions 1a,b - 2a - 3a
(Poems are down below)
1. a. In "When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer, " how does the author's tone differ in the
lecture hall versus when he decides to walk outside? What literary devices, particularly
dealing with sound, how does this make a difference?
b. What's the author's message to the world?
2. a. In Emily Dickinson's poems "The Rock" and "The Apple Tree," what do the two poems
have in common? Think literary devices--what do they both utilize, and how to they impact
or reinforce the message of the poem? How do these two poems align with romantic
values?
3. a. In "A Dream Within A Dream" by Edgar Allen Poe, what is the setting and the conflict in
the first stanza? What bothers him? What does the sand in his hand represent?
North American Romanticism
American Romanticism was the first full-fledged literary movement that developed in the
U.S. It was made up of a group of authors who wrote and published between about 1820
and 1860, when the U.S. was still finding its feet as a new nation.
These writers were influenced by the Romantic movement that had developed back in
Britain. Like the British Romantics, their work emphasized emotion, a love of nature, and
imagination. The untouched landscape of America at the time played a big role in the
wonderment and fascination of the American romantics.
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-
room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
2. How Happy is the Little Stone
Emily Dickinson
HOW happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And does n't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown 5
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.
A Drop Fell On The Apple Tree
Emily Dickinson
A DROP fell on the apple tree
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.
A few went out to help the brook, 5
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!
The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung; 10
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.
The breezes brought dejected lutes,
3. And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag, 15
And signed the fête away.
A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allen Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
