lit assignment

Friday, September 4, 2009 @ 7:08 AM

1a. The persona was infuriated by the students. In the second stanza, the poet used "Of... Of... Of..." to emphasize on the three sentences whereby he commented on the attitude of the students and the quality of their work. The students' work had so much red ink (mistakes) that it was blotted. It is also described as "slovenly" which definitely makes a teacher go mad at the sight of such low-quality work.

In the first stanza, the poet described his feelings using the metaphor "hounds". The persona describes the students as hounds because they are uncontrollable, and shared the same characteristic of wild dogs. In the second stanza the poet used the metaphor "insults" to describe the persona's feelings. The persona refers the students’ work as insults as he feels that the students are insulting him by giving him shoddy work.

The poet used puns to describe the persona's feelings. The first pun is "quarry" in the first stanza. The word "quarry" has two meanings, one of them is "a rich or productive source" and another meaning is "a hunted animal". This pun tells us that the students have to hunt for knowledge but are hunted down at the same time. In the second stanza, there is the pun "I am sick". It has double meanings and it can mean that the teacher is physically sick or it could mean that he is very disgusted at the students’ behavior. The last pun is in the third stanza. It is "will". The word "will" also has double meanings and it can both mean "going to" and "willing to". The pun describes the persona's feelings well as the teacher is not going to teach the students any more and at the same time, he is not willing to.

1b. The tone of anger in this poem is illustrated through literary devices and careful choice of words. The poet used metaphors, alliteration and puns to bring out the tone of anger in the poem. Some of the metaphors that are used are "hounds" and "insults"; The alliteration is present in "Of... Of... Of..."; Some of the puns are "quarry", "will", and "I am sick". The choice of words also helped illustrate the tone of anger, the persona used words such as "weariness", "endure", "insults" and "dross of indifference".

In the first stanza, the poet described his feelings using the metaphor "hounds". This metaphor refers to the students who were rude, naughty and wild and shared similar characteristics as hounds and thus the persona is very frustrated. In the second stanza the poet used the metaphor "insults" to describe the persona's feelings. "Insults" here refers to the students' work because the persona feels that the quality of the students' work is an insult to his intelligence. The students' work that they have handed in had blotted pages, and the handwriting was horrible and thus the persona feel enraged and frustrated.

For alliteration, the poet used "Of... Of... Of..." to emphasize on the three sentences whereby he said about the attitude of the students and the quality of their work. The students' work had blotted pages and were described as "slovenly" which definitely makes a teacher go mad at the sight of such low-quality work.

For puns, the first pun is "quarry" in the first stanza. The word "quarry" has two meanings, one of them is "a rich or productive source" and another meaning is "a hunted animal". This pun tells us that the students have to hunt for knowledge but are hunted down at the same time. In the second stanza, there is the pun "I am sick". It has double meanings and it can mean that the teacher is physically sick from the stress the students give him and the other meaning is that the teacher is sick and tired of the students' attitude. The last pun is in the third stanza. It is "will". The word "will" also has double meanings and it can both mean "going to" and "willing to". The pun describes the persona's feelings well as the teacher is not going to teach the students any more and at the same time, he is not willing to.

The words that the poet used also helped to bring out the enraged feelings of the persona. He used "weariness" which means that teaching the students were very tiring as he needs to constantly try to make the students listen to his lesson. The word "endure" means that the teacher is frustrated at the sight of the students' work but has to endure it and mark the works no matter how angry he is. "Insults" means that the quality of work by the students is so poor that the persona feels that it is an insult to his intelligence by marking them. Lastly, "dross of indifference" means that the students do not care about their work and show little concern over them.

cheers,
joshua