In class this week, we dove into a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson called The Eagle. After reading it for the first time, my first impression was one of an eagle swooping down to capture his prey. I was confused how anyone could see a different meaning than this. The meaning seemed so obvious. However, throughout this week as we read the poem many times, used the TP-CASTT poetry analysis to review it, and talked about questions that put the poem in a different perspective, my initial judgment of the poem changed. I started focusing on the author's choice of words more and made different assumptions after learning the author's point of view and studying the structure of the stanzas in greater detail. I learned to look for contrasting points in both paragraphs and realized how large and open the first stanza was, only to become confined and depressing a sentence later. It was amazing that both places seemed worlds apart, even though one was only a glance away from the other.
On Friday, we put all our thoughts together for a final question and essay on this poem. After thinking about all I learned this week, I finally decided that the meaning of the poem was that of a prideful man who finally broke under the pressure of constantly being noble and great. When he realized he could stand no more, he chose to fall rather than sit down and humiliate himself. My initial judgment of the poem scraped only its surface. I focused on what I read, not of the poems literary devices. Knowing this helped me recognize how much we learned this week about analyzing poems. Hopefully, next time I’ll have a more open mind to the deeper meaning. http://classroom.synonym.com/benefits-reading-poems-3849.html
1 Comment
Andy Schoenborn
9/25/2016 03:45:50 pm
Hi Melissa,
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