Need Help with Poetry homework...

Alright, so for my Honors English 10 (even though I was put in 11th grade English last year???) Summer Assignment I have to do a few essays, but this one stumps me. I'll put it up here because I have no idea where to start. God I hate poetry.



Instructions
Below is a tiny little poe mby Rilke, a German poet who primarily liked to write about love. Using three or four of the litrary terms from your first glossary, analyzze the poem using direct quotation or perhaps line numbers (there are six lines) to support your in-depth findings. Go, young literati, read and analyze love poetry.

Time and Again

Time and again, however well we know the landscape of love,
and the little church-yard with lamenting names,
and the frightfully silent ravine wherein all the others
end:time and again we go out together,
under the old trees, lie down again and again
between the flowers, face to face with the sky

Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926






help?

Quote:

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Using three or four of the litrary terms from your first glossary

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Not that I can help much (perhaps I am making that obvious thru this post), but what does the above quote mean?

oh thats unimportant, its about some definitions I had to do. I spoke to him last night, he didn't seem like he cared about something so small.

Well. It kind of is, what literary terms are they? Simile, metaphor, hyperbole, etc?

This'd be easier in the original German. ~;p

Quote:

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Immer wieder, ob wir der Liebe Landschaft auch kennen
Und den kleinen Kirchhof mit seinen klagenden Namen
Und die furchtbar verschweigende Schlucht, in welcher die anderen
Enden: immer wieder gehn wir zu zweien hinaus
Unter die alten Bäume, lagern uns immer wieder
Zwischen die Blumen, gegenüber dem Himmel.

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As in the German there is rhyme.

However, both contain a repetition of "time and again" or "immer wieder". There's "frightfully silent ravine" --- a metaphor for death. The poem uses free verse which symbolises the irrational and fluid nature of love and emotion. The simplistic language portrays the rawness of love. The tone is reflective. Etc, etc, etc

http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/corner/owen.html

This should be right for you, written by a English soldier in WW1, about WW1

Time

ChurCh bells

Dead at last

Yo.

I find it ridiculous to analyze a poor translation of more than a decent german poem.

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Originally Posted by Moros

I find it ridiculous to analyze a poor translation of more than a decent german poem.

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Its America, what do you want?

analyze a poor american poem!

(I'm afraid that is exactly the kind of by-the-numbers, "find the literary tropes!" assignment that turns people off poems.)

Time and again, however well we know the landscape of love,
and the little church-yard with lamenting names,
and the frightfully silent ravine wherein all the others
end:time and again we go out together,
under the old trees, lie down again and again
between the flowers, face to face with the sky

So think about the interplay between the mixing of the intimate and the external world. For example, the very phrase "landscape of love" is, despite being slightly hackneyed (in the English), a strangely incongruous mix of the external (landscape) and the internal (love). The best example of this is towards the end: "time and again we go out together"---the intimate voice in the 1st person plural, "we," that is, "you and I" (also together)---giving way by the end of the poem to "face to face with the sky": "face to face" is an intimate gesture and might well be expected of someone who says "time and again we go out together," but it is followed by "... with the sky"---a very striking mixture of intimate and external.

You can expand by thinking about the tension between the person the poem is talking to (the "you" of the "you and I" of the "we"), and the natural world which intrudes time and again.

I can't help but trying to read it as a rap song after the other thread. :embarassed:

@Rhyfelwyr: I actually automatically started reading a lot of things in a rap rythm after that thread... :s

I rap everything! I am getting someone a poetry book for Christmas!

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Originally Posted by Moros

I find it ridiculous to analyze a poor translation of more than a decent german poem.

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now quite as ridiculous as analysing an excellent Arabic poem in English.

Analyzing poetry ... just seems so wrong. It's like trying to feel with your head, or think with your heart.

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Originally Posted by Ibrahim

now quite as ridiculous as analysing an excellent Arabic poem in English.

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Yeah I prefer analysing Arabic poems in Dutch or German as well!

Oh freddled gruntbuggly/thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Nerd

I rap everything! I am getting someone a poetry book for Christmas!

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I don't know if I ever told you before, but I think you're a very awesome and amusing person to have around the frontroom.

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Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Nerd

rap everything! I am getting someone a poetry book for Christmas!

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I don't know if I ever told you before, but I think you're a very awesome and amusing person to have around the frontroom.

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It really is the kingdom of peace and love!

Quote:

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I don't know if I ever told you before, but I think you're a very awesome and amusing person to have around the frontroom.

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Thank you for the compliment, and you are a...well, a person who has quite a way with words...;) (interesting stories to tell too!)