Need Help with Poetry homework...

**Prussian to the Iron** · 09-01-2010, 14:41

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?

**A Nerd** · 09-01-2010, 14:53

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

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

**Prussian to the Iron** · 09-01-2010, 14:55

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.

**naut** · 09-01-2010, 15:32

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

This'd be easier in the original German.

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.

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