Choose one poem from among this week’s assigned readings except “The Chimney Sweeper,” which was used as an example in this week’s lecture. Post a response of at least 150 words.
Identify a number of key images in the poem which you believe are vital to understanding it and provide a detailed discussion of how those images function in the poem.
Do the images work together to form a coherent pattern?
What ideas or feelings are conveyed by the images the author has selected?
How do they contribute to the overall meaning of the poem?
Remember to provide evidence for your claims in the form of excerpts (a word, phrase, or line, as appropriate) from the poem. Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries used in the assignment should be arranged according to APA rules of style, and in-text and reference citations should be provided, also formatted in APA style. Quoted material should not exceed 25% of the document.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: AFTERMATH
1873
When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow, 5
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
In this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom; 10
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
