In Tennyson's poem "The Lotos-Eaters," the speaker's tone at the beginning is mostly calm and peaceful, as he seems to lose himself in the beautiful landscape he is describing. He describes the "languid air (which) did swoon," and "the slumbrous sheet of foam" at the bottom of a waterfall. The calm and peaceful tone is also quite melodic, or lilting, which is emphasized by the alternating rhymes which end the first seven lines of each stanza.
Occasionally, however, the speaker's tone becomes more excitable, as indicated by exclamatory sentences such as "A land of streams!" and "a land where all things always seem'd the same!" This more excitable tone echoes the speaker's sense of wonder as to the strange, enticing beauty of the island.
At the end of the poem, the speaker's tone changes from calm and peaceful to resigned and melancholic, as he realizes that the men will never again see their homes. This is best illustrated by the repetition of the word "weary" to describe the men's drowsiness and lethargy. They have become so tired that everything around them also seems tired.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
What is the tone of the speaker in "The Lotos-Eaters"?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment