Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Lines 1, 2: Notice the metaphor. Line 3: The "East" is the place of dawn. Line 4: Manhood includes self-direction, freedom. Line 5: Explain the metaphor comparing liberty to the blossom of the century-plant.

Line 11: The third stanza is the reverse of the first. Compare the two, line for line. Line 13: "His sympathies with God" are his aspirations for a fuller life. Line 15: Without the soul of a man (self-directing, free) the slave is no better than a corpse - less noble than the dust from which he was

made.

Line 6: Return, now, to the second stanza, which continues the thought of the first. The metaphor compares the success of a reform to the birth of a child into the world. Line 7: Social systems are completely changed by some reforms. Line 9: Nations wondering what great change will come next. Line 10: As soon as one reform is completed, another, perhaps a greater, begins to be agitated.

Line 16: The fourth stanza explains the facts stated in the first and third. Line 17: The figure refers to the telegraph. Line 19: Explain "ocean-sundered." What figure in "frame" and "fibers"? "Joy" refers to the first stanza, "shame” to the third. Line 20: This line is a summary of the four stanzas.

Line 22: Is it natural to personify Truth and Falsehood here? Line 23: People revealed themselves as good or evil by taking part for or against the Messiah. Line 24: Matthew 25:32, 33. Line 25: The decision made at the moment of crisis can never be changed; it becomes history.

Line 26: Party is "side." Line 27: Doom is "judgment." If one does not accept the good, he is judged. Luke 9:5. Lines 31, 32: We know little about the past. A few important events and movements are recorded; they show in

the sea of oblivion as islands, the tops of sunken mountains, appear above the water of the ocean. Line 33: Busy with the affairs of the world, no one sees the need of social reform. Line 34: "Winnowers" and "chaff" repeat the thought of the earlier metaphor "Messiah" and "goats" (lines 23, 24). Explain. Line 35: No one realizes that the decision is so important till it has been made.

Line 37: Old social sys-
The Word is "Messiah"

Line 36: "Avenger" of wrong. tems and the better order of things. again. John 1:1. Do you find this true in the history of human progress? Line 38: Is a new truth always persecuted before it prevails? With lines 39, 40 compare lines 28-30.

Lines 41: Compare line 35. Line 42: Explain the metaphor. Line 43: Compare line 33 - our absorption in worldly affairs. Line 44: The great oracle (line 43) was the one that lived in the cave at Delphi, Greece. What is this voice whispering in the soul? Does a compromise usually strengthen the wrong side? How much harder, then, is the task of crushing the stronger evil later!

Line 46: Thus far Lowell has been stating social principles. Now he mentions the great evil of his day, the specific one he has had in mind all the time. All evils are giants, sons of Force and Ignorance, but slavery is most cruel of all. You can find a description of the terrible Cyclops in the story of Ulysses (Odysseus) in your Greek mythology. Is it true that evil has "drenched the earth with blood"? Destructive Slavery has made a desert about himself, and now reaches for new territory tries to make himself strong enough to destroy a new generation.

Line 51: Explain the figure. Line 54: Doubting means "hesitating," till the struggle is over, and everyone boasts of holding a faith that, till recently, he denied.

Line 57: They were working for society, not for themselves; yet society killed them. Acts 7:54-60. Line 58: The beam of the balance of justice; compare lines 28-30, 39-40. Lines 59, 60: They foresee the triumph of their cause because they are mastered by a divine faith; their own high purpose gives them faith in other men and in the moral order of the universe.

Line 61: Is this history-have "heretics" been burned for every advance society has made? Line 63: The "mounts of anguish" are the "Calvaries" where martyrs have suffered at every stage of the race's progress. A reformer dies, but he does not turn back (line 62). Each generation takes one step forward in social progress. Line 64: Prophet-hearts foresee the triumph (lines 58-60) through their sympathy with the divine; they have confidence in humanity because of their own worth.

Line 66: The movement of the race is always forward. The cause that calls for martyrs today offers a field for selfish mercenaries and traitors tomorrow. Matthew 26:14, 15. Line 68: But there is still place for work and suffering in front of the majority; see lines 61, 62. Lines 69, 70: Finally society comes up to the position the martyr has taken, and makes a hero of him. Explain the figure.

Lines 71-73: We must not think the times of our fathers were good enough for us and for those that come after us; we must be martyrs and heroes, and lead forward. Explain the figures. Lines 74, 75: We are proud of our New England ancestry. But what were they in their own day? Persecuted exiles, outcasts for a principle now established in America.

Line 76: "Present" in their day not satisfied with the social conquests of the past. Define "iconoclast." Line 77:

Persecution did not change them. Lines 78-80: If we profess only the truths they established, we are false to the principle of social progress, which drove them across the sea to plant a freer nation; we are three hundred years behind the times, instead of leading forward. Explain line 79.

Line 81: Traitors to their principle of progress when we cling to their time instead of moving on to our own present and future. Explain the figure in line 82. Emphasize "newlit." Line 83: Ought we to be shut in by the knowledge and beliefs of earlier days? We ought to know more than our ancestors, to believe better than they. Lines 83-85: Shall we persecute persons who refuse to cling to the past? Explain the figure. Line 86: Uncouth is "out-of-date," "ridiculous." Line 88: Emphasize "before," as you emphasized "in front" in line 68. Emphasize "ouselves," and in line 89 "our." "Pilgrims,” i. e. leaders of a new movement; "Mayflower," the movement; "winter"— the Pilgrims landed in December. Line 90: Explain the figure.

IV. Study the meter, rime and stanza of the poem. Is it at all irregular?

V. Read the poem again with the outline, this time aloud. Memorize five sentences or parts of sentences that are, you feel, worth remembering all your life."

VI. This poem was a favorite one with anti-slavery speakers. Speaking of certain lines, George William Curtis said: "Wendell Phillips winged with their music and tipped with their flame the dart of his fervid appeal and manly scorn." The stanza beginning "For humanity sweeps onward" was used by Sumner in the speech that provoked the attack of Preston Brooks. See Greenslet's Lowell, 79, 80.

The poem was written specifically against compromise with the slavery power; but it discusses chiefly a universal prin

ciple. This principle is contained in the statement of the theme above. Find it in the poem, in Lowell's words.

VII. Write a paragraph on what seems to you "The Present Crisis" of the year in which you study this poem: is it municipal reform, civil-service reform, some industrial problem, or what? Use as an introduction to your paragraph a general statement of one's duty to society - the universal principle which Lowell has been trying to impress on us, and which will be as true a thousand years hence as it is now.

ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION

I. The occasion of this poem was a service held in honor of the Harvard men who had been killed in the Civil War. The service was held on July twenty-first, 1865, on a lawn near the college grounds, and many prominent men were present. Lowell's recitation of his great Ode was most affecting. Underwood, in his James Russell Lowell, page 68, describes the scene.

II. The Ode was written with the greatest speed. Two days before the services, Lowell had not begun it. On the day before, he says, "Something gave me a jog, and the whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all night writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of the day to Child. 'I have something, but don't know yet what it is or whether it will do. Look at it and tell me.' He went a little way apart under an elm-tree in the college yard. He read a passage here and there, brought it back to me, and said, 'Do? I should think so! Don't you be scared.' And I wasn't, but. virtue enough had gone out of me to make me weak for a fortnight after." (Letters of Lowell.) See index to Letters, edited by Norton, and index to Scudder's Life of Lowell; also Greenslet's Lowell, pages 161–163.

« AnteriorContinuar »