land, Spenser, and Bunyan, the great writers of allegory in English, use names descriptive of character. 4. Find passages in this story where Hawthorne uses irony or perhaps something even as stinging as sarcasm. 5. With the structure of this story compare that of David Swan by the same author. THE AMBITIOUS GUEST I. Read the tale thoughtfully. II. The unity of effect in this tale is as good as it is in any of Poe's. The proper atmosphere is given it by the setting. Discuss the location and the weather. Go through the story from the first paragraph to the climax, and list every reference to avalanches and dismal sounds. Put with these all allusions, in the writer's exposition and in the conversation of the characters, to impending fate, to disaster, and to death. Notice how these expressions of foreboding increase in frequency and force to the climax. In the paragraph that ends with the shriek of terror, the words gain in power, as they should do as the story approaches its climax. After the climax, quiet, calm sentences "intimate," because no words can adequately "portray," the overwhelming horror of the catastrophe. III. The persons of this story are the center of interest; the narrative interests us as it affects them. Hawthorne opens his story with them, because characterization is his chief purpose in the tale. Are they individuals, or types? Are the words and wishes of each suited to his age and station? Are any of the wishes fulfilled in their death? Study particularly the nameless stranger, who is more complex of character than the simple mountaineers. "The secret of his character" is clearly explained by Hawthorne, and also by the young man himself. This young man gives the moral thought to the tale. His was the only ambitious soul there; and his was the double tragedy death and oblivion. The simple, unambitious family are known by name, and the scene of their death is pointed out to every traveller through the White Mountains. But the "high-souled youth, with his dream of earthly immortality! His name and person utterly unknown; his history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved; his death and his existence equally a doubt!" Whose indeed was the agony of death? Hawthorne founded this story on an actual event. See Spaulding's Historical Relics of the White Mountains. "Some time in June, before the great slide in August, 1826, there came a great storm, and the old veteran, Abel Crawford, coming down the Notch, noticed the trees slipping down, standing upright, and as he was passing Mr. Willey's he called and informed him of the wonderful fact. Immediately, in a less exposed place, Mr. Willey prepared a shelter to which to flee in case of immediate danger, and in the night of August 28 in that year he was, with his whole family, awakened by the thundering crash of the coming avalanche. Attempting to escape, the family, nine in number, rushed from the house and were overtaken and buried alive under a vast pile of rocks, earth, and water. By a remarkable coincidence, the house remained uninjured, as the slide divided about four rods back of the house, against a high flat rock, and came down on either side with overwhelming power." CHAPTER XIX SIDNEY LANIER REFERENCE BIOGRAPHIES Memorial, by Wm. Hayes Ward, in Poems. New York, 1900. SUPPLEMENTARY READING Clover, Corn, The Waving of the Corn, The Mocking Bird, The Revenge of Hamish, The Stirrup-Cup, My Springs, The Symphony, How Love Looked for Hell. THE SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE I. This poem is a description of the course of a river that rises in the mountains of Georgia, passes in its upper course through the counties of Hall and Habersham, and flows through the lowlands into the Gulf of Mexico. II. The movement of the poem is rippling and animated, as befits the song of a mountain stream. The stanzas contain ten lines each, the first two and the last two having three accents each, and the intermediate six having four accents each. The foot has sometimes one unaccented syllable, sometimes two, the two very short ones occupying the same time as the one longer one. The effect is good, for it makes the alternately rippling and flowing movement of the stream in the uplands. Irregularity in meter and reversal of accent help to produce a rippling effect. The movement is suggested also by the pauses at the end of lines, by the occasional run-on lines, and by a few rather abrupt pauses within the lines (27, 28). Most of the internal pauses harmonize the movement of the poem to the thought, the writer enumerating the obstacles and hindrances in the path of the stream. (Stanzas 2, 3, 4.) The long vowel in "abide" and the pause between the repetitions retard the movement of the poem, and suit it to the movement of the stream. Note also line 28. Retard is necessary for careful articulation in grass said Stay." III. The melody of the poem is smooth and flowing, a large proportion of the consonants being liquids or spirants. There is a great deal of alliteration, and some of it is double. This helps in the rippling movement. (Find examples.) The explosives, also, are so used as to add to the rippling effect; see particularly line 5. IV. The rime is abcbcddcab. The final cab is identical in wording with the initial abc; ab is identical throughout the poem. Internal rime occurs in the third line of every stanza, in the eighth line of most of them, and in the sixth line of the last. This repetition of sound helps to make the rippling movement. Similar is the effect of riming "glades". "shades" (lines 29-30). V. The movement of the last stanza is slower than that of the first four, as the river anticipates its slower movement on the plain. The pauses after "avail" and "downward," and the spondee in "fields burn," with the medial pause in the same line, and the great number of long vowels and final spirants throughout the stanza, retard the flow of verse. This corresponds to the deeper seriousness of the fifth stanza, in which the poet turns from mere artistic pleasure in the beauty of nature to consideration of the activities of human life. The presence of the word "Duty" in the stanza gives it a different note. VI. Observe how the poet has obtained variety in the "application" of the refrain at the beginning and at the end of each stanza. See Poe's theory of the refrain, quoted in the study of Longfellow's My Lost Youth. VII. Prepare to read the poem aloud. Think, as you read, of the course of the river and of its movement in its bed alternately rippling and flowing. Compare Tennyson's The Brook, with its short lines, frequent pauses, onomatopoetic words, abundant alliteration, and extra short syllable at the end of lines 2 and 4 of each stanza. Which poem speaks more of the sound made by the stream? What differences in diction and form depend on imitations of sound and of movement? TAMPA ROBINS I. The poem personifies the robin, and represents him as defying, from his safe refuge in a Florida orange-tree, the northern winter. II. Study the following details of the poem. Line 2: Explain the words of defiance. Line 4: What are the oranges called metaphorically? Line 5: Think of "Time" as personified in the figure of an old man with a scythe over his shoulder. Line 6: What joys does the robin find in his Florida home? Line 7: Refer "globes" to line 4. The "globe" suggests a metaphor taken from astronomy. What is the "leafy sky"? What are the oranges called, in metaphor, in line 8? In line 9? Why is the robin metaphorically a "meteor"? Line 10 refers to the ancient superstitious fear of meteors. Refer "heavenly" in line 11 to "sky" in line 7. The path of |