Aim: How does Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Bells” convey and reinforce the meaning of the life cycle through his choice of poetic sound devices?
Do Now: TIMED ACTIVITY!
TEAM CHALLENGE ...
Our do now was to list the different types of bells we knew. After getting placed in our breakout rooms we were able to name different bells that some of us never heard of. Our group was able to come up with 14 different bells which were more than all the other groups. Students from different groups listed the number of bells they knew.
After discussing the Do Now we moved on to the next slide where we spirit read about Edgar Allan Poe’s life.
We read that:
Edgar’s dad divorces his mother and left him with her and 3 children.
After watching his mother die of tuberculosis, he was orphaned and raised by foster parents.
His first girlfriend died of tuberculosis and his stepmother followed
After his brother died of tuberculosis he moved out and met his first cousin who he fell in love with, but died of tuberculosis.
He became a poet, but he made little money causing him to turn to drink alcohol.
He was involved in a voting fraud where you change clothes and vote multiple times for free alcohol.
He died presumably of alcohol poisoning, but recently doctors think that he was bit by a rabid animal giving him rabies.
FRAUD???
Overall he was unlucky and had an unfortunate life. We then made connections from his life to the pictures in slide 2
In slide 3-5 we read about poetic sound devices.
We learned of:
Cacophony: a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.
Cacophony include
Explosive Consonants: (k, t, g, d, p, b, q, c, x, ch-, sh- etc...)
Hissing Sounds: (ch-, sh, and s)
Cacophony can be used to convey dark feelings/thoughts, harsh or loud noises, chaos, violence, or fear.
Euphonious: sounds that are soothing or pleasant to the ear.
- It is the opposite of cacophony
- Euphony include
all the vowels
harmonious consonants, such as: (l, m, n, r and softer f and v, sounds).
soft consonants or semi-vowels such as: (w, s, y and th or wh)
Euphony is used to make the language sound beautiful and melodic.
- Alliteration: consecutive words that start with the same letter or sound.
We also watched a short video explaining alliteration.\
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brQfY8VtmyA&ab_channel=TheRedRoomCompany)
- Onomatopoeia: the word that imitates sounds
- Repetition: Repeating words sound of phrases that create rhythm and emphasizes feelings.
- Rhyme: words that have similar sounds at the end of the words.
There are 2 different types of Rhyme
- Perfect rhyme: Rhyme that has almost identical sounds and syllables.
- Imperfect rhyme: Rhyme that has similar sounds but is not as exact as Perfect Rhymes
ANALYSIS OF POETRY
TEAM GROUP WORK
Analyze the first two stanzas. How do they compare, in terms of similarity?
Now, compare the bells in stanzas 1 and 2 with the bells in stanzas 3 and 4. How does Poe” mood shift in his poem?\
How does Poe use sound devices to imitate the sound of bells?
Compile a list of the devices you believe he used.
This poem is as much about sound as it is about meaning.
Why do you think Poe places a heavy emphasis on sound in this poem?
What message does it help to express?
How is this poem symbolically a metaphor for life?
Unfortunately, we ran out of time but we were able to briefly talk about the meaning and theme of the poem. The poem uses a variety of cacophony repetition imagery euphony and repetition. It starts out happy with euphony and ends in misery with cacophony. There was a repetition of the word bells which created a rhythm to connect all 4 parts of the poem. The theme that I wrote was that the bells represent a certain part of our lives. We start as silver bells, innocent and happy. Then we grow up and become golden bells which represent maturity and youth. However, as we get older, we can never hide from death and iron bells symbolize the death that will fall upon all of us.
Reflection:
What did I learn?
In this lesson, I learned about Edgar Allan Poe’s unfortunate life and his poem “The Bells.” We also talked about poetic devices commonly used in poems: Cacophony, Euphonious, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, Repetition, and Rhyme. We got to analyze the poem and identify poetic devices used in the poem.
Why did I learn it?
I learn this so we can analyze poems better and how this poem relates to the unfortunate life of Edgar Allan Poe. Also by analyzing this poem we reach a deeper understanding and knowledge of classical poems.
How will I use what I learned?
I can use what I learn to analyze more classical poems and use this knowledge to gain more information about the structure of other classical poems that are hard to understand.
No comments:
Post a Comment