Blogger #15 - Chris Kim - Period 1 - 11/23/2020 - Freshmen 2021
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: (Team Activity) (Timed)
We started off with the Do Now. For the Do Now, each team had to list different types of bells, and the team with the most won. My team came up with 10 different type of bells: Doorbell, Liberty Bell, Bicycle Bell, Church Bell, Alarm Clock, Dinner bell, Cow Bell, Jingle Bell, Wind Chime, and Traditional Chinese Bell.
After completing the Do Now, we were instructed to read the story “Oh Woe is Poe.”
Oh Woe is Poe! PDF
In this story, we read about Edgar Allan Poe’s life and his struggles and obstacles in life. We see how Poe uses poetry to express his feelings, after losing loved ones to tuberculosis, and people would later assume that Poe was crazy and had rabies,
Poetic Sound Devices...
Musical or sound devices: convey and reinforce meaning (or experience) through the use of sound
Cacophony: Cacophony comes from the Greek word meaning, “bad sound.” Or Involving or producing a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. In other words, consider the noises you may hear on a crowded city street: cars honking, people yelling, dogs barking etc...
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 is when there are sounds that are soothing and pleasant to the ear. It’s quite the opposite of Cacophony.
It includes all the vowels
It has harmonious consonants, such as: (l, m, n, r and softer f and v, sounds).
Additionally, it uses soft consonants or semi-vowels such as: (w, s, y and th or wh) extensively to create more pleasant sounds.
Other Poetic Sound Devices:
Alliteration: A stylistic device in which consecutive words or words that occur close together in a series all begin with the same first consonant letter or sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brQfY8VtmyA&ab_channel=TheRedRoomCompany
Onomatopoeia: A word which imitates the natural sound of a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ST_SEOPcrk&ab_channel=TheRedRoomCompany
Repetition: Repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas. Repetition is used to emphasize a feeling or idea, create rhythm, and/or develop a sense of urgency
Rhyme: a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words (especially common at the ends of words). Rhyme is pleasing the ear and also lends a sense of rhythm and order to the language.
Perfect rhyme occurs when stressed syllables of the words, along with all subsequent syllables, share identical sounds (ex: pencil" and "stencil”)
Imperfect rhyme or “slant rhyme” involves the repetition of similar sounds that are not quite as precise as perfect rhyme (ex: “uptown” and “frown”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URuMb15CWJs&ab_channel=TED-Ed
Team group work (breakout rooms)
Analyze the first two stanzas. How do they compare, in terms of similarity?
The first two stanzas compare in terms of similarity the mood they convey. Both bells in both stanzas are described positively, both the silver and gold bells are described by the depiction of Euphonious wordplay.
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?
Poe’s mood shifts from positive to negative during stanza 1 and 2 to stanzas 3 and 4. In the first two stanzas, the bells are described as “rhyming and tinkling” while the next two stanzas describe the bells as groaning and clangor.
4) How does Poe use sound devices to imitate the sound of bells?
Compile a list of the devices you believe he used.
Poe uses the sound of bells, people’s groans, and their screams to imitate the sound of the bells. He uses onomatopoeia, such as “tinkling, jingling,” and as I have mentioned before, “moaning and groaning.”
5) 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?
I think Poe placed a heavy emphasis on sound because out of sound, we can describe the mood of events. Sound helps deliver a message, physical or negative, and fuel the emotions. This poem is a symbolic metaphor for life, bells bringing the memory of joy or sadness.
Reflection:
In this lesson, I learned about the wide range of literary devices used to make poetry more interesting. We also had a small sneak peek into Poe’s life, which had a large influence on his style of writing. We got to analyze the poem and identify poetic devices, such as: Cacophony, Euphonious, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, Repetition and Rhyme. By analyzing Poe’s life and his poem, we can grow in knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of classical poems, and the influence of literary devices on the poem and how the reader reads it.
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