Blogger 13
Aron Lin
Period 6
November 24th, 2020
Cycle B
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?
Our to do team challenge was to name as much types of bells your team can name which was also timed. Everyone had similar answers for bells such as school bells, christmas bells, and other bells.
There is going to be a lot of spirit reading in which we used this link to Oh Woe Is Poe!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cPfYjmoyLzpq9gsuLNNGZNwB6El9U8IN/view?usp=sharing
In this reading, we learn a lot about Edgar Allan Poe, who is a famous writer and poet who has an unpleasant past. Throughout his life we learned that
He likes to attend funerals quite often, when he wasn’t attending funerals, he wrote about dead people with them often in dark places, such as torture chambers and haunted houses.
When he was very little, his father left his mother with Poe and his siblings. His mother died of tuberculosis
He wrote many pieces of poetry and stories that got him very popular.
He was extremely poor and often begged for money.
He became an alcoholic due to his problems.
He committed voter fraud and got put into a hospital after he was disoriented.
He eventually died but some believe he died of rabies rather than the common belief that he died of alcoholism.
Our class starts comparing various pictures related to Edgar Allan Poe’s life, and giving explanations on how these pictures related to Poe’s life. One image of a racoon with the caption “Rabies, it wasn’t me!” most likely explained how he died, which was most likely of rabies. The alcohol image shows that Poe was an alcoholic. The ballot box with the caption, “FRAUD” is supposed to show how Poe was involved with voter fraud. The gravestones represent his close people in his life and how they all died of tuberculosis. The detective image references Poe’s story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” which is regarded as the first detective story.
The class then starts to learn about some poetic sound devices by spirit reading out the terms:
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)
Example: He is a rotten, dirty, terrible, trudging, stupid dude!
Cacophony can be used to convey dark feelings/thoughts, harsh or loud noises, chaos, violence or fear.
We proceed to do a Think/Pair/Share: Highlight or underline words that are cacophonous, in the following examples.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” (“The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll
“I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments…”
(Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift)
Euphonious: involving sounds that are soothing or pleasant to the ear. It is 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.
Example: “While the stars that oversprinkle all the heavens seem to twinkle” -Edgar Allen Poe
Euphony is used to make language sound beautiful and melodic. If a writer is describing something they want to make seem attractive, pleasant, or beautiful, one of the best ways of achieving this is to make the language itself sound harmonious.
We go on to do another Think/Pair/Share: Highlight or underline words that are euphonious, in the following examples.
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” (“Ode to Autumn” by John Keats)
“While the stars that oversprinkle/All the heavens seem to twinkle” (“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe)
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
Example: Jackrabbits jump and jiggle jauntily.
We proceed to watch this video.
Red Room Poetry Object Poetic Device #1: Alliteration [2:00]
Onomatopoeia: A word which imitates the natural sound of a thing.
Example: The buzzing bee flew by
Example: The rustling leaves kept me awake.
We proceed to watch this video.
Red Room Poetry Object Poetic Device #4: Onomatopoeia [2:36]
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
Example: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
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”)
We proceed to watch this video.
The pleasure of poetic pattern - David Silverstein [4:46
The class now reads the “The Bells” By Edgar Allan Poe (YouTube) along with a voiceover.
After we listen and read the poem, we analyze each stanza of the poem by identifying sound devices and literary devices used and analyzing the effect of these devices on how the poem goes. We go into breakout rooms with our groups to do this analysis. We also answer questions related to the poem after the analysis.
Analyze the first two stanzas. How do they compare, in terms of similarity?
They both use Euphony to create a heavenlike sound of the bells, describing the bells in a light tone, creating harmonious sounds rather than brash noises.
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?
After stanza 2, going into stanza 3, the poem takes a shift in which Poe describes the bells in a more negative tone, describing the bells as brash, making unpleasant sounds.
How does Poe use sound devices to imitate the sound of bells?
Compile a list of the devices you believe he used.
Repetition, Cacophony, Euphony, Alliteration. He uses all these devices to create a rhythmic poem and rhyme while emphasizing specific tones by using alliteration and either cacophony or euphony.
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?
Sound can help create the split tone poem poe created by using the same object of a bell but by distinguishing them with different sounds a bell can create. This can help represent the two sides of life by showing the pleasant and beautiful side of life with the pleasant sounds of the bells but it can also show the sad and depressing world of life through the rough sound of the bells. This poem shows how bells at the beginning of life are pleasant and create wonderful sound showing how babies and children have innocent lives until they grow up and the bells start clanging
And the innocence of being young is torn away.
Type of Bell:
What is this bell used for?
(denotation)
What are associations or feelings connected with this type of bell? (connotation)
Identify Sound Devices and Literary Devices Used
(Provide textual examples)
Take Note of: Alliteration, repetition, onomatopoeia, euphony, cacophony, diction, figurative language etc.
Analyze the Effect:
What is the effect of Poe’s use of these specific sound devices?
What is the overall mood expressed in this stanza? (How do the sound devices contribute to this?)
Stanza 1: Silver Bells
Euphony and Repetition
This is to create a pleasant idea of bells making harmonious sounds and how heavenly they can seem.
Stanza 2: Golden Bells
Euphony and Repetition
This is to create a pleasant idea of bells making harmonious sounds and how heavenly they can seem.
Stanza 3: Brazen Bells
Cacophony and Repetition and Alliteration
These devices create a harsher tone compared to the other stanzas, using alliteration to emphasize the now unpleasantness of the bells.
Stanza 4: Iron Bells
Cacophony and Repetition and Alliteration
These devices create a harsher tone compared to the other stanzas, using alliteration to emphasize the now unpleasantness of the bells.
Reflection:
In this lesson, I learned about various poetic devices, all with their whole varied uses in poetry. I also learned a lot about Edgar Allan Poe, who was a classic poet and writer and how his life was pretty unpleasant and tragic, with him dying in the end through his unfortunate circumstances and him leading towards alcohol for happiness. We learned about Euphony, Cacophony, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia, Repetition, and Rhyme. We use these different devices by reading the poem, “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe. We proceed to answer questions and complete a chart using different literary devices to explain parts of the poem.
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