*nuzzle!*

[alexmegami]

Patrick just called me from Peterborough. Yay! We didn't talk for long, but it was nice.

I have two missed calls. I'm hoping they're Pat, but my cell phone doesn't take messages or give phone numbers. I will be very sad if they aren't Pat.

Now, I am drinking water because of a (mild) headache and staring at my essay for Criticism. This would probably be easier if I could remember what tropes are. And how am I supposed to analyse aural effects? I hate literary criticism. And reading poetry for anything other than personal enjoyment.

For the record, the poem is this:

"Winter Thought" - Archibald Lampman

The wind-swayed daisies, that on every side

Throng the wide fields in whispering companies

Serene and gently smiling like the eyes
Of tender children long beatified,

The delicate thought-wrapped buttercups that glide

Like sparks of fire above the wavering grass,
And swing and toss with all the airs that pass,

Yet seem so peaceful, so preoccupied;

These are the emblems of pure pleasures flown,

I scarce can think of pleasure without thesse,
Even to dream of them is to disown

The cold forlorn midwinter reveries,
Lulled with the perfume of old hopes new-blown,

No longer dreams, but dear realities.

--

So far I've got that it's a Petrarchan sonnet (slightly modified as the octave is ABBAACCA rather than ABBAABBA), meaning that it's [probably] a love poem (which it is)...

And there are metaphors. Mostly with flowers.

Beyond that, I've got nothing.

Well, I have seven hours before LARP... time to get to work. Where is that Ways of Reading...?

Comments

[achpsident.livejournal.com]

You've probably found this out already, but as far as I know tropes are the conventions or cliches of a particular genre, the things that you have to accept in order to write in it. I'd give examples, but I'm a very lazy man.

[anagonyasnow.livejournal.com]

Think: Pastoral setting.