Poem Answers 4 Sept 09

1a. What are the persona's feelings described in the first three stanzas of this poem? Explain how the poet described these feelings through the use of alliteration, metaphor and pun.

The persona of the poem feels confused and stressed out. He does not know what to do with his students. His students do not listen to him teach and pays no attention to him, even though he takes time to urge and pull them on. He is vexed at the fact that the students do not try and absorb everything he teaches. This can be inferred from “again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt”.

The poet’s feelings can be shown through alliteration, metaphor and pun in this poem. Some metaphors used in the passage are quarry of knowledge and unruly hounds. These metaphors point to the information that the teacher gives to the students and the student’s attitude towards it. Alliteration gives the expression to the reader that the poet is trying to emphasize on something. The usage of “O” can be said to be alliteration as it appears on almost everything line in the stanza, for example, more, good and threescore. One of the puns found in the poem is quarry of knowledge. The literal meaning of quarry is a place where granite or rocks are blasted from the earth. The teacher in this case, refers to it as the granite being his knowledge, information and notes. The teacher does not like the fact that the students are going to chunk his notes aside and not read them. More puns include fuel of life.

1b. How is the tone of anger in this poem illustrated?

The tone of anger in this poem is illustrated through the choice of words like do not, will not, won’t and don’t. This shows his hatred towards the students. He also insults them with the fact that they do not know how to write a description of a dog. He hopes that their own misdoing will help them change and become a better person. He hates this job and the students that he wants to beat his own head against the wall. Or even better, beat the students head.