Term test Review

7-continued

• Incorrect: A– “remind the reader that an actor could also be a writer…” ok, but the author could do that with any actor/writer, right? Why say all this stuff about who Shakespeare was if that’s the point she was trying to make? Why not, say, list a bunch of actor/writers?
• Incorrect: C– “emphasizes…why [Shakespeare] would have been so skilled as an actor on the Elizabethan stage”…No, the sidebar doesn’t actually list any of Shakespeare’s qualifications as an actor, just as a playwright.
• Incorrect: D– “explains why Shakespeare would have been so incredibly talented and adept at acting and performing…” Hey! This is the same as C! Both wrong.

“The darkling thrush”

• Did you bother to read the preface material that told you a thrush is a bird? And that this poem was written on the last day of the 19th century? Because, ya know. Both important things.
• So, a man is sitting under some trees. It’s winter. It’s sad and gloomy looking because it’s winter. And so the guy feels sad and gloomy too. It’s also the last day of the entire century, so it feels like the century is as dead as the frozen landscape. And he’s bummed.
• But then, a thrush sings. And it’s beautiful. And the guy’s like, “Whoa, the bird is happy. Hey, maybe a new century isn’t so bad. Maybe this bird sees the world differently than I do, and maybe I should consider being hopeful like it is.
• The end.

8-what is the author’s purpose in describing the winter landscape in lines 1-16?

• In poems (and everything), winter is either a magical wonderland where everything is crisp and sparkly, or it’s a symbol of everything dying and the cold is painful and cruel.
• In this poem, it’s the second one.
• Correct: C— “to reflect on the melancholy of the speaker” Melancholy means sad. The guy is sad, so the land is also sad. Imagery, man. Symbolism. Yeah.
• Incorrect: A– we get no indication that the speaker is “far from home”
• Incorrect: B– if the author thought the land was “naturally beautiful”, he wouldn’t say the winter was “spectre-grey” with “dregs made desolate”, which are all negative
• Incorrect: D– if the man is “at odds with nature”, wouldn’t there be some fighty-type words? Something to show he’s struggling against the cold or snow?