Period 8
11/06/11

Questions

On My First Son
1.The phrase "right hand" connotes a significant part of the father who is the speaker of the poem. Most people are right handed and need their right hands to do many things, so it is a really important part of them. Describing his son as his right hand says that the son is really important to him, and losing the son is like losing a right hand. It could also be a connotation for the father's affection toward the son, or it could mean that the son is his first son. The denotation of "Exacted" in this poem's context is inflicted. The denotation for "just" is rightful.
A son's life and  death is compares to a loan that falls due because of the son's death, the father saw it as if the son's life was a loan to him that had to be given back (death).
2. Poetry is a form of written art so calling his son his "best piece of poetry" is to say that his son is his best work of art or best creation.
3. Hope can be interpreted as a sin especially when there is "too much hope" because it can be seen as a selfish desire. Hope can also be seen as sinful because it lengthens or intensifies pain. Being too hopeful can result in bigger disappointment.

The World Is Too Much With Us
1. Relevant denotations of wreathed could be coiled, or moving in a curling motion.
2. "World" is more effective than earth because world entails everything that is included and living in the world. Earth gives off more of a feel of nature rather than everything that is in the world. There is more quantity to "world" than earth. "Getting and spending" is more effective than "selling and buying" because getting and spending sound more wasteful. Selling things and buying creates a balance; you sell things in order to gain money to buy things. Whereas getting and spending sound a lot more wasteful because you're just getting things and then spending it. The word dozing is a more heavy term than sleeping. Dozing gives the sense that you're heavily asleep, whereas sleeping just means that you're sleeping without describing the state of your sleep. Glimpses is used instead of visions because glimpses is more subtle, when visions is too strong for simple glances. Blow is used because it is a heavier word than sound. A blow indicates a heavier and more intense sound, so using the word sound isn't as specific as blow.
3. "Great God!" is more of an expletive term because it says "I'd rather be" after the exclamation.
4. Being distant from nature can trigger superficiality in the way we perceive things.

One Art
1. Denotations of lose to the context of the poem is to "suffer deprivation of", "destroy", "to miss from a customary place", "to fail to use", and to "wander from". Connotations of lose in this poem include moving away from one's home (losing a continent, two rivers and a continent). Another connotation is forgetting, when the speaker says to practice "losing farther, losing faster: places and names, and where it was you meant to travel."
2. The speaker is essentially saying that "losing things isn't hard to master" and when you do master it inadvertently, the scale of the importance of things increase. In the speaker's case it is her mom's watch, the places she's visited or come from, her lover, and her keys, and how these things "seemed filled with the intent" of being lost.
3. The personal experiences make things more honest and believable. The art of losing is not hard to master so if someone were to question it, personal experience holds merit. It's related because despite the loss, no matter how grand, one must not lose themselves because it "is not disaster."
4. These details reveal that the speaker actually isn't actually indifferent to losing things even though she suggests that we lose things. All losses can't be mastered with one art of losing, because there are different kinds of losses, not just losses of tangible things.