政治学与行政学

政治学与行政学 Analysis of On the Grasshopper and Cricket 谢素姣 政治学与行政学 020634639 On the Grasshopper and Cricket by John Keats The poetry of earth is never dead: A [e] When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, B [^n] And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run B From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; C [i:] That is the Grasshopper’s - he takes the lead C In summer luxury,- he has never done B With his delights; for when tired out with fun B He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. C The poetry of earth is ceasing never: D [?] On a lone winter evening, when the frost E [ st] Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills F [ils] The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever, D And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, E The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills. F Brief introduction: John Keats (1794-1821) is one of the greatest romantic poets in England. His poetic style is loose, fluent and vivid. This sonnet is written relatively early in Keats’ career, and was the result of a competition with a friend to write a grasshopper that came out. In this sonnet, the poet takes cricket, little creature that in inconspicuous in nature, as the protagonist, to pay tribute to the continually growth of nature. The poet uses direct-viewing image and canorous rhyme to illustrate his apprehension about the beauty of nature and life. And the theme is expressed at the very first sentence “The poetry of earth is never dead”. ? Sound features a) End rhyme. This poem is a sonnet, but not exactly like the traditional Italian sonnet( which pattern is abba abba or abab abab, combine with cde cde or cd cd cd),nor the English sonnet(abab cdcd efef gg) or the Spenserian sonnet(abab bcbc cdcd ee). It is abbc cbbc def def. b)Internal rhyme. In the sentence “He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.” With this rhymes,the sentence seems more fluent and easier to read and remember. ? Lexical features a) Words in this poem is easy to understand. But still there are some use of poetical words. For example, “mead” in the phrases “new-mown mead” viz. “meadow”. And “wrought” in “Has wrought a silence” means “made, done”. b) Personifying is the most distinctive feature of the poem. It uses “faint”, “take the lead”, “his delights”, “tired out with fun” ect. such phrases that should be used to express the feeling of human, to vividly description the jollification of the cricket. ? Syntactic features a) Poetic licence. The poet violates the grammatical rule for the rhyme. For example: line 7 “the poetry of earth is ceasing never” should be “ The poetry of earth is never ceasing” . and line 12 “in warmth increasing ever” should be “in ever increasing warmth”. b) Reinforcement. The third stanza is to reappear the subject that nature is never dead. References: [1] 罗选民Appreciation of English and American Literature (Essay & Poetry) [M] 清华大学出 版社 2002年7月 [2] 刘守兰《英美名诗解读》[M] 上海外语教育出版社 2003年2月