《英美文学教学资料》stop for death.pptVIP

* Realism Rationality, objectivity, factuality common, ordinary life, realistic presentation of human nature and experience, truthful treatment of material, function of environment in shaping character Emily Dickinson(1830-1886) A great American poetess in the realistic period Poetic Style allegorical symbolic lyrical transcendental personification to vivify some abstract ideas brevity, directness and plainness in language variety, subtlety (trickness) and richness in meaning creativity and imagination parallelism Poetic Form Unique and unconventional No titles, Capital letters Ballad in form Abundant dashes Use of a persona Poetic Themes religion death immortality love nature Because I Could Not Stop for Death--- Study Question 1) According to stanza 1, why did Death stop for the speaker? What did Deaths carriage hold? Death stopped because the speaker could not stop for death when she was still living. Death’s carriage held just Death, the speaker, and Immortality. 2）What is the mystical relationship between Death and immortality? Immortality was with death. Therefore when the persona was riding towards death, she was also walking towards immortality. 3) What do lines 1-2 suggest about human behavior? They suggest the reluctance with which human beings meet death. 4) What kind of mixed feelings can we recognize human beings have toward death? People’s ambivalent feeling. People desire to obtain immortality, and death is the only way to be immortal, but they are not so willing to die. 5) What three things did the speaker and Death pass in stanza 3 and what do they represent? They passed a school, fields of gazing grain, and the setting sun. The school could represent her youth; the fields, her maturity of adulthood; the setting sun, her old age. 6) What does the fourth stanza suggest? He refers to the setting sun which suggests the cycle of nature or life. The dew suggests the time of the persona ‘s death and also lifeless and coldness a