A psalm of life（修辞学）

湖南科技大学外国语学院

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A Stylistic Analysis of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Poem “A Psalm’ of Life”周文雅 教育英语三班 0912010611 2012-2013-1

A Stylistic Analysis of

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Poem

“A Psalm’ of Life”

Introduction

Longfellow has emerged as the most beloved American romanticism poet of the 19th century, even though his reputation diminished in the 20th century. Longfellow formed and promoted the American Romantic Literature, which is more stressed on emotion, faith and intuition than the form, to rebel against the formalism of the 18th century.

Longfellow produced a large number of poems in his life which strongly embodied the optimistic sentiment and the love that characterized the didacticism. Much of his work is categorized as lyric poetry, Longfellow experimented with many forms, including hexameter and free verse. His published poetry shows great versatility, using anapestic and trochaic forms, blank verse, heroic couplets, ballads and sonnets. He modeled his works on European works which center on the morality by insisting on the traditional meters, stanza forms, stereotyped metaphors and superficial symbolism. Many of his works helped shape the American character and its legacy.

Analysis

Longfellow’s poem “A Psalm’ of Life ” is undoubted the most remarkable work to him. When he wrote this poem, he still fighted for the loss of his first wife who had died in a disease. After a heartfelt conversation he had with his friend \of matters, which lie near one's soul, and how to bear one's self doughtily in Life's battle, and make the best of things\the poet expresses not a empty grandiloquence but an active, positive, and optimistic attitude towards life. He praises the optimistic feelings to counterattack the depressed feelings. He loves life, praises life, appreciates the beauty, the colorfulness and the wonderfulness of life. The poem is encouraging and inspiring.

I. At the Phonological Level 1. Meter

In this poem, Longfellow adopted a traditional meter---trochaic tetrameters .

Trochaic is most suitable feet for cheerful theme because they express so violent, emphatic, challenging and strong that the poem sounds inspiring, cheerful, emphatic, and powerful with the stressed syllable followed by the unstressed syllable. Meantime, there are some mutations in meter to strongen its inspiration. For example, the first

two feet in the fourth line of the first stanza and the first foot in the fourth line of the second stanza are iambic; the first foot in the third line of the sixth stanza is spondee. With all these changes in meter, the poem is more natural, lively and artistic. Furthermore, the combination of the quatrain and trochaic tetrameters have an unique, lively and readable sound effect.

2. Rhyme

Longfellow’s choice of rhymes went along with his conventional use of meter. The whole poem consists of nine stanzes of four lines. The end rhyme schemes are a -b - a - b, c - d - c - d, e - f- e - f, g - h - g - h, k - l- k -l, m - n - m - n, o - p - o - p, q- r - q - r, s- t - s - t, in which the ood lines are feminine rhymes expressing gentle, euphemism and the even lines are masculine rhymes showing power and speed. The poem is full of a quick and powerful rhyme by interlacing of these two rhymes.

3. Alliteration and assonance

Alliteration is the commonest figure of speech that repeats the initial consonants in a succession of words in the poem. For example, the first line of the first three stanzes use alliteration:“Tell me not, in a mournful numbers”, “Life is real, Life is earnest!”, “Not enjoyment, and not sorrow”. These three lines convey Longfellow’s opinion on the value of life in a serious and magnificent manner: there is no enjoyment and no sorrow in life but the reality. At the same time, the poem reads very fluent and rhythmed.

Assonance is not the popular figure of speech that repeats similar vowel sounds in a succession of words, but Longfellow uses it frequently in this poem. For example, “muffled drums”, “Let the dead past bury it is dead”, “Lives of great men all remind us”, “we make our lives sublime”, “take heart again” etc. These assonances not only connect the meaning of poem but also develope a catching rhyme.

II. At the Graphological Level 1. Capitalization

The tendency that Longfellow capitalized three words deliberately “Time, Future, Present” which related to the time aimed at giving additional meaning. From these words, “Time” can represent life , so “Future” and “Present” are life’s future dream and life’s present condition. A obvious contrast emerged in the readers mind and indicated a life philosophy--- be up and doing--- appreciating what you have now.

2. Punctuation

Through the use of exclamation in the poem, especially the sixth stanza, Longfellow expresses his thoughts and appeal to the reader to act immediately. What’s more, the sixth line is almost in the middle of the poem, the exclamation creates a climax of the poem---act in the living Present! Besides, the dashes slow down the

thought of readers and build a sublime environment before Longfellow explains the reason why life is an empty dream and calls to work hard promptly.

III. At the Semantic Level 1. Allusion

“For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem”, the

sentence comes from Roman allegory made by Roman allegorist Federice. Then, the poet quotes the sentence “Dust thou art, to dust returnest!” from the …… 此处隐藏：7384字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……