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"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked,

upstarting;

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door! 5 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming; 10 And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the

floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted-nevermore!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography see page 104.

Discussion. 1. Do you think this poem was written to tell a story or to give expression to feeling? 2. Tell the incidents of the story contained in the poem. 3. What does the poet say he had hoped to find in his books that December night? 4. What sound aroused him? 5. What reasons can you give for the terror which seized him at the sound? 6. Why does the raven seem to bring more gloom and sorrow into the room? 7. What do you think the "never flitting" raven symbolizes or represents? 8. What other poems or stories have you read that show Poe's love of the mysterious and terrible? 9. Have you ever enjoyed reading something you could not understand? Did you enjoy it because your imagination was excited or because you liked the sound of the words? 10. Find lines of this poem that you like although you cannot explain them; can you tell why you like them? 11. Find examples of alliteration in the poem, that is, the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of two or more words in close succession, as "nodded, nearly napping." 12. Find words that give or suggest the sound described. 13. What lines in the first stanza rime? What are the end words of these lines? 14. What lines in the second stanza rime? What

are the end words of these lines? 15. Study each stanza to find the lines that rime and the end words in each. 16. What have you learned about these end words? 17. What rime do you find in the first line of the first stanza? In the third line? 18. Find a word in the fourth line that rimes with the last word in the third line. 19. Study each of the stanzas in this way to find the rimes in the lines. 20. With which of the two kinds of adventure mentioned in the Introduction on page 95 does this poem deal? 21. Is it an imaginative story, or has it some basis of fact or legend? 22. "Lenore" represents Poe's young wife, who, it was certain, could not live long. In this poem, written two years before her death, Poe imagined what his feelings would be at her death. Point out lines that express these feelings. 23. What were you told in the Introduction on page 96 about the value of creative reading, or reading in such a way as to see the story in action through your imagination? 24. Which of these narratives by Poe can you see the more clearly? 25. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: surcease; beguiling; craven; divining; censer. 26. Pronounce: obeisance; decorum; placid; ominous; respite.

wrought its ghost, 107, 8

Phrases for Study

Night's Plutonian shore, 109, 5 little relevancy bore, 109, 8 stock and store, 109, 20

one burden bore, 109, 22
dirges of his Hope, 109, 23
linking fancy unto fancy, 109, 27
balm in Gilead, 110, 20

Class Reading. Bring to class and read "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells," Poe.

Magazine Reading. Bring to class and read, or make a brief oral report on, the best story of mystery that you have read in a magazine.

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"The meadow lies green,

the corn is unshorn,
But Bonnie George Campbell
will never return."

5 Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he;
A plume in his helmet,
a sword at his knee.

Saddled and bridled

10 and booted rade he;

Toom3 hame cam the saddle,

but never cam he!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

The Ballad. The folk-ballads, of which "Bonnie George Campbell" is an excellent example, have come down to us from the far-off past. Such ballads are not the work of any one author, but, like the stories of King Arthur, were preserved mainly in the memories of men. Some of them were sung or recited to the music of the harp or lute by minstrels who wandered from village to village, and from castle to castle, entertaining their hearers in return for food and lodging; or by the bards and minstrels who were maintained by kings and nobles to entertain them and to celebrate their deeds and honors. Often these ballads were made by the people, not by professional singers, and were expressions of the folk love of adventure. Indeed, the best definition of a popular, or folk, ballad is "a tale telling itself in song." This means that it always tells a story; that it has no known author, being composed by several people or by a community and then handed down orally, without ever being put into writing, from generation to generation; and finally, that it is sung, not recited. In this way such folk-ballads as "Sir Patrick Spens" and "Bonnie George Campbell" were transmitted for generations, in different versions, before they were written down and became a part of what we call literature. When the invention of the printing press made it possible to put these old ballads into a permanent form, they were collected toom, empty

from the recitations of old men and women who knew them, and printed. Thus they have become a precious literary possession, telling us something of the life, the history, and the standards, superstitions, and beliefs of distant times, and thrilling us with their stirring stories. The beauty of these old ballads lies in the stories they tell, and in their directness and simplicity. They merely tell the main facts of the story, leaving details to the imagination of the reader. They are almost wholly without literary ornament; their language is the language of the people, not of the king's court.

Many modern poets have written stories in verse which are also called ballads. Some of these imitate the old ballads not only in form and simple, unadorned language, but also in the use of old-fashioned words and expressions. Other modern ballads are simple narratives in verse— short stories dealing with stirring subjects, with battle, adventure, etc. But while the true old ballad directs the attention to the story only, the modern ballads often introduce descriptions of the characters.

Discussion. 1. Who can read this poem so well that the listeners may gain the thought of the story? 2. Who is the hero? 3. Note that this ballad suggests an emotion, but not the poet's; whose emotion is suggested? 4. Their grief is told by the effects of the hero's failure to return home; what are these effects? 5. Notice that the details of the hero's death are left to the reader's imagination. 6. Who is speaking in the fourth stanza? 7. Make a list of the Scotch words that you could understand from the context; of those that it was necessary for you to look up. 8. What characteristics of the folk-ballad does this poem have? How have the old ballads come down to us? 9. What other old ballad have you read? 10. You will enjoy hearing phonograph records of modern ballads, such as Kipling's "Fuzzy-Wuzzy," "Gypsy Trail," "On the Road to Mandalay," etc.

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