PART ONE: Answer ONE of the following questions:
1. Describe Langston Hughes' view of America by tracing at least three of his poems. Also, describe the controversy around the manner in which Hughes portrayed African Americans in his poems.
2. William Carlos Williams uses an "open" style and format and Robert Frost uses a more "constructed"? What are the characteristics of each style - i.e., rhyme, etc. Use examples from their poems.
PART TWO: POEM ANALYSIS
Critically analyze this poem by discussing three major components of analysis: Please read all 7 stanzas of the poem.
1. What are some of the structural elements of the poem? Metaphor, rhyme, symbols, sounds, etc.
2. What does the poem mean? Explain the content of the poem.
3. What is the theme of the poem?
To An Athlete Dying Young by A.E.Housman
The time you won our town the race
We chaired you through the market place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge cup.
And round that early-laureled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.