School Assignment on 19th Century Poets/Poems

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Okay, My name is Paige and I'm a homeschooled student. I have to put certain lines of poetry into modern day language as if I were saying it to a friend. Here are the lines of poetry and the poets who wrote them if you can help or give me any web sites concerning this please email me back.

Poet: William Cullen Bryant Poem: "Thanatopsis" Line of Poetry: "To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language."

Poet: William Cullen Bryant Poem: "Thanatopsis" Line of Poetry: "...each...will chase His favorite phantom..."

Poet: Edgar Allan Poe Poem: "The Bells" Line of Poetry: "While the stars, that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle with a crystalline delight."

Poet: Edgar Allan Poe Poem: "The Raven" Line of Poetry: "...vainly had I sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow..."

Poet: Edgar Allan Poe Poem: "The Raven" Line of Poetry: "...what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed faster till his songs one burden bore..."

-- Cassidy Paige Gilliland (Gprix16@aol.com), April 16, 2000

Answers

hello Paige. Resist any attempt to make you interpret poets into any words other than those they wrote/write in. That is what makes them poets - that they have a voice and use it: their work does not need to be translated. Listen to them and learn. Learn a new vocabulary, an insight into history and the way that people in the past expressed their ideas and emotions and an insight an enhanced language of heightened and refined feelings and understanding of life. Have respect for poets, don't think you can do better than they.

-- lizzie wells (liziwells@aol.com), May 25, 2001.

I'm Isabella Woodworthe and i think dat ur way of sayin wat ur sayin is AWFULL!!!!!!!! U should learn to respect ur elders u IMBASILL!!!!!!!!

-- Isabella Woodworthe (porsathedog@hotmail.com), July 04, 2001.

your poems suck & don't ever try writing poetry again cause it sounds like shit. So cram the poems in your ass!!!

-- Erin Andrea (monaro01@hotmail.com), April 28, 2002.

May I ask Paige, why have you got so many upset with you?

I thought the fact that you were home schooled was one of the most interesting of all.

To put poetry into words as if you were talking to a friend, sounds to me to be an all right idea, unless I missed something.

Why have you received those disgraceful e-mails? If someone does not agree, is should be done in taste, not "distaste." I would say that it tells one volumns, about anyone who answers in that manner.

I am 53, married, and live in Canada. I am a published poet, published author, but I would not expect to live of the proceeds, for their weren't any.

Please do not give up- Marilyn

-- Marilyn Meszaros (two4tea@shaw.ca), May 17, 2002.


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