Writing Assignments

• 1. Who is the speaker? What kind of person is the speaker?

  The speaker is a man golfing with a partner

• 2. Is there an identifiable audience for the speaker? What can we know about it (her, him, or them)?

  The speaker is reflecting, so his audience is himself.

• 3. What is the occasion?

  The occasion is a chance observation of a flock of starlings during a round of golf.

• 4. What is the setting in time (hour, season, century, and so on)?

  The poem is also set in October – probably in the afternoon, but not necessarily..

• 5. What is the setting place (indoors or out, city or country, land or sea, region, nation, hemisphere)?

  The poem is set outdoors on a golf course where a flock of starlings are flying and resting.

• 6. What is the central purpose of the poem?

  The central purpose of the poem seems to be to present nature as an awe-inspiring, joyful experience. (While Yeats’ speaker is unable to fathom the mystery of the swans, Updike’s speaker is inspired by the starlings.)

• 7. State the central idea of theme of the poem in a sentence.

  The mystery of nature inspires and lifts up human beings.

• 8.

  • a. Outline the poem so as to show its structure and development, or

  • b. Summarize the events of the poem.

    The fist stanza establishes the scene, abundant with vegetation and birds.

    II. The second stanza presents the flock of starlings as a marvelous single entity moved by “One will.” (23)

    III. In the third stanza, the speaker and his companion see the birds more realistically, comment on their number, and return to their game – until the speaker looks back without thinking.

    IV. The fourth stanza offers a meditation on the overwhelming numbers that constitute the flock.

    V. The fifth stanza presents the central simile that compares the fluid movement of the flock to a woman’s scarf floating in the wind.

    VI. The final two lines (not a couplet) express the theme and tone of the poem.

• 9. Paraphrase the poem.

• 10. Discuss the diction of the poem. Point out words that are particularly well chosen and explain why.

  The diction is simple, almost conversation (in contrast to the formality of Yeats’ poem).

  The word legible in line 26 is unusual and signals that the flock must be read and interpreted.

• 11. Discuss the imagery of the poem. What kinds of imagery are used? Is there a structure of imagery?

  The imagery of the birds in flight is both visual and auditory. Here, however, the birds’ flight is nearly silent.

• 12. Point out examples of metaphor, simile, personification, and metonymy, and explain their appropriateness.

  Similes offer an image of ripe apples and fall foliage. One simile links to the next, the first comparing the apples to fish caught in a net, the second comparing the maple leaves to apples.

  Similes also occur in lines 16-18 (suggesting a mystery that nonetheless has a hidden scientific explanation), 21-22 (contrasting the unity of the living flock with the unity of the unloving stone), 29-32 (presenting the allusion to Lot’s wife which evokes significance and ominousness), and 43-48 (offering the comparison of the flock in flight to a scarf floating on the wind free of gravity).

  A metaphor compares denuded elms to “vases full of sky.” The contrast between the barren trees and the full sky connects to the contrast between the black birds and the lifting up of the speaker’s spirits.

  In lines 35-37, a metaphor compares the flock to a shadow while a simile compares it of starlings to a drying ink stain.

• 13. Point out and explain any symbols. If the poem is allegorical, explain the allegory.

  The starlings symbolize the wonder of nature.

  Their black color of the starlings may symbolize something ominous (especially considering the allusion to Lot’s wife.

• 14. Point out and explain examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, and irony. What is their function?

  Ironically, the beauty of the swans is so ineffable that the speaker never truly fathoms them.

• 15. Point out and explain any allusions. What is their function?

  Lines 29-31 allude to the story of Lot’s wife (Genesis 19:24-26), evoking an ominous tone to beholding the image of the starlings settled on the horizon and then rising up. The speaker’s act of looking back is significant and consequential.

  The vision of the starlings rising in flight (40-48) alludes to the swans rising in flight in Yeats’ poem.

• 16. What is the tone of the poem and how is it achieved?

  The tone of the poem is ultimately joyful as established by the final stanza.

• 17. Point out significant examples of sound repetition and explain their function.

  Alliteration occurs frequently: line 3 (“ripe” and “red”), line 7 (“transparent trees”), 8 (“seemed swaying . . . sky”), 18 “underneath” and “undulates”), 19 (“dartingly darkened”), 20 (“paled, pulsed”), 21 (“firm” and “flock”), 26 (“more” and “merely”), 29 (“Later” and “Lot”), 31 (“calling” and “consequence”), 32 (“lazily looked”), 38 (gradual” and “green”), 39 (“nothing” and “nature”), 41 (“watched” and “one”), and 47 (“tossed toward”). More than anything else, these alliterations seem to move the poem forward. Their playfulness supports the ultimate joy of the image of the birds in flight.

  Instances of consonance and assonance have the same effect.

• 18. What is the meter of the poem? Mark its scansion.

  This is a free verse poem with no meter to scan.

• 19. Discuss the adaptation of sound to sense.

  OMIT

• 20. Describe the form or pattern of the poem.

  The poem consists of six stanzas of no regular length. (From first to last, the stanzas have 13, 11, 8, 7, 9, and 2 lines.) Like Yeats’ poem, however, the stanzas frame specific images though the images do not alternate or contrast one another so much as relate the episodes of the story, leading up to the tonal expression in the final two lines.