Writing Assignments

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

  The speaker is a man alone – probably a relatively young man whose “heart is sore.” (14)

• 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 moment of reflection as the speaker contemplates a flock of swans he has seen each year for nineteen years.

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

  The poem is set at twilight on an October evening.

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

  The poem is set outdoors in view of a flock of 59 swans on a calm lake that mirrors the clear sky.

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

  The poem offers a meditation on both nature and the passage of time.

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

  The passage of time inevitably alters a human being though nature may be – or at least appear to be – unchanged as it passes through its natural cycles.

• 8.

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

  • b. Summarize the events of the poem.

    The first stanza sets the scene, establishing a subdued tone despite some positive images.

    II. In the second stanza the speaker reflects on the number of years he has contemplated this scene and presents an image of the birds flying from the lake (in contrast to the peaceful image of the first stanza).

    III. The third stanza returns to reflection as the speaker reveals that his situation has changed over the past nineteen years since he first saw the swans.

    IV. The fourth stanza again offers a contrast: the birds – unlike the speaker – are unchanged; “unwearied,” they “have not grown old.” (The speaker has aged 19 years, but the swans appear just as they did 19 years ago.)

    V. The fifth stanza asks a rhetorical question. Like all such questions, the answer is manifest: the speaker knows the swans will continue to be at Coole, whoever sees the swans will be delighted by them; if he “awakens” to find them gone, then he himself has died.

• 9. Paraphrase the poem.

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

  The words nine and fifty and nineteen suggest a specificity that is countered by the fact that lines 9-12 reveal that the speaker had not completed his count before the birds took flight.

  The archaic form of nine and fifty almost hints at magic. It also brings into question how the birds can be paired “lover by lover” (19) if the flock consists of an odd number.

  “The bell-beat of their wings” recalls the bells that mark the passage of time.

  Line 7 implies that time has stalked and caught the speaker (as opposed to his own passage through time).

  Calling the swans “brilliant” (13) underscores their ineffable beauty as do the words “Mysterious, beautiful.” (26)

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

  The images are primarily visual presentations of the natural setting, though the word “dry” (2) is tactile, “the bell-beat of their wings” (17) is auditory as may be the word “paddle” (20)

  The images play an important role in the structure of the poem: stanzas 1and 3 offer saddened, elegiac images of autumn and a “sore” heart, while stanzas 2 and 4 offer images of the swans flying or just being above the common lot of man, subject to change.

  The images frequently contrast one another. For example, the birds depicted as unchanging in the fourth stanza are nevertheless depicted as moving randomly and imperfectly in the third stanza.

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

  The swans are lovers (both metaphor and personification); the figure may connect to the speaker’s problem: might it be a romantic one? Is he left out like the fifty-ninth swan?

  The swans serve as a metonymy for all of nature. Their change – like nature’s change in general – is imperceptible to humans.

  The sore heart is a metonymy for heavy (Saddened? Hurt?) emotions

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

  The swans symbolize the unchangingness of nature.

  Their white color symbolizes a purity in their being – in nature’s being – to which may not aspire.

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

  The tone set by words such as autumn, dryness, twilight, and stillness, is paradoxically

  contrasted by images such as beauty, mirror-like clarity, brimming water, and clamorous wings.

  The awakening mentioned in 29 is actually “death” since the day when the swans are gone is the day when the speaker will no longer live.

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

  I can find no allusions.

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

  The tone of the poem is elegiac, established by the setting in time – autumn, dryness, twilight, and stillness.

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

  The consonance of lines 5 and 6 in stanza 1 draw attention to the contrast between the nonliving “stones” and the living “swans.”

  The consonance of lines 19 and 21 frame the images of the swans in flight and on the pond.

  The consonance of lines 26 and 28 join the swans to the pool.

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

  The meter is irregular – though this poem is not in free verse.

• 19. Discuss the adaptation of sound to sense.

  OMIT

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

  The poem consists of five sestets that follow an irregular rhyme scheme. In the first four sestets, the second and fourth lines have true end rhymes while the second and fourth lines of the final sestet end with consonance. In the last four sestets, the fifth and sixth lines have true end rhymes while the corresponding lines in the first stanza end with consonance. Lines 3 and e in the first stanza are enjambed, as are lines 1, 4 and 5 are in the second and fifth stanzas.