Monday, February 2, 2009

Voice Lessons #2

Diction-
consider: Wind rocks the car.
We sit parked by the river,
silence between our teeth.
Birds scatter across islands
of broken ice....
-Adrienne Rich, "Like This Together, for A.H.C."

discuss:
1. What are the feelings produced by the word rocks? Are the feelings gentle, violent, or both?
2. How would the meaning change if we changed the first line to Wind shakes the car?

apply: List different meanings for the verb rock. How many of these meanings would make sense in this poem? Remember that the poet often strives to capture complexity rather than a single view or meaning.

Imagery:
consider: The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning - half frost, half drizzle - and temporary brooks crossed our path, gurgling from the uplands.
- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

discuss:
1. Bronte uses both visual and auditory imagery in this passage. Which words create visual images? Which words create auditory images? Which words create both?
2. What feelings are traditionally associated with rain, mist, and frost? How would the feeling of this passage be different if the rainy night had ushered in a brilliant, sunny morning?

apply: Write two sentences that create a mood of terror. Use visual and auditory imagery to describe the weather, thereby setting and reinforcing the mood. Share your sentences with the class. Draw a box around your auditory images.

Syntax:
consider: He had been prepared to lie, to bluster, to remain sullenly unresponsive; but, reassured by the good-humored intelligence of the Controller's face, he decided to tell the truth, straightforwardly. - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

discuss:
1. What effect does the repetition of infinitives (to lie, to bluster, to remain) in the first clause have on the meaning of the sentence? How do these infinitives prepare you for the infinitive phrase (to tell the truth) in the second clause?
2. What is the function of the semicolon in Huxley's sentence?

apply: Write a sentence with two independent clauses connected by a semicolon. In the first clause use a series of infinitives (as in Huxley's sentence). In the second clause, use an infinitive to contradict your first clause. Your topic is a movie you have recently seen. Underline all of your infinitives.

Tone:
consider: But that is Cooper's way; frequently he will explain and justify little things that do not need it and then make up for this by as frequently failing to explain important ones that do need it. For instance he allowed that astute and cautious person, Deerslayer-Hawkeye, to throw his rifle heedlessly down and leave it lying on the ground where some hostile Indians would presently be sure to find it - a rifle prized by that person above all things else in the earth - and the reader gets no word of explanation of that strange act. There was a reason, but it wouldn't bear exposure. Cooper meant to get a fine dramatic effect out of the finding of the rifle by the Indians, and he accomplished this at the happy time; but all the same, Hawkeye could have hidden the rifle in a quarter of a minute where the Indians could not have found it. Cooper couldn't think of any way to explain why Hawkeye didn't do that, so he just shirked the difficulty and did not explain at all. - Mark Twain, "Cooper's Prose Style," Letters from the Earth

discuss:
1. What is Twain's tone in this passage? What is central to the tone of this passage: the attitude toward the speaker, the subject, or the reader?
2. How does Twain create the tone?

apply: Write a paragraph about a movie you have recently seen. Create a critical, disparaging tone through your choice of details. Use Twain's paragraph as a model. Underline tone words.