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What does "the eave" refer to?

 
 
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2014 10:37 am

1) What does "the eave" refer to? The old palaces' eave? If so, shouldn't it be "eaves"?
2) Can moss be azure in colour? That is why the author's sense faints in trying to picture them?
3) What does "level power" mean?
4) Does "Cleave themselves into chasms" mean "cut themselves (the level powers' own) into chasms"?
5) Does "despoil themselves" mean "commit suicide"?

Context:

3 、

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and fowers

Quivering within the eave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselvesh, hear!
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Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2014 10:54 am
Give us an author, title of the work, and most importantly, the date. It is possible that this is a variant spelling for "eve," as in evening, the day before a particularly noteworthy day. Poet's don't have a very firm dedication to standard usages as it is, and if this were written in the 17th, or even the early 18th centuries, this might be a spelling variation.
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2014 11:36 am
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:

Give us an author, title of the work, and most importantly, the date. It is possible that this is a variant spelling for "eve," as in evening, the day before a particularly noteworthy day. Poet's don't have a very firm dedication to standard usages as it is, and if this were written in the 17th, or even the early 18th centuries, this might be a spelling variation.


From Ode to the West Wind, by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_the_West_Wind


Quote:
Ode to the West Wind is an ode written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819 near Florence, Italy. It was published in 1820 by Charles and James Ollier in London as part of the collection Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems. Some have interpreted the poem as the speaker lamenting his inability to directly help those in England owing to his being in Italy. At the same time, the poem expresses the hope that its words will inspire and influence those who read or hear it.[1] Perhaps more than anything else, Shelley wanted his message of reform and revolution spread, and the wind becomes the trope for spreading the word of change through the poet-prophet figure. Some also believe that the poem is due to the loss of his son, William (to Mary Shelley) in 1819. His son Charles (to Harriet Shelley) died in 1826, after "Ode to the West Wind" was written and published. The ensuing pain influenced Shelley. The poem allegorises the role of the poet as the voice of change and revolution. At the time of composing this poem, Shelley without doubt had the Peterloo Massacre of August 1819 in mind. His other poems written at the same time—"The Masque of Anarchy," "Prometheus Unbound," and "England in 1819"—take up these same problems of political change, revolution, and role of the poet.[2]
0 Replies
 
contrex
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2014 01:03 pm
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
Give us an author, title of the work, and most importantly, the date.


Oristar never does this, despite repeated hints.

However if the opening line is unfamiliar...

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p29/badoit/Shelley_zpsc4dfc90c.jpg
0 Replies
 
dalehileman
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2014 01:16 pm
@oristarA,
Quote:
Can moss be azure in colour?
Apparently

http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Percy-bysshe-shelley-ode-to-the-west-wind-annotated#note-2307499
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2014 02:15 pm
Quote:
You don’t understand the individual words taken out of their context. You understand the whole impression that is being created and in this first part particularly, where I have already used the word surrealist to describe it. You can no more translate that back into logical prose English than you can say what a surrealist painting means in words, because it’s not prose. Poetry is a heightened form of language through the use of figurative language and rhythm, sometimes rhyme.


Mark Schorer, professor of English and chairman of graduate studies in English, University of California. Acting as a defence witness in the Howl Obscenity trial, under cross examination.
0 Replies
 
 

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