Poem Analysis: And ask why these sad tears stream?

In this text, I’m going to analyze one of the poems that has really make me look carefully, to understand its meaning, purpose, and other things that I’ll explain through the text. In this analysis I’ll explain things that hopefully can help you to get what the author is writing about, from the importance of the title, to how the lyric speaker expresses himself through the poem.

If we want to summarize it, this poem is about a man who’s feels alone, depressed, probably alone and dreams of a better present with a woman. He describes her as if she were a flower, and angel direct from heaven. His attitude changes through the poem, and I’ll detailed it as we move on.

Let’s start with the title, ‘And ask ye why these sad tears stream?’ This title is powerful. Because it’s a question, it makes you ask yourself, who’s crying? why? It makes you doubt about what is going to happen in the poem. It’s also essential to understand the poem. If you don’t understand well the title, or if you just read it fast because you don’t think it has a deep meaning, you’re wrong. It’s really hard to understand the poem if you just don’t care about the title. It’s so important, that in the verse number 3, the author writes again the exact same question ‘And ask ye why these sad tears stream?’ It’s simple, if you get the title, you get the poem. You understand the meaning of to whom is he writing, his purpose, the lyric speakers tone, and in the end, you realize that it has a powerful message: Why do we cry for something we didn't do in the past, when we had all the time to do it and we suddenly just lost it, we lost our love of our life, and you’ll only see him or her in your dreams. So we have to take the most of our time for our love ones, or we are just going to remember little things in our dreams.

Picture this, a guy, alone in a room, with nothing left but himself, going crazy because of the loneliness in his life, or at least he believes that. So he dreams, about this girl that she remembers as the only one in the world for him. Beautiful, charming. He knows her like the palm of his hand (that’s what he thinks, because he’s in love). He dreams about her because not long time ago she just left, and suddenly he’s all by himself. I think that that is the big picture.

His attitude changes through the poem, but he just wants to tell us why is he crying, what is really going on in his head. He’s just a big lover. He’s nostalgic through the whole poem, asking why is he crying? And remembers the dream. He then tells it, with so much passion, love, and enthusiasm. and in the end, he feels tired. Blest, but devastated. The attitude never changes, but his tone changes, he empowers the verse when he talks about her lover.

“And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

…

I had a dream - a lovely dream,

of her that in a grave was sleeping.

The nostalgic tone. Remembering something that you loved with sadness.

“The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;”

One of the many beautiful things he says about her. But he compares her to an angel, but she is so far away that he can’t even reach her.

“That waking hour was doubly weary;

And yet I could not envy thee,

Although so blest, yet so dreary.”

He ends like he’s tired of what is going on, because he felt so devastated, and she was blest, because, in the end, she was truly and angel.

We can realize that the nostalgic attitude it’s all over the poem. Although the lyric speaker says many positive things about how her lover’s “new life” in his dreams, he says it like he wishes he could be there, but he just can’t, he can’t reach her. In the poem, the brightness it’s in the course of the poem (“bloom upon her cheek still glowing”, “lambent fire”, “realms of light”, “scene wept in gold”, “Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian”). So she is in another world, were she’s full of light, and purity, like if she were in heaven. I believe that’s why he’s nostalgic, he’s happy for her, but he is stuck in a world where he's having a bad time, not being with her.

In every poem, there are words that can summarize what is the lyric speaker talking about. These are called key words. In my opinion, there are six of them, were you can understand what is he talking about, his feelings, and his attitude. The first one is tears, so somebody is crying for something. Then there’s dream, so that somebody is crying because of a dream. After that there is angel, so he’s dreaming about some type of angel. Blest is the next word, so that angel in the dream felt blest about something that happened. Finally there’s dreary, so the angel that was on the dream felt blest, but that somebody that I said earlier felt dreary (feeling, displaying, or reflecting listlessness or discouragement), so that’s why he was in tears.

The author uses many connotations to drag us into the poem and make us realize what is going on. Here’s an example:

“”

In conclusion, the poem gives us

Version 2.0

Rationale

My written task will be about the snow and fire in chapter eight. I will carry out this task from a different perspective, with other eyes, but not taking out the emotion of Scout, so I wrote in first person as if I was Jem. I chose the Diary Entry type of text because I think it's more intimate than an interview, broadcast or even a letter, because you share your feelings, your emotions, your thoughts and your actions in detail. You can't lie when you write a diary, so it's a reliable source that you can know it's true. It's an informal text and my tone changes through the shift of the events.
In Maycomb County, it's really rare if you find snow or even if it's cold over there. So when autumn turned into winter that year, nobody could believe it. It was such the surprise that older people blamed young kids because they where behaving badly. Because of that reason the seasons changed drastically and even worse, the weather turned cold and it snowed. Jem and Scout had never seen snow. It was such a thrilling news that Scout got scared because she didn't knew what was that, while Jem did know what it was. They took advantage of the snow and did a snowman just like Mr Avery.
That same night Miss Maudie's dining-room was on fire, and it spread for all over her house. But everything ended in the best for that situation. All of Maycomb County where surprised and got out of their houses to look what was going on and help. Miss Maudie wasn't so sad, she didn't like that her house was so big, she wanted more yard for her azaleas.
I hope that teenagers who like to read about real life stories read this book and hopefully like my diary entry. It's great and you won't stop reading it after you start.

Dear Diary:                     January 20, 1930.

I haven't written you in a long time because I was very busy, so lets recap. Last year wasn't like the others I have lived, so many things happened and there were so interesting that I didn't have the time to write them down. I know I haven't lived long enough to be like Atticus, but I had lived at my fullest. Like I said, many things happened and I can't think of my favorite right now. But I will tell you my favorite and worse experience that happened, at least to me. It's really weird because both of them occurred one after the other.

Rationale

My written task will be about the snow and fire in chapter eight. I will carry out this task from a different perspective, with other eyes, but not taking out the emotion of Scout, so I wrote in first person as if I was Jem. I chose the Diary Entry type of text because I think it's more intimate than an interview, broadcast or even a letter, because you share your feelings, your emotions, your thoughts and your actions in detail. You can't lie when you write a diary, so it's a reliable source that you can know it's true. It's an informal text and my tone changes through the shift of the events.
In Maycomb County, it's really rare if you find snow or even if it's cold over there. So when autumn turned into winter that year, nobody could believe it. It was such the surprise that older people blamed young kids because they where behaving badly. Because of that reason the seasons changed drastically and even worse, the weather turned cold and it snowed. Jem and Scout had never seen snow. It was such a thrilling news that Scout got scared because she didn't knew what was that, while Jem did know what it was. They took advantage of the snow and did a snowman just like Mr Avery.
That same night Miss Maudie's dining-room was on fire, and it spread for all over her house. But everything ended in the best for that situation. All of Maycomb County where surprised and got out of their houses to look what was going on and help. Miss Maudie wasn't so sad, she didn't like that her house was so big, she wanted more yard for her azaleas.
I hope that teenagers who like to read about real life stories read this book and hopefully like my diary entry. It's great and you won't stop reading it after you start.

Great Depression Questions

1. 

In this pictures, you can see the sad situation that the world in general, but even worst in USA was taking place in the 1930's  after the Great Depression of the '29. When in the black thursday the prices of almost every company in america went down in Wall Street. Here you can see people making lines to get a bowl of soup, a coffee or a doughnut. You could even see children asking for food or for a job for their parents. In some very extreme cases you could see women selling their children in the black market because they couldn't afford their food or education.

You've got to find what you love

Steve jobs gave this speech at Standford University, on June 12, 2005. Steve Jobs was the former CEO of Apple who got fired from his own company. He created another company called Next who was bought by Apple. He also was the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. He never graduated from college and formed 2 of the biggest innovation companies in the world. In his speech, he tells 3 stories of his life, no big deals, just 3 stories

Rationale

I'm going to talk about how media manipulates us, and going further, I'm going to tell you 6 set pieces that media has used from the past decade. You will probably not notice how they manipulate us, that means your fragile to their techniques, making you think what they want you to think. You will be part of this wave that the media can easily control. But not anymore. I will teach you some of the set pieces, cause there are more than you think. They are trying to find new ways to control us, but those days are over. When the new technological invention like the television were just invented, advertising came up and started telling, for example and I quote, "Try Malboro cigarettes! They don't harm at all. Buy a pack at your closest store." I'm being truly honest. If you don't believe me search on the internet, trust me, you will find it. I don't want to scare you and don't believe anything. that is being crazy. Just to be careful and to know about a topic well before you talk. Because probably what you read or watched wasn't true. Try to see the big picture when you think about a topic that is really popular for the world. Nobody wants to be an ignorant or being named as a liar. So read, get informed and know when the media wants to make you think what they want.

VI Set Pieces

Media manipulation, a great way to convince people that you are right and your competition is wrong. A way to sell your products in the way that if you are thirsty, you want to buy a Coca-Cola. An awesome tool which only few can use, because of its scarcity in the world. In other words, very few people know how to manipulate the media, even if you are wrong you can convince them, but your speech has to be well prepared, you have to have confidence with yourself and you need to smile for your “audience”.

A great way to manipulate your media is to know your market, who you are selling your ideas to. For example, everybody knows that at India, the cow is a sacred animal. So saying that, Does Mcdonalds have their fastfoods restaurants over there? Yes! they actually do!  How do you think they have their name at a country like that? Easy, they configure their algorithm for the people over there. Instead of selling a hamburger with cow, they do it with chicken and other types of meat.

For a journalist to have a sort of balance to opposing views of a story, he has to ‘build stories around a confrontation between protagonists and antagonists’ (Ricci 1993: 95). For example, if the government has to choose between helping two or more issues that the majority of the people and the government just don’t care, they’ll just won’t pay attention to that. But if they have a fight between two issues (which happens always) then the coverage will be of the ‘anger and anguish of affected citizens, or the conflicting claims of corporate spokesmen, government regulators and environmental activists’ rather than the issues and technical background to them (Gersh 1992: 16).

 1 Diversion

A really important element for social control, the strategy of diversion in short words turn aside significant issues and changes in economic or political issues, through continuous flood or distractions and trivial information to the public. Also, the strategy of diversion is important because it makes the public not to think about essential knowledge in the economics, science, cybernetics neurobiology, and psychology fields.“Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals” (quote from text Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

 2 Create problems, then offer solutions

Also called the “problem-reaction-solution” method, it creates a problem, a “situation”. Then you wait for the reaction to held on, so this is the principal of the steps that you want to accept and of course, solve. For example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is the applicant’s security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom. Or create an economic crisis to accept as a necessary evil retreat of social rights and the dismantling of public services.

 3 Gradient

To accept an unacceptable action, simply apply it gradually, dropper for consecutive years. That is how they radically new socio economic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed from the 1980s to 1990s. Insecurity, flexibility, relocation, wages no longer ensure decent income, massive unemployment, and so on. Changes that would caused a revolution if they had been applied all of a sudden.

 4 Deferred

Another way to accept the unacceptable is to present your idea as “painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance and if you do that, you can have in the future an acceptance form your idea. It is always easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate one. Why? Because you’re not using your effort right now, also because the public, masses, tend to think that everything will be better tomorrow and also because they try to avoid as much as possible the sacrifice. This makes the public to accept your idea with time. They get used to the idea of change and abdication when it’s needed.

 5 Go to the public as a child

Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and specifically childrens intonation, because of the weakness of the subject, like if the public where children with a mental disease or a normal one. The harder one tries to deceive the viewer look, the more it tends to adopt a tone infantilizing. “If one goes to a person as if she had the age of 12 years or less, then, because of suggestion, she tends with a certain probability that a response or reaction also devoid of a critical sense as a person 12 years or younger.” (see Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars)

 6 Use emotional more than the reflection

Seeking for emotional is one of the common techniques to avoid the rational sense. In other words, the critical sense of the individual. Furthermore, this technique opens the doors to your unconscious for implantation or grafting ideas , desires, fears and anxieties , compulsions, or induce behaviors.

These are some of the things that people do to gain power, admiration, acceptance and more than that, the confidence that he is right and their competition are wrong. We as citizens that are being constantly being attacked from this powerful techniques need to be prepared. We have to stop being ignorants of this subject and stop being pons for the big companies. Stand and choose well. Don't believe everything that the media tells you. They want to be on their side, to buy their shirts, shorts, foods, to watch their channel, to read their paper, and so on. Be careful because they will do everything on their side to make you one of their holders. Don't hesitate, be smart and make good choices.

Bibliography: "TOP 10 MEDIA MANIPULATION STRATEGIES" http://theinternationalcoalition.blogspot.com/2011/07/noam-chomsky-top-10-media-manipulation_08.html

Activity Book page 87

1. Make it plausible. 

The author makes it plausible for making it genuine about Michael Moore films. You can realize that he has researched because it seems that he almost was on the films. 

2. Be knowledgeable.

 "I was accused of being biased toward my hometown."

"You may accuse me of propaganda and poor journalism."

3. Keep it relevant to the Anglophone culture.

Of course he is relevant to Anglophone Culture .He has criticized topics such as globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the American health care system, and capitalism. In 2005 Time magazine named Moore one of the world's 100 most influential people.

4. Know the right conventions for the text type

It says that he watched extracts from his films and that it was interesting for him. It looked familiar for the author.