ANALISI “A WORD IS DEAD”

The title creates expectations in the reader because you do not generally use the adjective Dead referred to a word. Dead implies something was alive before dying and therefore the intelligent reader tries to understand the meaning of the adjective “dead” in the title.

The structure of the poem consists of six lines arranged into tercets.

The intelligent reader wants to understand why the poem has made such division.

In order to understand that the reader must read the poem and understand what it is about.

The first tercet says that when somebody says a word it dies and this is the opinion of “some say”.

In the second tercet the speaking voice changes: somebody called I says exactly the opposite: according to that opinion when a word is said it begins to live.

The structure of the poem is suitable to content because the text expresses two different opinions and they are juxtaposed by contrast. Contrast is therefore the most important device exploited by the poet to  make meaning.

First of all the poet uses contrast even in the choice of passive form (it is said) in the first tercet and the active form in the second one.

In addition in the first stanza the poet expresses the opinion of common unidentified people.

In the second stanza the opinion is clearly the one of a precise person (I say). The contrast is also underlined by the different position of the subjects. This choice highlights such different ones again.

The semantic choice add to meaning by contrast. Suffice it to say that dead is the adjective the riving from the dead  which is the opposite of to live. Therefore you can see that the idea of contrast underlining the two points of view expressed in the poem is structural and structuring the text.

From the point of view of sound you can see that the second tercet does not follow the pattern of the first one.

The second tercet seems to take distance from the structure of the fist one as the different position of the subject  clearly shows. According to the lyrical I words gain life when they are said while “some say” are convinced that words are no longer meaningful when somebody says them.

ANALISI “WATER FALLS”

The structure of the poem consists in six lines and they consist in the same two words “water falls”.

The intelligent reader wants to understand why the poet has made such division. In order to understand that the reader must read the poem and understand what it is about.

The poem is arranged into six lines which are forming a staircase, I think the poem has made this structure to show the movement of the waterfalls, because it seems that the words are falling.