A WORD IS DEAD

A word is dead

When it is said

Some say

I say

It just begins to live

That day

The title creates expectations in the rider because you not generally use the adjective ‘dead’ referred to a word. “dead” implies something was a live before death and therefore the intelligent rider tries to understand the meaning of the adjective “dead” in the title.

The structure of the poem consist if six lines arranged in to two tercets. So the intelligent rider wants to understand why the poem has make such division. In other to understand that the rider has read the poem and understand what it is about.

The first tersect say that when somebody says a word, it deads and this is the opinion of “some say”. In the second tersect the speaking voice changed: somebody called I says exactly the opposite. According to that opinion when a word is dead it begins to leave.

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

First of all 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 express the opinion of common unidentified people and in the second stanza the opinion is clearly the one of precise person (I say). The contrast is also underline by the different position of the subject . 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 ride which is then opposite to ewe. Therefore you can see that the idea of contrast underling the tow points of you express in the poem is structural and structuring the text.From the point of soud one can see that the second tercet does not follow the patern of the first one. The second tercet seems to take distances from the structure of the fist one as the different position of the subject clearly show. According to the lyrical I words gain life when they are sad, while “Some say” are convinced/believed the words are no longer meaningful when somebody says them.