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Exercise 1

a)     The Picture of Dorian Grey is a novel.

b)    Fahrenheit 451is a science fiction novel.

c)     The Call of the Wild is an adventure novel.

d)    Dracula is an epistolary novel.

e)    Waverly is a historical novel.

f)      Murder on the Orient Express is a crime novel.

g)     Our Better is a graphic novel.

h)    Lighthouse is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

i)      Soldiers is a war poem by Ungaretti.

j)      To Zacinto is a sonnet by Ugo Foscolo.

k)     The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner is a ballad by Samuel T. Coleridge.

l)      All of Me is a love song by John Legend.

m)   Windower’s Houses is a play by George Bernard Shaw.

n)    Romeo and Giulietta is a tragedy by William Shakespeare.

o)    Lady Windermere's Fan is a comedy by Oscar Wilde.

p)    Murder on the Orient Express is a film based on a novel by the same title.

Exercise 2

a)     A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a Comedy.

b)    Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s stone is a fantasy novel.

c)     Pinocchio is a child novel.

d)    Star Wars is a space opera.

e)    Ode on a Grecian Urn is a poem.

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Exercise 1

Prose tells stories about one or more characters whose thoughts and actions happen at certain times and in certain places which constitute the setting.

Page 24

Exercise 8

a)     STANZA 3: now try and lose bigger things, and do it more often: cities, names and the places you were supposed to go and nothing happen if you forget about them.

b)    STANZA 2: imagine you lose something daily, for example, your keys.

c)     STANZA 1: it is easy to lose things, especially because many of them seem to ask for it and it is not a big issue, anyway.

d)    STANZA 6: but losing someone I love is not unimportant: it is true losing is an easy process, but at times its consequences are tragic.

e)    STANZA 4: a family object disappeared, and soon after even one of the houses where I used to live.

f)      STANZA  5: I used to leave in a couple of places in the country I really liked, I had some dear corners where I used to find peace. I don’t have them anymore, but it’s not such a big deal.

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Exercise 9

One art is made up of six stanzas; the first five stanzas a container three lines, while the last consists of four. The poem is a villanelle, a former deriving from rustic songs; its rhyme scheme is ABA. The “I” voice talks to a “you” expressing sadness and sense of loss, while making ironical comments on the inevitability of losing objects and opportunities. Losing a loved one however is a much more painful experience and a poet finally forces herself to acknowledge that is a disaster.

 

One Art (Elizabeth Bishop)

 

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

 

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

 

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three beloved houses, went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

 

— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. 

The art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

 

Trying to analyse the poem:

Considering the title, the reader could think that the poem may be about one specific type of art, or at least about something regarding art in general.

One Art is a villanelle, that is, it consists of five tercets rhyming aba and a quatrain of abaa. Traditionally the villanelle is in iambic pentameter, each line having five stresses or beats and an average of ten syllables.

The opening line is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth tercets, and in the sixth stanza, with a minor variation. Also, the word “disaster”, which is repeated in stanzas 1, 3, 5, 6 could be read as a counter-refrain.

The third line of the initial tercet is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth tercets. The opening line and the third line together become the refrain which is repeated in the last two lines of the quatrain.

Elizabeth Bishop slightly modified the lines but minor changes are allowed within the basic villanelle. The idea is to create a sort of dance of words, repeating certain lines whilst building up variations on a theme, all within the tight-knit form.

Note the use of enjambment, carrying the sense of a line on into the next without punctuation, which occurs in the first four stanzas, bringing a smooth if considered energy into the poem.

The fifth stanza is different. It has punctuation, a comma and two periods (end stops), causing the reader to pause as if the speaker is hesitant.

The last stanza is fully enjambed, each line flowing into the next, despite the unexpected use of parentheses.

 

Analysing the meaning:

 

-       First Stanza

The speaker chooses to turn the idea of loss into an art form and tries to convince the reader (and herself) that certain things inherently want to be lost and that, when they do get lost, it's nothing to cry about because it was bound to happen in the first place. This is a fateful approach, gracefully accepted by the speaker.

-       Second Stanza

Following on logically, if fate dictates and things want to get lost, then why not lose something daily? Seems a tad wacky, an offbeat statement. Who wants to lose a thing and then not get emotional about it? Each day? The speaker is suggesting that things, keys, and even time equate to the same thing - they're capable of being lost, absent from your life for no other reason other than they are. Some people are better at it than others. The absent-minded perhaps? Those individuals who are in some way fated, who have a talent for losing things.So far, so impersonal. Emotion is being held in as the poem builds; the reader is being reminded that losing control within the poem's tight form is not possible - but you are allowed to get in a fluster (agitated, confused).

-       Third Stanza

Now the reader is being told to consciously lose something, to practice the art. Irony sets in, as does the idea that the mind is a central focus here, for what we're told to lose is abstract - places and names, perhaps on a personal map. Time is being squeezed too as life gets busier and our minds become full and stretched. But in the end, we can handle the losses, no problem.

-       Fourth Stanza

Again, the emphasis is on time, specifically family time, with the mother's watch being lost, surely symbolic of a profound personal experience for the poet. And note that the speaker is in the here and now when the words And look! appear in the first line, telling the reader that three loved houses went.

-       Fifth Stanza

The buildup continues. Emotional tension is still not apparent as the reader is now confronted with the speaker's loss of not only the cities where they used to live but the whole continent. This seems drastic. To go from a set of house keys to a whopping continent is absurd.

-       Sixth Stanza

The opening dash in the final stanza gives it the feel of almost an afterthought. And the use of adverbs, even and too in connection with a loved one, reveals something quite painfully rational. The personal gives way to the impersonal, the form dictating, despite the last attempt (Write it!) to avoid admission.

In conclusion, there is always the possibility of disaster when we lose something but life teaches us that more often than not, we come out of certain precarious situations with a smile, a cool detachment, the benefit of hindsight.