(First part of the analysis)

EXERCISES, page 203

1. The character is a girl heard by the speaking voice in the countryside while she is singing a fascinating song.

1. In the second stanza the poet compares the voice he's hearing to a song of a nightingale and to one sung by a cuckoo-bird; both the songs gladden the poet's soul and entertain the tired groups of travelers; the nightingale and the cuckoo-bird are two kind of birds, so they suggest an uncontaminated place, far away from a city.

1. In the third stanza the speaking voice makes hypothesis about the voice he's hearing. He thinks it may be a nostalgic song or maybe the girl is singing about old battles, or it may be about a personal experience; what all this subjects have in common is the melancholic effect they provoke on the poet's soul.

1. From the analysis of the semantic fields, a melancholic and sad tone comes out. The language used by the poet conveys the idea of solitude and far, desert land (single, alone, Arabian sands, farthest, far off, long ago, ...) ; in addition to this, other expressions recall the theme of pain and death (shady, lost, sorrow, pain, sickle, motionless and still, ...).

Belkokeska, Turco