Answer 2 questions

LIT 2001 FINAL EXAM

Please respond with a complete, thoughtful answer. Be sure to provide detail by referring to specific examples. DO NOT USE OUTSIDE RESEARCH SOURCES.

PART ONE: Answer ONE of the following questions:

1. Describe Langston Hughes’ view of America by tracing at least three of his poems. Also, describe the controversy around the manner in which Hughes portrayed African Americans in his poems.

2. William Carlos Williams uses an “open” style and format and Robert Frost uses a more “constructed”? What are the characteristics of each style – i.e., rhyme, etc. Use examples from their poems.

PART TWO: POEM ANALYSIS

DO NOT USE OUTSIDE RESEARCH SOURCES.

Critically analyze this poem by discussing three major components of analysis: Please read all 7 stanzas of the poem.

1. What are some of the structural elements of the poem? Metaphor, rhyme, symbols, sounds, etc.

2. What does the poem mean? Explain the content of the poem.

3. What is the theme of the poem?

To An Athlete Dying Young by A.E.Housman

The time you won our town the race

We chaired you through the market place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honors out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,

The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

And hold to the low lintel up

The still-defended challenge cup.

And round that early-laureled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl’s.