You are now going to work with a concordance of the poem. The
Concordance window looks like this: To the left you have a list of all the words in the poem. At the top an alphabet.
Pressing a button brings you to the letter in the alphabetic list. In the frame below the
alphabet you have the concordance, and below that the poem. To familiarize yourself with
the layout, load the concordance into the browser, click around, and return (by pressing
"Back" - perhaps severeal times) to this page. The concordance. 1) "Day", "even/evening/eventide", "night", "morn"," morning" play an important role in the poem. Click on these words in the wordlist and study the context of these words - what descriptions does Tennyson use together with these words? 2) "Old" can mean something familiar - or something worn or outdated. Use the concordance to investigate Tennyson's use of these words. How does Mariana herself respond? 3) "Light" and "sun" usually signal positive things - use the concordance to see what Mariana thinks. 4) Look at the use of the word "did" - how does Tennyson use that word to build up the atmosphere of the poem? 5) It has been claimed that Tennyson uses descriptions of the exterior to give an impression of his character's state of mind. Find examples of that in the poem. 6) What would you say Mariana's problem is? (Key-words: society (the location of the
grange), other people). |
