This was a pretty interesting read. I never thought that something like philology could be so controversial. I also had no idea that the way literature is taught has changed so much over the years. It's quite interesting when you think about it. Literature can be both seen and interpreted in different ways, which is why the way it's taught can change so much. I mean, depending on how it's seen and interpreted, someone could have an entire argument about a single sentence. It's honestly fascinating to think about. Both literature and language have changed so much and with the changes have come new ways of seeing and interpreting both. These changes have also lead to more discussions about the meanings of literature, like poetry. There's no one set interpretation or meaning, that changes based on how each person sees the piece of literature. It all means something different to each reader, and the evolution of how it's taught adds to that, I imagine.

This is one of many instances in just a single page that our narrator/main character uses rather violent language to describe things that are happening. When describing trees, "attacked" also seems like a strange word to use. Generally trees are not seen as something that can attack. Of course, in this case it makes a bit more sense than it would in most contexts, as the trees in question are messing up the foundation of a house. This means they are attacking in a way, so any other ways to describe it may not get the point across. Another instance of the more violent word choice is a few sentences later, when the narrator is talking about “knife cracks”. The cracks in the shingles could be described as simply cracks, so why do they decide to call them “knife cracks”? It seems like an odd way to describe them, so I suppose we can expect more of these oddly violent descriptions as we read the story.

The title of this story gives us a lot of information right off the bat, which is not the most common thing to see with short stories. Or at least, it's not something I've seen that often when reading short stories, maybe it is common and I just haven't noticed. Anyway, we are given the name of a character who will most likely be important to the story if they've been named in the title, the occupation of said character (Bartleby is a clerk or scribe according to the definition of 'Scrivener'), and the setting which is Wall-Street. I find it a bit odd that the author capitalized 'Of' and not 'street' in the title, which Erin also pointed out, but this could just be a style choice of some kind made by the author. However, it could also have some sort of significance, though I have no idea what that could be if it does. Overall, there is a lot of information given in just the title of the short story, which I think is abnormal.

This was an interesting story to read, though the lack of emotions being portrayed in it was a bit jarring at first. It feels like it's like someone's journal entry or something similar rather than an actual story with a serious plot. Honestly, the entire thing caught me off guard. The dad character's obsession with the pole was a little jarring as well, considering he changed how it looked for practically every season and holiday and even made it look like death when his wife dies. It's a very strange thing to be obsessed with, so maybe the pole meant something more to the dad? The ending of the story where the kid just sold the house and the new owners just tossed the pole was even more jarring, however. It's like the kid didn't really care about their father since they basically just tossed the pole, and that makes me wonder if they hated their dad because of how frugal/controlling he was. Overall, it was an interesting read!

This part of the Amendment could be seen in different ways, as Hayley said. Both 'necessary' and 'free state' add different meanings to the Amendment, with 'necessary' making it seem like a country is not free if they can't bear arms, and 'free state' could be referring to the freedom if its citizens or the sovereignty of the state. This brings up the question, what did they mean by security? Are they saying that bearing arms is necessary to protect the freedom of the citizens? Or could they be saying that without the ability to bear arms, it is not a free country, so they must be vital to the country's ability to protect the sovereignty of the state? This one part could mean many different things, depending on how you look at it, so that makes it seem rather ambiguous. Perhaps this is why this Amendment is so heavily debated these days, since it does seem a bit ambiguous...

This first translation was honestly almost impossible for me to read. The way most of the words are spelled and the way it's all structured made it very difficult to understand. This is because this first translation is in extremely old English, and I noticed I am not the only one who had some trouble with it. The seemingly random letters at the beginning of words really threw me off, even though that's most likely just how things were spelled in that time. Comparing it to how things are written today, it's a drastic change. I honestly didn't understand half of this until I read the other translations, which helped me make sense of this one. It makes sense that it would be difficult to understand given the time period it's from and how much English has changed since then, but I did not expect it to be this much of a challenge.

This is one of many instances of alliteration in this song. Each use of alliteration fits quite well and makes the song much more interesting to listen to, especially during the rap part of the song. Given that the rap is a good portion of the song, the alliteration is extremely satisfying to hear. It helps to hold your attention even if you can't quite understand what Lafayette is saying at times (That was a really fast rap, he did amazing with it!). The constant alliteration really helps to show how intense this song is supposed to be. The dropped 'g's in the alliteration makes it seem much faster and adds to the intensity, making it a very satisfying song to listen to.

A quagmire is also known as a bog or a marsh, as Jackson mentioned, and as he also mentioned, it is not easy to get through that kind of terrain. It seems that Burr knows that, which is why he asks this. Having seen far too many videos of people getting stuck in bogs and marshes, this is a question I would also ask. Marshes and bogs tend to make it very difficult to walk around, as they almost seem to suck your feet into them and it's rough getting free when you sink down into them. All of this combined makes Lafayette look that much more amazing when he takes charge and they end up victorious, as Jackson also mentioned, which I very much agree with.

At first, this seems like a rather innocent way to begin the song, but after listening to it all the way through, it's a bit misleading. As Jackson mentioned, the melody seems almost as if it's distorted a little, and combine that with some of the other lines in the song, and that opening doesn't seem as innocent anymore. I mean, the line about the neighbor going missing and the one about everything going up in flames really throw off the initially innocent feeling this song has. Also, who's house is this? It says 'your house', but who is the 'your' mentioned here? Is it the listener, maybe the singer's boyfriend, or is it a made-up person? It seems the entire song is directed to whoever this 'you' is, but we don't get a name or description to link to this 'you'.

There are multiple references to gardens and growing throughout this piece. This, as Kirsten said in one of her annotations, may be to show the growth of the singer in her own life. It could also be in reference to the way both plants and people change drastically throughout their lives. People constantly change, just like a growing plant does. However, the line following this one threw me off a bit. Why is the garden haunted, and by what? After such a nice line about how well the garden is doing, it was a startling change in emotions, from happy about the garden to scared as to why the garden is haunted.

This line of the poem made me think that the author isn't actually going to go to Innisfree. He wrote in the future tense for the entire poem, but I had expected the tense to change at some point. However, when the tense change never came, I realized the author may actually be either dreaming or fantasizing about the Isle of Innisfree. He wants to go there, but does not, so this poem is about him fantasizing and wanting to go to that lake isle. That actually clears up some of the confusion I had with the way some times of day were described. He described them like that because he's dreaming or fantasizing, so of course they would be described as they normally are. This poem makes more sense to me when thought about as a dream or fantasy, and it's a really enchanting poem!

This is an odd way to describe noon. since noon is in the middle of the day, one would assume it would be described as such. There are a lot of times mentioned in this poem, actually, and the way midnight is described confuses me as well. I don't think I've ever seen midnight described as being "all a glimmer" or noon having a purple glow. This may just be to add to the description of Innisfree, which from the rest of the poem seems like it could be a rather enchanting place. Perhaps that is why the author described midnight and noon the way he did.

The one face mentioned here seems to heavily implied to be our artist's source of inspiration. Whoever she is, she is his muse. We are not given much to go on about her appearance other than she is lovely, and is as "fair as the moon"(so she is very pale). She seems to be the subject of all of our unnamed artist's works, whoever she is. She is described as a queen, a saint, an angel, and a nameless girl all in a row, which seems to show that the artist sees her in many ways. He sees her as an ordinary girl, royalty, and even an otherworldly being. Muses can inspire someone to create so much, and it seems this particular muse has done just that for the artist. It also seems that all the art with her in it means the same thing to the artist, though that meaning doesn't seem to be stated in the poem.

This seems like an ironic thing to show in the poem, as a couple others pointed out. Smoking is something I don't think medics would usually do, especially not while out and about, presumably doing their jobs. It's also ironic because medics often help people who are hurt because they smoked too much, yet here they are smoking as well. I'll be honest, I don't think I'd trust a medic who I witnessed smoking, mostly out of principle. It just seems unsafe. In this case, I imagine the medics are there in case there are any accidents when the soldiers are jumping out of the helicopter, but it still seems like bad practice for them to be smoking. However, in the context of the poem, I have the feeling no one really minds the medics smoking. People are more focused on the soldiers coming back from jump camp than on the medics who are smoking when they shouldn't be.

I think the author capitalized death as a way to refer to the entity Death and not just someone dying. Death is often capitalized when writers are referring to death as an entity and not a part of life. I've seen this in comic books, novels, and other poems. I think the place I've seen this the most is in the Deadpool comics, as Death was an actual character and not just something that happens to people. So, I have the feeling this is a similar thing in this poem. The author is talking about Death the entity, not death the force of nature.

This poem's rhyme scheme is ABABCCCD, as a few others have pointed out, but the way he rhymes the three C lines in the first and third stanza are interesting. He's not rhyming the last word, he's rhyming the word before the last one. I just found that interesting.

The way the author describes the trees in this stanza and the brook in the next stanza make it seem as though he is either upset by the way they simply wait through the winter, or he is jealous that they can simply wait through the winter with no problems. Trees and brooks don't have to worry about anything humans do, so I can see why a human would be jealous of nature during winter. Nature finds ways to thrive in times when humans can't, in this case humans can't because it's winter and it's too cold (or at least that's how I see it).

A few other people have pointed this out, but there are quite a few words in this poem that are capitalized when they're not at the beginning of a line. I'd like to think this is to help show the effects of the author's brain splitting after her mind had been cleaved in half. Someone also said it could be for emphasis, which I think could be another good explanation. Perhaps there is no significance to the way these words are capitalized, perhaps there is. Anyone have any other thoughts as to why they might be capitalized?

The title of this poem is rather sad. The title requires the reader to read the poem in order to fully understand the title, and well, this whole poem made me feel a bit sad. The slumber mentioned in the title is the death of whoever "she" is, most likely someone important to the narrator/author. The 'did my spirit seal' part is basically saying the death of "her" made the narrator/author's spirit break; they most likely loved this "she" character and her death broke them. I can relate to this feeling personally, which makes this poem hit a little harder for me. Losing someone you care about can absolutely break your spirits, and this poem does a good job of portraying that sadness, at least it does to me. The meaning of the poem only hit me after I finished the second stanza and reread the title, which is why I think this is a great example of a poem that makes the reader think about what the author means by a certain word, in this case the word slumber.

I think it is interesting that this poem uses the title to let the reader know what exactly the poem is about. I'll be honest, without the title, I would have no idea what this poem is about. It is an interesting way to tell the readers the poem's context, and I do not think I have seen a poem like this before now. Most poems have the context within them, but I think this works quite well for such a brief poem.