Men and Women/Romance: Today hyacinths can mean a number of things ranging from commitment and beauty, to power and pride. I think it would be appropriate to tie this flower choice in particular to Greek myth, given Eliot's other allusions. The myth is that Hyacinthus, a beautiful spartan prince, was favored by many including wind gods and Apollo, the sun god. Despite being courted by many, Hyacinthus chose Apollo and the two were very happy until they were prematurely separated by a discus accident. Apollo, not willing to lose his lover so soon, begged to be made mortal so he could die and be with Hyacinthus, though he was denied by Hades. Instead, Apollo grew the flower we now know as Hyacinths from the spilled blood of Hyacinthus.

As it pertains to the poem, I think that the choice for this flower could be Eliot's way of commenting on the doomed nature of love in an unpredictable world and that escaping tragedy is futile.

men and women/romance: This moment portrays a disconnect between (presumably) a husband and wife. There is an obvious lack of communication, and when one finally answers the other they reply "we are in rats' alley" insinuating a horrible living condition, be it physical or emotional.

this is an example of the men/women / romance motif. The woman speaking in this section is about to welcome home her husband. The speaker warns the woman that the pills she has taken since the man has been away have aged her and he may not want her anymore. the speaker pushes the woman saying that her job was to keep the home fires warm and look good enough to be essentially a war prize for him. This sentiment is likely one many housewives were familiar with in the aftermath of both World Wars.

Is this in reference to Isaiah 53:2-

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

the scene that is painted here for me is something like a hoard of the dead marching on, maybe not realizing they are dead. I know that they are marching towards the financial district of London, is Eliot commenting on the undeadness of those involved in banking and the stock market?

like everyone else, I'm thrown off by the frequent interjections of German. I really want to know whether Eliot wants us to know what he's saying or not.

the speaker shows little remorse, instead his guilt is subsided by the pleasure in having enjoyed something.

the tone shifts in a really interesting way in this last bit of the poem, specifically right here. I think that these last 5 stanzas are so off putting that they can be considered enjambment. While a large part of the poem was about Elsie, the attention turns to us presumably Americans "imagining" deer in this picturesque landscape of middle America that is a romanticized non-reality. We are prisoners to the idea of the American Dream.

Williams describes a woman with Native heritage being so lost amongst the insecurity and "trauma" of her uninspiring life who then is saved by a job as a housekeeper / Au pair / maid in a nice suburb. This is a clear depiction of the white savior narrative.

Du Bois sort of says here that for the enslaved American "back in the day," freedom was divine and the thought of it and hope for it was the most important thing to them. Adams talks about freedom in relation to the idea of knowledge opening up the world, however I find comparing the two a bit complicated.

I read this as the cortex within plants. In plants the cortex is the layer between the surface and the inside "vascular" tissues. The cerebral cortex, that exists within brains, is the central location for our thoughts, personalities, feelings, and memories. I do believe that Millay is referencing the cortex of plants in this context though. The cortex acts as a protective barrier. An iron cortex would be hidden and unassuming but incredibly effective at protecting the insides.

This poem discusses the death of a sailor and the fact that prior to his death, the sea overtook his life and therefore he had nothing and no one—only his boat and the sea. These lines in particular seem to say that even in death he is obsessed with the boat and that even when promised heaven, he won't let his passion go.

the speaker is saying that love is not something one can live on. While the joys and comfort of love offer a lot in their own right, love is not all-sustaining. It is not everything even though it feels like it.

Though the speaker initially perceived one path to be better than the other, once he got on it he realized they were in fact the same. This poem is often misunderstood because in this moment Frost clarifies that whichever path he took does not matter and thus him taking "the one less traveled by" didn't actually make all the difference.

Frost's wit and almost accusatory analysis comes out again here. He sees this moment of a spider and moth meeting on a flower just so the spider can eat the moth. Rather than just take this moment as a representation of the natural order of things, he questions what God allows for tragedy and creates scenarios revolved around death.

I'm kind of amused by Frost's almost mocking tone specifically in this part of the poem. He's basically saying that decay is inevitable and once you've reached your peak the only place to go from there is down. His resolution for this is to just die early which is kind of hilarious.

I think his name comes from the phrase "ebb and flow" which means a recurrent pattern of coming and going. Flood represents the older forms and generations and the fact that old is always replaced by new, until what is new becomes old.

This indicates that Mr. Flood is old, nearing the end of his life as he doesn't know how many more harvest moons he will witness. Not only is Flood nearing death, but its also clear throughout the rest of the poem that he is all alone. His age and solitude could represent that movement from the older generation to a new one.

The symbol of the library, the place of knowledge, being torn down following the death of this champion of knowledge is significant in its representation of the preferred ignorance of future generations.

Masters lists out these types of form in poetry calling out the formulaic way poems are often written. I think that this epitaph is saying that the importance of structure diminishes poetry a little bit.

The narrator is incredibly aware that sitting in the same place doing the same nothing each and every day isn't good for her, despite the claims of her husband and brother, yet she is unable to do anything else. Her days are filled with the same setting and thoughts that eventually turn obsessive of the only thing that sparks any feelings within her : the wallpaper. Anaphora is present here again in Gilman's writing, further emphasizing the toxicity of the repetition on the narrator's psyche.

The fact that the room is all the narrator finds comfort in, lends itself to her obsession with the wallpaper. She repeats her routine of watching, expectantly, until she sees something strange that sort of confirms her unease about the house. Her feelings and real emotional state are consistently dismissed by her husband and her brother, so the narrator's desperation to find something off within the walls eventually turns into insanity. Its almost self-fullfilling or self-perpetuating except the self in question is the men in her life who deem the narrator hysterical.

Repetition is present all throughout this short story. From the thematic moments of our protagonist circling the room and obsessing over the wallpaper, to Gilman's use of anaphora as a literary device to emphasize this cyclical thinking of the narrator.

I think that in a way this concept that DuBois talks about, being the doubleness of maintaining a connection to both his identity as a Black man as well as his identity as an American, ties back to Adams musings on the future of technology and the sublimity of the past. Though on a different scale, one Adams could never really empathize with, both he and DuBois find themselves questioning whether or not the past or older self needs to be reshaped in order to be better suited to the new world. If DuBois wishes to exist prosperously, must he sacrifice one half of his identity? Likewise, Adams wonders whether the beauty and awe of the past world must be left behind and forgotten in favor of growth and innovation.

Is this supposed to read as Adams expressing a distaste of the idea of study? Is it a disregard of academia while favoring knowledge?

I find the distinction of these industrial advances as being mainly dangerous and threatening interesting, as many people would associate them with growth. Is Adams that afraid of societal expansion?

Is this saying that Adams is like staring at the stars rather than being productive? Also I find it interesting that Adams quickly establishes Langley's knowledge as superficial.

the repetition throughout the poem indicates both the significance of the growth as well as the consistency in everything contributing to this lion growing. The lion can be a metaphor for the anger of the working class.

This really drives home the point the speaker makes about how important Ma Rainey's music is to the people. The imagery of bowing their heads is almost religious and it comes so naturally. Seeing Ma Rainey perform is a spiritual experience.

The dialectic writing draws attention to the speech pattern of the average southern American. This both tells the reader that that the audience of Ma Rainey speaks this way and implies that the poem is more conversational than traditional.

The speaker is emphasizing the fact that no matter where she goes, be it a big city or a small town, her fans will go crazy and do anything to see her. This is expected in places like New Orleans, but by stating that its also the case in the average Southern smaller towns the speaker proves just how big Ma Rainey is.

“Industrial barns” are workplaces like factories, but the reason Levine uses the word “barn” in particular is because it invokes rural surroundings. Given the fact that this poem is in response to the racial riots in Detroit, this seems to be showing the progression from African Americans being exploited farm laborers to exploited industrial laborers.

It seems that the “lion” is representative of some sort of beast like rage or anger that grows within people as they are torn down and mistreated.

white is most often associated with purity so the juxtaposition of "white sins" is significant.