U3 Poison Tree - Word Relationships

Define

Thinking in terms of word relationships can help build your vocabulary. It can also help you to analyze and appreciate how
carefully an author has chosen particular words to describe or express something.

One type of word relationship is denotation and connotation. Of course, all words have denotations, or dictionary definitions.
But also knowing and understanding their connotations—the implied meanings that are not part of their dictionary
definitions—can help you to identify the subtle differences between them. For example, the words cheap and inexpensive are
synonyms: they have the same denotation (not costly), but their connotations are different. The word cheap usually has a
negative connotation, implying that something is inexpensive but poorly made. By contrast, the word inexpensive has a neutral
connotation: it doesn’t make any judgment about quality.

Another good tool for thinking in terms of word relationships is to use analogies. An analogy is a comparison that illustrates an
idea by comparing it to something that is already understood. You can use analogies to understand various types of word
relationships, including synonyms and antonyms, item to category, part to whole, and cause to effect. For example, you know
that synonyms are words that share the same denotation. So an analogy can be used to illustrate their different connotations:
Sad is to gloomy as happy is to cheerful. Similarly, antonyms are words with opposite denotations. An analogy using antonyms
might be: Lively is to listless as happy is to sad.

Identification and Application:

●To use word relationships to help in understanding poetry:

○Identify a poet’s precise word choices, including words that are synonyms or antonyms.

○Look for language that heightens or expands the emotional ideas in a poem.

●To identify synonyms and antonyms and understand their purpose:

○Remember that synonyms often do not have the exact same connotation as one another. Shades of meaning make
the difference between one synonym and another. The same is true of antonyms.

○Note that over the course of a poem, word choices may become stronger to heighten or build the emotional
content. Poets may use more vivid synonyms and antonyms to help develop their ideas.

○Use synonyms and antonyms to understand unfamiliar words. For example, in the sentence, “The house was
hideous on the outside, but beautiful on the inside,” the signal word “but” is a clue that “hideous” means the
opposite of “beautiful.”

○Refer to tools such as dictionaries and thesauruses to better understand the shades of meaning of related words.

Model

In poetry, every word counts. All writers, and poets in particular, choose their words carefully in order to convey specific ideas and
feelings. In “A Poison Tree” from his collection Songs of Experience, poet William Blake uses deceptively simple words and word
relationships to develop powerful ideas. Let’s look at the way the poet uses word relationships in the first two lines:

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

The first line is clear: The speaker was “angry” with his friend. To understand the next line, the reader first needs to understand the
relationship between the words “angry” and “wrath.” They are closely related words. They’re not precisely synonyms, because angry is an
adjective and wrath is a noun. (If the words were anger and “wrath,” they would be synonyms.) Still, their relationship in the lines tells a
reader that the meaning of “wrath” has to do with being angry. Why did the poet choose the word “wrath” instead of “anger”? The word
“wrath” is often used to express an exaggerated anger, which lets the reader know that the speaker’s feeling toward his friend had been
strong.

Model

To show the opposite situation in the poem, Blake ends each line of the first stanza with matching pairs of antonyms.

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

To understand the meaning of the word “foe” in line 3, the reader can look at the word “friend” in line 1. They are opposites, so a “foe” is
an enemy. In the second line, the speaker says, “I told my wrath” to “my friend,” and that brought it to an “end.” In the fourth line, he says
of his anger toward his foe, “I told it not,” and the anger “did grow.” While “grow” and “end” are not precise antonyms, ending is a contrast
to growing, or continuing. In other words, not only does the speaker’s “wrath” not end, it continues to “grow,” or become stronger.

The poet, in his use of word relationships, establishes a powerful conflict in four brief lines. These lines set up the story of the poem, in
which the speaker shares the results of his unspoken, angry feelings for his foe.

Your Turn

Read this stanza of “A Poison Tree” and answer the follow-up questions.

And I water’d it in fears,

Night & morning with my tears:

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

Multiple Choice

Part A

What two kinds of behaviors or actions does Blake contrast in this stanza?

• strong and weak

• negative and positive

• the speaker’s and the foe’s

• familiar and unusual

Multiple Choice

Part B

Which pair of related words signals the two kinds of behaviors or actions?

• “fears” and “wiles”

• “tears” and “smiles”

• “soft” and “deceitful””

• “water’d” and “sunned