Poetry Analysis Practice

What is an allusion?

• a comparison using like or as

• an extreme exaggeration

• brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance

• math

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

What is the effect of the allusion to the Garden of Eden*?

• It creates imagery of a beautiful garden to help improve the poem.

• It creates a juxtaposition between the paradise of Eden and Nature.

• It changes the mood because Eden’s paradise is now closed to humans.

• It doesn’t affect the poem.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

What is Frost referring to in the phrase “Nature’s first green”?

• Money

• Rainy days

• Grass

• Young plants and flowers

What is a synonym for the word "hue"?

• Leaf

• Color

• Feeling

• Sunrise

What is the definition of alliteration?

• repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are in close proximity to each other

• comparison using like or as

• word that makes the sound that it says

• Giving something, nonhuman or an object, human characteristics.

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Which statement best describes the theme of this poem?

• Change is precious and exciting.

• Change will happen, and every moment is precious.

• Change should be feared and avoided.

• Change is boring and unnoteworthy.

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

What is Frost thinking about in this poem?

• Love

• Desire

• Hate

• The end of the world

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

What comparison does Frost make to fire?

• Is it like death, because it ends everything.

• It is like hate, because it is raging and destructive.

• It is like the world, because it is everywhere.

• It is like desire, because it’s a consuming element.

What is the best synonym for “perish”?

• Decide

• Die

• Battle

• Win

What is a juxtaposition?

• a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters, and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem, for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts.

• An exaggeration so dramatic that no one would believe its true

• A statement that is a comparison of two things that are not alike.

• When a set of words uses the same sound or letters repeatedly