1052 Week 9

W. H. AUDEN

He was an English poet, who later became an American citizen.

Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.

PERSONIFICATION

It is a figure of speech where human qualities are given to animals, objects or ideas.

In the arts, personification means representing a non-human thing as if it were human.

Personification gives human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires, sensations, gestures and speech, often by way of a metaphor.

DIONYSUS

He is the god of the grape harvest, wine-making and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theater and religious ecstasy in ancient Greek religion and myth.

Wine played an important role in Greek culture, and the cult of Dionysus was the main religious focus for its unrestrained consumption.

VOCABULARY

Prefixes

homo- = of the same

homosexuality  /ˌhəʊməʊsekʃuˈæləti/

e.g. I hope that some day homosexuality will be simply seen as another way of being, not as some kind of sickness or sign of immorality.

mono- = one, alone

monarch  /ˈmɒnə(r)k/

e.g. Many people in England would like to see the public subsidy of the monarchy abolished.

Roots

fer = carry, bring

interfere  /ˌɪntə(r)ˈfɪə(r)/

e.g. I don’t think your mother has the right to interfere in our affairs.

plic = fold

implicit  /ɪmˈplɪsɪt/

e.g. This assumption is often implicit in the way a person addresses a woman.

Suffixes

-hood = condition, state

brotherhood /ˈbrʌðə(r)ˌhʊd/

e.g. He taught us freedom, tolerance, and brotherhood.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

It is a commonly used type of metrical line in traditional English poetry and verse drama.

The term describes the rhythm that the words establish in that line, which is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet".

The word "iambic" refers to the type of foot that is used, known as the iamb, which in English is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.