Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Looking Up (Apostrophe)

The speaker in this poem is a devout stargazer. When I first read it, I though of the movie "The Princess and the Frog" where the funny lightning bug falls in love with a star that he thinks is another lightning bug. He calls her Evangeline and sings to her. The speaker in this poem may not be in love with the star he is talking to, but he certainly admires it.

An apostrophe is when a speaker talks to an inanimate or nonhuman object. In "Bright Star" the speaker is asking for some of the star's qualities. He admires how steadfast, and unchangeable the star is. This is true, but the speaker also concedes that the "life" of a star is not perfect.

The speaker uses phrases like "sweet unrest", "eternal lids", "sleepless Eremite", "priestlike task", and "awake forever". These all have good and bad connotations. They are a mix of something desirable and something undesirable. The effect give the audience a very bittersweet taste of the "task" of a star, the lonely vigil a star holds over the world. The speaker admires the hardship, and the steadfast qualities of the star in his loving apostrophe to the heavens.

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