This discussion board topic asks you to identify and discuss two major themes within the poems “Let America Be America Again,” “On the Pulse of the Morning,” by Maya Angelou and “Praise Song for the Day,” by Elizabeth Alexander providing textual evidence (quoted and cited lines) that illustrate these themes. Identify three elements of poetry (use Elements of poetry handout) featured in at least one poem, again providing textual evidence. Finally, explain how these elements are used specifically to illuminate the themes you have indicated. In MLA format.
MAKE SURE:
- Two themes are identified.
- Three literary elements or devices are identified.
- The use of the elements in conveying the themes is made clear.
- Conforms to M.L.A. style conventions.
Elements that can be used are:
abstract words, Allusion, Aubade, Ballad, blank verse, catalectic, cliché, elegy, end-stopped lines, enjambed lines, feminine end, figurative language, first person, foot, hyperbole, image, impure line, internal rhyme, masculine end, metaphor, metonymy, penultimate, personification, Petrarchan sonnet, prose poem, prosody, pure line, quatrain, rhyme scheme, scansion, sense, Shakespearian sonnet, Simile, Spenserian sonnet, split couplet, stanza, stress, synecdoche, synonym, tone, verse, volta