1a. What task does the speaker tell the reader or listener to perform in line 1?
2a. What does the speaker predict that the reader or listener will "swear" after returning from the ride of "ten thousand days and nights"? What request does the speaker make in line 19?
3a. What prediction does the speaker make about the woman in the last stanza?
4a. What adjectives best describe the speaker?
5a. Explain whether the speaker judges women and love fairly and without bias.
1b. What type of person is capable of such an act?
2b. How does the speaker contradict his own statement that "Such a pilgrimage were sweet"?
3b. What is the speaker's attitude toward the possibility of finding an ideal mate?
4b. What do you think the speaker's love life has been like up to now? Does the speaker understate or overstate his assessment of women?
5b. How does the speaker's view of women compare with the view of women in courtly love?
Hyperbole. What exaggeration does the speaker in this poem make about finding a true and fair mate?
Metaphor. Review the cluster chart you made in Literary Tools. What, according to the speaker's perspective, do the things in stanza 1 have in common with finding a mate who is true and fair?
1a. What assertion about death does the speaker makes in lines 1–2?
2a. According to the speaker, to what is death a slave?
3a. What prediction does the speaker make in line 14 of the poem?
4a. What tone does the speaker use in addressing death?
5a. What advice do you think the speaker would give to someone facing death?
1b. Who or what has the power to decide when death will happen?
2b. Why might death be in the position of a slave to these things?
3b. What does line 14 indicate about the speaker's own religious beliefs?
4b. How does the speaker feel about death?
5b. If you were the speaker, how would you paint death?
Sonnet and Rhyme Scheme. Is Holy Sonnet 10 an English, Elizabethan, or Shakespearean sonnet? What is its rhyme scheme?
Paradox. What is paradoxical about death in the selection?
Personification. Review the cluster chart you made in Literary Tools. Does the sonnet provide an example of limited or extended personification?
1a. What words does the speaker use to describe the church?
2a. What "diminishes" the speaker?
3a. To what does the speaker compare an affliction or tribulation?
4a. To what does the speaker want the reader to believe he or she belongs?
5a. Evaluate whether the speaker provides a convincing argument for not fearing death.
1b. What rituals of the church support the speaker's description?
2b. Why does the speaker experience a diminishment?
3b. Why does the speaker see it in that way?
4b. What do you think the speaker wants the reader to feel after reading the meditation?
5b. Compare the view of death expressed in Holy Sonnet 10 and Meditation 17.
Metaphor. What metaphor does Donne use to express the interconnectedness of humans? What is the tenor? What is the vehicle?
Analogy. What analogies does Donne use in Meditation 17? What point is he trying to make with each analogy?
Theme. Review the cluster chart you made in Literary Tools. What is the theme of this selection?
1. Imagine you are the speaker of Song and you have just met a woman whom you believe to be "true" and "fair." Write her a love letter expressing your hopes and fears as you enter the relationship.
2. Imagine you are John Donne and one of your parishioners has just died. Write a sympathy card message for the dead person's family that eases their grief and expresses your beliefs about death.
3. Write a meditation about a philosophical or religious topic. You might consider one of the following subjects. • Why do bad things happen to good people? • What is enlightenment, and how does one become enlightened? • What is sin, and how does one repent for a sinful life?
Action and Linking Verbs. Identify each action verb and linking verb in the sentences below.
1. Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him.
2. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice.
3. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
4. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.
5. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Defining Latin Expressions. Many Latin words and expressions are used in English. Write definitions for the following Latin words and expressions. Then use each one in a sentence.
1. ab ovo usque ad mala
2. ad infinitum
3. ad hoc
4. ad hominem
5. cogito, ergo sum
Researching the Stages of Dying. In her psychological study, On Death and Dying, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross delineates five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Choose one of the stages to research.
Research Findings:
Sources Used:
Writing a Business Letter. Read the Language Arts Survey 6.5, "Writing a Business Letter." Then correct the errors and rewrite the letter found on page 506 in your text.
