Spring Metaphor Activity
by eNotes
- Released March 12, 2020
- Language Arts and Literature subjects
- 7 pages
Grade Levels
Grade 8
Grade 9
Grade 10
Grade 11
Excerpt
This activity gives students an opportunity to practice examining and analyzing metaphors. Metaphors express images, emotions, actions, experiences, and nuances through direct and indirect comparisons, allowing readers to access deeper levels of meaning in the text. In this activity, students will classify and analyze different kinds of metaphors in order to develop close reading skills and draw inferences from the text.
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s 1921 poem “Spring” turns the typical pastoral poem on end with its unsentimental attitude. Rather than praising the beauty and natural splendor of springtime, Millay’s speaker takes the arrival of April as an occasion to meditate on the meaninglessness of existence. In lines of stark, cerebral free verse, the speaker arrives at the conclusion that “Life in itself / Is nothing.” With her use of metaphor, Millay enhances the impact of the ideas and the dark humor of the tone, offering us such memorable metaphors as “April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”
Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words
Learning Objectives:
In completing this activity, students will
- examine metaphors in a text;
- classify metaphors in a text as direct and indirect;
- analyze metaphors by focusing on the two things being compared and interpreting how one of them is described through the comparison.
About
Our eNotes Classroom Activities give students opportunities to practice developing a variety of skills. Whether analyzing literary devices or interpreting connotative language, students will work directly with the text. The main components of our classroom activities include the following:
- A handout defining the literary elements under discussion, complete with examples
- A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
- An answer key or selected examples for reference, depending on the activity
In completing these classroom activities, students will be able to classify and analyze different literary elements, thereby developing close-reading skills and drawing deeper inferences from the text.
