Poetry Reading Journal: "The Flea"
INSTRUCTIONS
In your Poetry Reading Journal document, answer the following questions, giving examples/quotations from the poem to support or explain your answers. Remember that when you quote from a poem, you give the line numbers in parenthesis. If quoting two or more lines, use a slash to indicate a line break. Example: "And you laugh back nor can you ever see/The thousand little deaths my heart has died"(7-8).
Create a heading with the title of the poem. Then answer the questions below.
QUESTIONS
- Describe the situation in this poem.
- What lines help you imagine what the speaker is doing as he speaks?
- What lines help you imagine what the auditor is doing?
- How does this work fit into the tradition of carpe diem poetry?
- Would you term "The Flea" a dramatic monologue ( see TOPIC: Speaker and Voice)? Why or why not?