Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The Poet (Moore)
Form and Meter
Free verse
Metaphors and Similes
Similes:
"close- // laid Ionic chiton-folds / like the lines in the mane of / a Parthenon horse"
Metaphor:
- The entire poem may be a metaphor for the poet's craft. The poet constructs her "paper" shell of her poetry, guards it obsessively until she is ready for it to go into the world, then watches it with mingled pleasure and regret.
Alliteration and Assonance
alliteration:
-"leaving its wasp-nest flaws / of white on white"
assonance:
-"Writers entrapped by / teatime fame"
Irony
-It is tragically ironic that the eggs, which lived and grew in the shell, must destroy it to be born.
Genre
Poetry
Setting
The Sea
Tone
Thoughtful, reticent, expectant, meditative
Protagonist and Antagonist
Pro: The Nautilus
Major Conflict
If the nautilus will be able to keep her eggs safe.
Climax
The eggs break the shell open as they free themselves.
Foreshadowing
n/a
Understatement
n/a
Allusions
-Hercules and the crab and hydra refer to his Second Labor (see "Other" in this study guide)
-Ionic
-Parthenon horse
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
-"Giving her perishable / souvenir of hope, a dull / white outside and smooth- / edged inner surface"
-"the watchful / maker of it guards it / day and night"
Hyperbole
n/a
Onomatopoeia
n/a
