Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
First-person limited
Form and Meter
Iambic tetrameter with the final line of each stanza in hexameter; ababcdcde rhyme scheme
Metaphors and Similes
Metaphors: light dissolved, bright reflection of the ocean as lightning, a day's material as stainless
Similes: lying down like a tired child, the sound of a city like the sound of solitude
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration: seaweeds strown
Assonance: will linger
Irony
Genre
Romantic Poetry
Setting
the coast of Naples
Tone
despondent
Protagonist and Antagonist
the speaker is the protagonist, the antagonist is his despair
Major Conflict
The major conflict takes place between the speaker and himself as he grapples with his despair.
Climax
The climax occurs towards the end of stanza four, when the speaker imagines that death might "steal" on him like sleep, were he to lie in the sand and close his eyes.
Foreshadowing
Understatement
Allusions
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Synecdoche: "the deep" is a synecdoche for the ocean
Personification
Mountains that "wear" light
Hyperbole
Hyperbole in the speaker's impending chance of death, especially surrounding the phrase "this untimely moan."
