Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening Essay Questions

Which elements make this poem a sonnet?

This poem has all the attributes of a typical English sonnet in terms of meter, rhyme scheme, length, and even content. Its fourteen iambic lines are split across four stanzas: three quatrains and a couplet. Each of the three quatrains contains alternating end-rhyme sounds, so that they collectively form an ABAB CDCD EFEF rhyme scheme. The volta arrives prior to the final couplet, so the final two lines rhyme with one another, creating a GG ending. This change accompanies a shift in content, in which the speaker reveals that the previous twelve lines have been something of an extended metaphor, illustrating the moral and philosophical point of the final couplet. However, the poem does diverge from the sonnet form in one prominent way: though its first thirteen lines are written in iambic pentameter, its final line is actually written in iambic hexameter. Those additional syllables help emphasize the line's portrayal of life as a long and unpredictable experience.

Discuss the role of personification in the poem.

This poem's personified portrayals of nature not only offer clues about the speaker's internal state, but also, in doing so, support the speaker's argument problematizing the value of reason. The poem's verbs lend human-like emotions of anxiety and aggression to nature: waves "roar," vapours "brood." These attributes are ones that the speaker, isolated and fretful, shares. However, the very fact that the speaker appears to project internal emotional states onto inanimate elements of nature suggests that human beings are driven by emotion and subjectivity. This in and of itself makes reason appear aspirational and impossible.