Quotes
"I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed... here, where I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars."
Tell how this quote makes you feel or something you notice about the writing style.
Find an example and tell us about how her work connects to Internal Exile
You did it! Good Job!
How old was Akhmatova when she started writing poetry?
11 years old
Talk about the biblical references in Requiem.
"Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed, / His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared. / His mother stood apart. No other looked / into her secret eyes. Nobody dared."
Section 10: Crucifixion
"In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror, I spent seventeen months in the prison lines of Leningrad. Once, someone 'recognized' me. Then a woman with bluish lips standing behind me... whispered in my ear: 'Can you describe this?' And I answered: 'Yes, I can.' Then something that looked like a smile passed over what had once been her face."
You talked about the quote!
Find and explain an example of dehumanization in her work?
Great work!
What did Anna Akhmatova study before she dropped out to study literature elsewhere?
She was attending law school.
How does Requiem relate to Mary, and what are the differences in their stories?
Very different stories of the same conflict, same love for old Russia, etc
"For seventeen months I have cried aloud / calling you back to your lair. / I hurled myself at the hangman's foot. / You are my son, changed into nightmare."
You told us about the quote!
You did it!
What did the movement Acmeism emphasize?
Concrete objects and clear imagery to express human emotions
Connect Requiem to one of the other works of poetry we have read so far?
Wonderful!
"You will come in any case — so why not now? / How long I wait and wait. The bad times fall. / I have put out the light and opened the door / for you, because you are simple and magical."
You talked about the quote!
Find an example of how inoccence and youth are written about? (Could be a person or the land/country)
Great!
What modern day country was Akhmatova born in?
Ukraine
Connect Requiem to the works we read by Said and Brodsky?
Cool!
"I have learned how faces fall to bone, / how under the eyelids terror lurks, / how suffering inscribes on cheeks / the hard lines of its cuneiform texts..."
You told us about the quote!
Find an example and talk about how Akhmatova uses the poems to honor the other victims of this time.
Good!
Discuss how the actions of the government impacted all of the people in Russia, even those like Akhmatova who were directly imprisoned or persecuted?
How does Akhmatova connect the multiple poems in Requiem to eachother?
Example:
2: "Pray for me. Pray." compared to Epilogue 1: "And I pray not for myself alone..."