Name that term!
Russian term for the places in a particular text that resist easy explanation.
What are dark places?
"I am a lonely thing, wounded with iron, smitted by sword, sated with battle-work, weary of blades."
What is a SHIELD?
"The present life of man upon earth seems to me like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winder, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad."
Who is the VENERABLE BEDE?
"Ring-danes were dreaming there, a murdering herd of sleepers, drooling, drunk, their feast filling them. They were the cream of the crop, but soon they'd be chaff, scythed from swordsmen into skeletons."
Who is HEADLEY?
Worms feasted.
What is WORMS (s) FEASTED (v)?
Metaphor for the continuum between the particular and the abstract.
What is the Ladder of Abstraction?
"Though he swallowed the word, the thieving stranger was no whit the wiser."
What is a BOOKWORM?
"Before setting forth on that inevitable journey, none is wiser than the man who considers--before his soul departs hence--what good or evil he has done, and what judgement his soul will receive after its passing."
Who is the VENERABLE BEDE?
"Never have I heard tell that a people was thronged more numerous or bore itself more gallantly than they did then about their lord and friend. They went then in splendour to their seats, rejoicing in plenty, meetly they partook of many a cup of mead. High of heart were the kinsmen in that lofty hall."
Who is TOLKIEN?
We must pass in rapid flight over the heads of many decades of critics.
What is WE (s) MUST PASS (v)?
Principle of telling your reader where you are going before you go there.
What is GENERAL-TO-SPECIFIC?
"I saw a tree with bright branches stand high in a grove.... Now it clears the way for a treacherous foe through the might of its head."
What is a BATTERING RAM?
"Adepts, equals, cat and clerk."
Who is PANGUR BAN?
(Alternatively, who is the translator, SEAMUS HEANEY?)
"A few miles from here a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch above a mere; the overhanging bank is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface. At night there, something uncanny happens: the water burns. This is no good place."
Who is HEANEY?
That crunching noise in the background is the sound of her predecessors rolling in their burial ships.
What is NOISE (s), IS (v), SOUND (sc)?
Two terms for explaining why your argument matters.
What are JA, UND? and THEY SAY, I SAY?
"I war oft against wave and fight against wind, do battle with both, when I reach to the ground, covered by waters. The land is strange to me. I am strong in the strife if I stay at rest."
What is an ANCHOR?
"All others talked as if talk were a dance. Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet would break the gliding ring. Early I learned to hunch myself close by the door: then when the talk began I'd wipe my mouth and wend unnoticed back to the barn to be with the warm beasts."
Who is (the subject of the poem) CAEDMON?
Alternatively, who is (the poet) DENISE LEVERTOV?
"Heavy was his mood, restless hastening toward death: the fate very nigh indeed that was to assail that aged one, to attack the guarded soul within and sunder life from body -- not for long thereafter was the spirit of the prince in flesh entramelled."
Who is TOLKIEN?
Consider the poem's construct and interrogation of impervious masculinity.
What is (YOU) (s), CONSIDER (v), CONSTRUCT (do), INTERROGATION (do)?
Two principles of paragraph construction: (1) B, C, D, E, and F are all about A; (2) A leads to B, and B leads to C....
What are UNITY and COHERENCE?
“A box without hinges, key, or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”
What are EGGSES, Precious?
"a blackbird, a branch, a mass of yellow"
What is (the poem gathered from Irish monk marginal scribbles) FOUR GLOSSES?
"How dare you come to Denmark costumed for war? Chain mail and swords?! There's a dress code! You're denied. Did you send word? No! Were you invited? No! You're not on the guest list. And, also, who's the giant? What weapons does he hold? Oh, hell no. He's no small-time hall-soldier, but noble. Look at his armor! I'm done here."
Who is HEADLEY?
Translating Beowulf would be an aural antidote to the untethered music of contemporary American poetry, a way of ensuring that my linguistic anchor would stay lodged on the Anglo-Saxon sea-floor.
What is TRANSLATING (s) WOULD BE (v) ANTIDOTE (sc)