Important notice from the GRAMMAR POLICE. Plz read. This means you.
rufio:
You know, I think I read that in an English class once, though the only concrete thing that actually stayed with me was a discussion of the etymology of catholic and why he used it as a synonym for universal. Figures.
Reading over it, it seems like he is using semicolons to draw out and further develop the same idea in greater complexity for a half a paragraph without having to start a new sentence (and thus an entirely new tone contour). To my inner voice, it makes those sentences sound like a prayer. Doubtless you see it differently, as you claim not to have an inner voice, and therefore the phonic qualities of written English have no relevance whatsoever.
rohina:
Fail. This is not about me, or your inner voice. It was a simple instruction. Go and read it and tell me what the semicolons are doing, stylistically. Don't wank about it in a hopeful way because you have no clue.
rufio:
Well, I gave my interpretation; the semicolons have the effect of changing the tone/pitch of the section into something more lyrical and devout, and thus more appropriate to his subject matter. What was the correct answer?
rohina:
This was not about your interpretation. You wanted to know what the "rules" were. I said you aren't intellectually capable, and gave you a test. You failed. Wanking on about music is not any better than your first stab at it.
Here's an easier one. Same piece. Identify 3 types of repetition Donne uses, and explain the rhetorical effect of each.
rufio:
I'm sure whatever I say is just going to be rejected because I don't know the correct terms, but...
Quote
When she baptizes a child, [...]And when she buries a man[...]
A repetition of the sentence structure to emphasize the point, and probably to imply that the life between the birth and the death is similarly interlinked. I assume this is the same sort of thing that's happening with the "But who....(But) who...But who...?" questions as well, unless, of course, it isn't. ::)
Quote
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee
Quote
The bell doth toll for him, that thinks it doth
There is an attractive syntactic reversal here, though at least in the one case it's really just a side effect of the way relative clauses work; however it looks like a repetition to me. It's possible that I'm simply being distracted by the oddness of "for whom."
Quote
when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book,
"one...one" to equate the man and the chapter.
There, that's three. I'm not going to go trawling through this trying to figure out what it is that you want me to say anymore.
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Quote from: rohina on 2009 July 26, 16:52:37
This was not about your interpretation.
And yet you claimed this was an art, and not a science. Make up your mind already.
Quote
You wanted to know what the "rules" were. I said you aren't intellectually capable, and gave you a test. You failed.
Intellectually capable of what? Understanding something when it is taught to me? Or magically figuring out everything there is to know about your field from first principles? I imagine that, as with every field, you have to learn to look at things in a slightly different way in order to really get it. Randomly asking questions and expecting me to automatically come up with answers you'd expect from English majors is not the way to teach that. Yes, I am criticizing your teaching, if that is what you are trying to do here.
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Wanking on about music is not any better than your first stab at it.
The first stab was the same as the second stab, you were just too busy feeling put upon to notice. Also, "lyrical" does not necessarily have anything to do with music, but you'd know that, since you're a Lit professor, right?
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