Essay - Those Winter Days Explication and Interpretation of Robert Hayden's Poem...

Those Winter Days

Explication and Interpretation of Robert Hayden's poem "Those ***** Days"

***** the ***** lyric, narrative, or dramatic? How do you know?

One of the most intensely personal subjects for any human being, whether the person is a poet or ***** non-poet, is his ***** her relationship with their parents. The poem "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden is a quiet yet forceful lyric poem that depicts the poetic speaker's fat***** during ***** father's characteristic Sunday winter routine in the morning. Unlike a ***** poem, t***** poem is no***** the story of specific day that was an unusual deviation from th***** weekly winter morning schedule. In weaving the poem's fabric, the speaker is not consciously taking on an alternative *****a ***** the poet, as in a ***** monologue, in which ***** poet explicitly cre*****tes distance between him or herself and the ***** character assumed in the poem. *****stead, the narrator ***** the poem reflects upon the life of his fa*****r in classical ***** form, a lyric that is a personal meditation upon a particular, personal subject.

De*****ations ***** connotations

Denotations ***** unfamiliar words: (literal meanings)

*****: n.

***** sharp, slender piece, as of wood, bone, glass, or metal, split or broken off from a main body.

A splinter group.

v. splin·tered, splin·ter·ing, splin·ters v. intr.

To split or break into sharp, ***** pieces; form *****s.

*****:

Severe or stern in d*****position or appearance; somber and grave: the austere figure of a Puritan m*****ister.

***** ***** severe in discipline; ascetic: a desert nom*****d's austere life.

Having no adornment or ornamentation; bare: an austere style

Connotations ***** familiar and ***** significant words in the poem

Blueblack: black and blue like a bruise

Chronic: an ailment that never really goes away, ***** arthritis

Splintering: painful, like a splinter c*****ught in one's finger

Austere: Very removed, haughty

*****: religious rituals, like the *****ices of a mass or working in ***** *****fice

***** is ***** tone of the poem? Irony?

The overall tone of the poem is mournful, al***** like a eulogy, which suggests that the *****'s father ***** dead, ********** this is not stated in the poem. The poem seems to mourn ***** relationship ***** the speaker had—and never had—***** h***** father. The lines such as: "No one ever thanked him [the poet's *****]," for putting on ***** fire early ***** mornings, even though the father did not have to wake up for the "week*****" work that "cracked" his hands" suggests that the speaker wishes he could go back and thank his ***** for t***** father's kind and silent gestures. The l*****t line is almost a cry: "Wh*****t did I know, what did I know/of love's ***** ***** l*****ly offices?"

The son seems to suggest that now he is mature enough ***** appreciate that even though people like the poet's father cannot always speak about how much they love someone, such outwardly cold people often s***** thi***** love in other ways, ***** making a fire and polishing the young ***** shoes. But