Answer:
the pattern of unstressed and Stressed syllables in a line of poetry
In Book Eight of The Odyssey, when Odysseus is at the royal court of the Phaeacians, he asks the bard Demodocus to sing a song about Troy. The bard does so, and Odysseus responds by “clutching his flaring sea-blue cape in both powerful hands, [drawing] it over his head and [burying] his handsome face...” It seems that Odysseus is overcome with grief, but he is the one who asked for the song in the first place. It seems like he is crying just so King Alcinous would ask him to tell his story to the assembled crowd. In contrast, in “An Ancient Gesture”, the author provides Penelope’s point of view, weary and plagued by grief. As Penelope unweaves the shroud each night, she “suddenly bursts into tears” because “there is simply nothing else to do”. Penelope has been weaving and unweaving night after night to avoid marrying one of her many suitors while Odysseus has been living with goddesses and enchantresses on his long journey home. The reader is left wondering if Odysseus’s tears in the Odyssey are authentic compared to Penelope’s tears.
In the Odyssey the reader gets to know about Odysseus journey, but not Penelope's experience. Millay supplements this absence, and let the reader know that everybody griefs and goes through pain and difficult times.
Answer:
The characteristics used in Rip Van Winkle are:
- Filled with remarkable, strange, or exaggerated characters.
- Conveys a positive message about a nation or its people.
- Set in the past, often in remote or exciting places and times.
Explanation:
Rip Van Winkle covers many topics: from the political transformation of a country, to Dutch legends, the value of time and the human condition. The story is set in the days before the United States War of Independence and the protagonist is portrayed as a good man, kind and always willing to help others. His only downside is not to like domestic work, or worry about his family. The protagonist wants to escape from his wife and finds a refuge to rest and celebrates with strange creatures he falls asleep and he wakes up many years later in a new and unknown world.
Irving reflects on time like this. His character, Rip Van Winkle, has been literally forgotten by time. He had left a monarchical village to find a democratic and colonist-free village; he had left an insufferable woman and found an affectionate daughter; he had left his old friends to make new ones. Time had taken a life and given him a new one, perhaps better.