Monday, May 16, 2011

Free Form Poem: The Mouse's Tale

Na’imatul Muflikhah, an English teacher from Malang Regency, analyzes a free form poem entitled The Mouse’s Tale. She comments that “The Mouse’s Tale” is a good example in teaching our students about concrete poetry, because it has an interesting shape and the language used in the poem is simple. The use of denotation words can help the students understand the message easily. Moreover, some of the words can help students to enrich their vocabulary mastery by find out their synonym, for example the word “Cur” same as “dog”, “condemn” same as “punish” or “blame”. The modern conception of concrete poetry is a poem in the form of a picture, and then Lewis Carroll helped to shape this idea with his poem.


The Mouse's Tale

            Fury said to a mouse,
           That he met in the
            house, 'Let us
              both go to law:
                I will prosecute
                   you.-- Come, I'll
                      take no denial;
                       We must have
                     a trial: For
                   really this
                 morning I've
               nothing to do.'
                   Said the mouse
                         to the cur,
                           'Such a trial,
                              dear Sir, With
                                  no jury or
                                   judge,would
                                  be wasting
                             our breath.'
                               'I'll be
                              judge, I'll
                            be jury,'
                        Said cunning
                      old Fury:
                    'I'll try
                  the whole
                         cause, and
                             condemn
                                  you
                                     to
                                      death.'


1.  The overview of the poem and the poet
     The above poem is considered as a concrete poem which belongs to free-form poem. This poem, appears in chapter three of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In Wonderland, Alice begins talking to a mouse who wants to tell her a “long and sad tale.” Alice remarks that his tail (notice the difference in spelling) is rather long, and as he tells his poem, it takes shape on the page in the form of a mouse’s tail, long and curled. The original representation of the poem had the words at the end beginning to become smaller as the tail becomes narrower. While, Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Dodgson arrived at this pen name by taking his own names Charles Lutwidge, translating them into Latin as Carolus Ludovicus, then reversing and retranslating them into English
2.  Paraphrase
     In the tale, the Mouse explains how a dog called Fury plotted to condemn it to death by serving as both judge and jury. Although the Mouse claims that the "tale" will explain why he hates cats and dogs, the only villain in the poem is a dog; there is no actual explanation for the Mouse's animosity toward cats. However, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original version of Alice in Wonderland, contains a different poem at this point in the story (which begins, "We lived beneath the mat,/ Warm and snug and fat./ But one woe, that/ Was the cat!") which includes both cats and dogs as the enemies of the mice.
3.  Poetic Devices Analysis
     a.  Rhyme
          The shape of the poem made us difficult to find the rhyming of the poem, besides this poem belongs to free form poem. Its means it can be free from the rhyming pattern. On the other hand, some experts said that the poem has a tail rhyme. Tail rhyme is a verse form in which rhymed lines such as couplets or triplets are followed by a tail—a line of different (usually shorter) length that does not rhyme with the couplet or triplet. Actually one of the sentence in above poem is rhyming, we can see, ’…I’ll take no denial; We must have a trial:”It is a kind of end rhyme.
     b.  Rhythm
          This poem free from the fixed pattern of rhythm
     c.  Alliteration
          No alliteration
     d.  Onomatopoeia
          No onomatopoeia
     e.  Repetition
          The repetition occurs in this poem is in the form of word repetition. The words repeated here are “judge” and “Jury”.
     f.  Comparison
          The comparison used in this poem is personification. The poet gives human qualities to the cur. The cur said, ”I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury”.
4.  Poetic Diction
     Carroll uses denotation words in writing the poem, the meaning of the words can be easily checked in dictionary. The words in the poem is simple, it shows us the conversation between a dog and a mouse.
5.  Theme
     The theme of the poem is the dog is the mouse enemy.
6.  Tone
     The tone of the poem is animosity
7.  Message
     People should try to keep the fairness although with their enemy
8.  Symbol
     The symbols in this poem are dog and mouse, the dog symbolizes a strong people and the mouse symbolizes a weak people.
9.  Comments
     “A mouse’s tale” is a good example in teaching our students about concrete poetry, because it has an interesting shape and the language used in the poem is simple. The use of denotation words can help the students understand the message easily. Moreover, some of the words can help students to enrich their vocabulary mastery by find out their synonym, for example the word “Cur” same as “dog”, “condemn” same as “punish” or “blame”. The modern conception of concrete poetry is a poem in the form of a picture, and then Lewis Carroll helped to shape this idea with his poem.

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