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However, though those movements and their consequences are far greater than that of an earthquake, we lack “trepidation” of them, and fear silly little earthquakes instead. Those movements are far greater in scale, more violent, and, in popular mythology, have a far greater impact on the fate of people on earth. The “trepidation of the spheres” is the movement of the stars and planets in the sky.An earthquake causes harm and frightens people, and people do their best to make sense of it in the aftermath. The “Moving of the’ earth” in this case in an earthquake.Look at stanza 3 of “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning.” You may know what all of those words mean individually, but have trouble understanding what that stanza is about. Sometimes, it’s not the definitions of the words themselves that cause a problem, but the metaphoric use of the words.If we told these petty commoners about our love, we’d be doing a disservice to how sacred it is.” This stanza says, “Let’s be quiet instead of crying a lot and sighing all the time.In the second stanza, you might have to look up the words “Tempest” (a storm), “profanation” (disrespecting something spiritual by making it secular and earthly), and “laity” (common people who don’t belong to the clergy or spiritual elite) to understand what the poet is trying to say.Take John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” as an example. Figuring out what those words and sentences mean will help you memorize the poem later. If you’re asked to memorize an older poem, you will likely run across archaic words or grammatical structures that you don’t understand.
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Poets are great lovers of words, so they often use words that we’re not familiar with. Hearing the poem with your ears will help you pick up on rhymes and rhythms that will help you memorize the poem.
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Lower your voice in the quiet moments, and get loud in the emphatic moments. Don’t simply read the words off the page try to perform the poem as though you were telling the story to a crowd of people.Before you even begin trying to memorize the poem, read it out loud to yourself several times.
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And in a time when literacy was not widespread, poetry took on certain characteristics - from rhyme schemes to metrical form - that helped people who couldn’t simply read the poem off a page to remember how the poem and story progressed. X Research source Before television, poetry was how people entertained themselves with storytelling. It’s important to remember that all poetry - whether it rhymes or not - comes from an oral and aural tradition, meaning that it’s meant to be spoken and heard.
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