Taha Hamdan 

Professor Scanlan

11/7/22

                                                    Explication Final Draft

In this poem, “A Rhyme for Halloween “I will be making an explication using different types of literary elements such as alliteration, consonance, and denotation. I will be focusing on two sentences of the first stanza that are the most important in the poem since it puts the pieces of it all together “Tonight I light the candles of my eyes in the lee “. Firstly, I will be focusing on the first sentence of stanza on the word’s “light” and “lee”. Then I will shift the focus to “And swing down this branch full of red leaves” as well as show the literary techniques used in it.

 The poem starts in the beginning as how he is amazed about the wonders that he is seeing while continuing to read it starts to dwindle down since the nighttime is on its way while the sun is setting. This line uses alliteration while it can also be interpreted as a sort of symbol or something symbolic since in the line after he goes on to say “And swing down this branch full of red leaves “which also can be used as a symbolic gesture since it can signify that it can be the changing of the weather as if to say it was within the fall. 

In the line “tonight I light the candles of my eyes in the lee “consonance is found in light and lee. Through saying this one sentence, Maurice uses denotation to describe how he is feeling excited because of the way that it is added. He means something else while using a word to describe and portray a different message. He also uses denotation when saying “And swing down this branch full of red leaves “since it can be said that he is going through the season fall with a sort of quickness due to him saying that or it can be also said that he is coming in from the summer and swinging into the fall.

While this can also be a part of why he is laying out his description of the topics that he is trying to portray he uses these literary techniques to show the reader that the fall season is arriving and how he is feeling about it as well since throughout the rest of his poem these first two sentences of the first stanza “red leaves”  depicts the fall season and how we know that he likes this season is when he says “light the candles of my eyes in the lee “ which shows he is excited or happy to see that this time of year is finally arriving .Denotation is being used as this poem is depicted as a sort of story that Maurice is trying show the reader how he should approach reading since the first two sentences are all denotations . 

To conclude, Maurice uses many literary techniques to complete his poem as well as a layout for a story telling kind of poem as well. Within the first two sentences of the first stanza, he is describing his feeling and the setting that he is in. While many can make a different explanation for the same two sentences, I would like to believe that he was trying to explain how his setting and his feelings were a big part of what he was doing in the poem since it sets the mood of what he wants to portray as the layout for the rest of it. While using these literary techniques on how he is forming his poem it tells the reader to be more aware of what is happening throughout the poem since you must take a closer look on what he is trying to say.