This week in AP Lit class, we explicated a poem titled "Pathedy of Manners" by Ellen Kay. The poem was a lot longer than we are used to having for our poem of the week. To me, this made it much easier to decipher. The author is able to be a little more descriptive and specific. I feel like this poem was much easier to draw a meaning from. To me, it was very easily about a girl who was looking to find a man with money, and that was all she wanted. She had no emotional attachment to her husband, shown in line 19 when it said she was "Toying with plots to kill time and re-wed". This means she is ready to move on only a year after her husband passed. Which may not be that strange, but when the author uses "plots", it definitely tips you off that she has motives that have to do with more than just being by herself. It is all brought together when it says she will be "Alone in brilliant circles to the end." because then you know that she is all alone because gold digging is not your first action if you're trying to make friends.
Overall I found this poem to be a good change of pace in terms of difficulty to understand. It was pretty straightforward and literal. Or at least it seems that way after you try to explicate "Eagle". I don't think there was much disagreement between any of the people in the class. It seemed to be a universal agreement in terms of opinions. I think this will help us in the future because it shows you that not everything is hard and some things come easy. Maybe just not many of them do.