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(Code and Color Key) From "The Bohemian Girl"
Analysis Key The moonlight flooded that great, silent land (DO). | The reaped field lay yellow (PA) [#1] {in it}. | The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black shadows (DO). | The roads were white rivers (PN) {of dust}. | The sky was a deep, crystalline blue (PN) [#2], | and the stars were few (PA) and faint (PA). | Everything seemed to have succumbed, to have sunk [#3] {to sleep}, {under the great, golden, tender, midsummer moon}. | The splendor {of it} seemed to transcend human life (DO) and human fate (DO). | The senses were too feeble (PA) to take it [#4] in, | and every time [NuA] [Adj. to "time" one looked up {at the sky}] one felt unequal (PA) {to it}, [ [#5] as if one were sitting deaf (PA) [#6] {under the waves} {of a great river} {of melody}]. | Notes 2. Although "blue" is generally an adjective, the preceding "a" makes it function as a noun here. 3. Alternatively, "to have succumbed" can be explained as an infinitive that functions as an adverb to "seemed." (The same applies to "to transcend" in the next sentence.) Because no "and" joins "to have succumbed" and "to have sunk," the second infinitive phrase is probably best explained as an appositive to the first. 4. "It" is the direct object of the infinitive "to take." The infinitive phrase functions as an adverb to "too." 5. This "as if" clause is adverbial. Some people will see it as modifying "unequal," and others will see it as modifying "felt." 6. "Were" is in the subjunctive mood. "Deaf" is a variant of a palimpsest pattern, but in this case the "were" in "one were deaf" is written over by "were sitting." |