"President Lincoln’s Declaration of Emancipation, January 1, 1863"
by Frances E. W. Harper
1 It shall flash through coming ages,
2 It shall light the distant years;
3 And eyes now dim with sorrow
4 Shall be brighter through their tears.
5 It shall flush the mountain ranges,
6 And the valleys shall grow bright;
7 It shall bathe the hills in radiance,
8 And crown their brows with light.
9 It shall flood with golden splendor
10 All the huts of Caroline;
11 And the sun-kissed brow of labor
12 With lustre new shall shine.
13 It shall gild the gloomy prison,
14 Darkened by the nation's crime,
15 Where the dumb and patient millions
16 Wait the better-coming time.
17 By the light that gilds their prison
18 They shall see its mouldering key;
19 And the bolts and bars shall vibrate
20 With the triumphs of the free.
21 Though the morning seemed to linger
22 O'er the hill-tops far away,
23 Now the shadows bear the promise
24 Of the quickly coming day.
25 Soon the mists and murky shadows
26 Shall be fringed with crimson light,
27 And the glorious dawn of freedom
28 Break refulgent on the sight.
i need help finding a denotation from "President Lincoln’s Declaration of Emancipation, January 1, 1863"
Are you clear on what "denotation" means?
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+denotation&oq=define+denotation&aqs=chrome..69i57.3946j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Let me know what you think, once you're sure of that definition.
is the word gild from line 13 a denotation?
"gild" means to spread a thin coating of gold over something. If that were denotation, those lines would need to be taken literally.
Make sure you know what "it" is — "it" is referred to throughout the poem.
Frankly, I think the entire poem is a metaphor and therefore filled with connotations. It's hard to find anything that is straight denotation — unless, possibly, lines 21-22. Do you see anything else that is straight description, without the metaphor included?
The word morning? or maybe linger?
Possibly.
To find a denotation from "President Lincoln’s Declaration of Emancipation, January 1, 1863" by Frances E. W. Harper, you need to look for specific words or phrases that have a literal or dictionary meaning. Denotation refers to the explicit or direct meaning of a word or phrase.
Let's analyze the poem and identify a denotation.
In the given poem, the speaker describes the impact of President Lincoln's Declaration of Emancipation, highlighting the positive changes it will bring. The poem uses figurative language and imagery to convey these ideas.
However, one example of a denotation in the poem can be found in line 14: "Darkened by the nation's crime". Here, the word "darkened" has a denotative meaning of "made dark" or "obscured by darkness." It is used to describe the prison as being physically darkened by the nation's crime.
By examining the words in context, you can identify their denotative meanings and understand the literal descriptions being used in the poem.