Essay Questions

Why are some nouns in the poems written with a capital letter even when they appear in the middle of a line or sentence?

It is common to see capitalized nouns in the middle of the sentence in texts written in the 17th and 18th century but the reason why this happened is hard to explain. In comparison with German where nouns are always capitalized, in English only a few nouns such as Sir are capitalized. In the 17th and 18th century, many writers began to capitalize certain words they deemed as acceptable for being capitalized and also when they wanted to put an emphasis on a certain word. The reason why the practice did not survive to this day is because at the 18th century, the English language was standardized through the dictionaries that were published then and thus the fashion of capitalizing random nouns inside a sentence felt out of fashion and was forgotten.

Who could be the man and the woman mentioned in the poem "Adam Posed’’?

While the name of the characters is not given, it is safe to assume that the mane is Adam and the woman is Eve. The reason behind this is that the man is called as being "our first father’’ and the women he encountered is named a "nymph’’. There is also another detail at the end of the poem which revealed that the man had to name this "thing’’, thus implying that until then there were no other women around him.

Why is the woman presented in a negative way in the poem "Adam Posed’’?

In the poem entitled "Adam Posed’’, the woman is presented in negative terms while the man is seen as being hard-working and in a positive light. The reason why the woman is presented in such a negative way is because for a long time, religion saw Eve as being the one responsible for the fall of men. Thus, in many pieces of literature, women are presented in a negative light and as being the ones responsible for everything bad that happens in the world.