Literary Analysis
Answer the questions using the two poems.
“Sea-Fever”
1. How many stanzas are in the poem? (lines 1-12)
2. What does the speaker talk about in the second stanza? (lines 5-12)
“The Village Blacksmith”
3. How many lines are in each stanza? How does the line length affect the meaning of the
poem? (lines 1-18)
4. Summarize the last stanza. What does the speaker learn? (lines 37-48)
5. What does the speaker in “Sea-Fever” say about work in the last stanza?
6. What is the effect of repeating the line “I must go down to the seas again” in each
stanza of “Sea-Fever”?
7. In “The Village Blacksmith”, what makes the blacksmith think of his wife?
8. Reread lines 9-12 in “The Village Blacksmith”. What do they say about the blacksmith’s
attitude toward work?
9. How does the rhyme in “The Village Blacksmith” affect your reading of the poem?
10. Compare how the speaker in “Sea-Fever” and the blacksmith in “The Village Blacksmith”
feel about the work they do.
11. Reread lines 37-42 in “The Village Blacksmith”. What is this stanza about? What effect
does the rhyme in this stanza have on its meaning?
12. Reread “Sea-Fever”. In what ways does the song-like rhythm of the poem remind you of
the sea? Explain.