Jacopo Ortis was a pseudonym of the Italian poet, Ugo Foscolo. His Ultime Lettere di Ortis was translated into the English in 1818.
[1.] Yes! Used in answer to the closing thought of [p.187] the preceding poem.
[7.] moon. Note the frequency with which reference to the moon, with its light effects, appears in Arnold's lines. Can you give any reason for this?
[24.] Mr. Herbert W. Paul, commenting on this line, says: "Isolation winds up with one of the great poetic phrases of the century—one of the 'jewels five (literally five) words long' of English verse—a phrase complete and final, with epithets in unerring cumulation."
Give the poem's theme. To what is each individual likened? Discuss l.2 as to meaning. In what sense do we live "alone," l.4? Why "endless bounds," l.6? How account for the feeling of despair, l.13? Answer the questions asked in the last stanza. In what frame of mind does the poem leave you?
[KAISER DEAD][°]
APRIL 6, 1887
Arnold's love for animals, especially his household pets, was most sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in the minor key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just lost our dear, dear mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated from his home in Cobham, Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very sad." The poem was written the following July, and was published in the Fortnightly Review for that month.
[2.] Cobham. See note above.
[3.] Farringford, in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord Tennyson.