Question

A central theme of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is the ocean's ____.
A. malice

B. permanence

C. rhythm------wrong

D. generosity

Answer 1

OK, so let's look at it.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage [There is a pleasure in the pathless woods]

by George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: —there let him lay.


malice
permanence
rhythm------wrong
generosity

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

That does not seem at all generous to me.

malice
permanence
rhythm------wrong

rhythm------wrong ... I am just suspect of that too. It does say roll on, but there is nothing about any sort of repeated waves motion through the whole thing. Just one bit.

malice
permanence

So, ask yourself these two things: Does anything here show an evil or harming intent to the ocean? That would be malice. Does the ocean come and go, change, or simply exist? This would be permanence.

Answer 2

so it would be permanence

Answer 3

Hmmm.... hard to say... there is permanence in there. But I am trying to see which there is more of. That, or malice.

Answer 4

The wrecks are all thy deed
thou dost arise And shake him from thee
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

malace

There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain

permanence

I think there is more permanence in there than malace. Yes, malace is there, but I fond more and more lines of permanence.

Answer 5

And Lord Byron knew not of BP:
His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise

If oil exploration and the side effects of doing it poorly had been known, he would not have written those lines!