ADVICE IN WHEN I

WAS ONE-AND-
TWENTY
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BY A. E. HOUSMAN
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 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52706/when-i-was-one-and-twenty
-56d2316642304
 Paraphrase
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 When I was young, a wise people gave me advice,
“you may lose your money and other precious things
but you must keep your love tightly. Your luxuries
may also leave you but you have to ensure your self
that your imagination will always have its
independence.” For me, this advice was only an
advice, going in my ear and out the other.
INTERPRET, SYMBOLIC MEANING

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 When I was one-and-twenty
Twenty one years simbolize childish age in this poem, I cannot find
any reason of the author choosing it yet.
 crowns and pounds and guineas
In Oxford dictionary, crowns is an object in the shape of a circle,
usually made of gold and precious stones , that a king or queen wears
on his or her head on official occasions. Meanwhile, pound and guinea
are money. These are metaphore of precious things.
 And I am two-and-twenty
Twenty two, by the author, is used as a manifestation of mature age.
By putting twenty one and twenty two side-by-side, Housmen wanted
to expound that the distance between childish and mature is very thin.
 QUESTION
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 This poem is about advice. Advice generally is
delivered by old people to young people. Advice is
also repeated regularly, time by time, generation by
generation. And, you know, the content of advice is
always the same. So, what is the function of advice?
 SYNTHESIZE
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 Every story, movie, poem, song, or drama consists of
advice, so you can compare this poem with any kind
of story; there is always a lesson in it, advice. You
can compare this poem to a movie, How to Train Your
Dragon, for example. This movie delivered a message
that love, gentleness (hiccup), can overwhelm,
manage fairly power (dragon, the father/Stoick).
 EVALUATE
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 This poem uses efectively some kinds of paradox;
twenty one vs twenty two, past vs present, odd vs
even to show the process of childish toward mature.