An interesting post-mortem to teaching Richard Wilbur's "The Death of a Toad"--the moral of the story being something about irony in language

The following message was sent to the students in English 88, Spring 1995, some weeks after the semester ended:
From: afilreis (Al Filreis)
Message-Id: <9506081522.AA19077@dept.english.upenn.edu>
Subject: Frog
To: filreis88
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 11:22:38 -0400 (EDT)

Ex-88ers:

I'm writing you from rural central Pennsylvania (where, as many of you know, I live*), to tell you what happened this morning: truly, a frog in my mower caught got, and clipped of a leg, is staring at me at this very moment, with ancient eyes. I am very compelled by this and don't feel the least bit of ironic distance for the poor fellow. But if you study the diction and tone of the previous sentence, and think about the use of the phrase "poor fellow," you can see how irony and distance and even satirical humor can so easily creep in.

If you are now mowing lawns, you are enjoying you summer. I hope so.

Al

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Document URL: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/al-clips-frog.html
Last modified: Wednesday, 18-Jul-2007 16:24:23 EDT