Arbeitsblatt: Poetry Lesson If We Must Die Claude McKay

r-Handout If We Must Die – Claude McKay (1919) Text If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men well face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! Notes Activity 1) How does the poems title influence the poems meaning? 2) Who is included in the poems we and they? 3) What feeling does the speaker convey? 4) Mark the rhymes, assonances and alliterations in the poem, and identify poetic devices (similes, metaphors, imagery) in the text on the other side of the handout. 5) Who are the hogs and the dogs? What do we learn about them? 6) What is the speaker fighting for? How does the speaker incorporate defiance in their struggle? 7) The text is traditional form, Shakespearian sonnet. How does this influence the message of the text?