Elizabeth Bishop's Background and Analysis of "Questions of Travel"

what was bishop like as a student

restless, inquisitive, precocious, and intelligent

bishop won dozens of awards, but which was the most significant

Pulitzer prize

what did bishop do at cambridge and harvard

taught new generations of poets

what was bishop’s early life like

traumatic losses and frequent upheavals

what happened to bishop’s father

he died when she was eight months old

what happened to bishop’s mother

permanently institutionalized when she was five years old

where did Bishop live between family members in her formative years

Massachusetts and nova scotia

many of her works, including “In the Village” explore how her early experiences influenced her lifelong…

suspicion and desire for a secure place called “home”

many of her most popular poems explore…

global travel and the experience of wandering in new or familiar places

bishop’s poems always display her characteristic

capacity for observation with her distinct dry sense of humor

what was the poem primarily inspired by

bishop’s time in Brazil with her lover

what form does the poem take on

a discussion between two travelers

what are the travelers talking about

the meaning and the value of their journey

what is the initial assessment of their journey

uses negative language to describe excessive sensations

what causes the speaker’s uncertainty about traveling

the overwhelming sensations and the lingering sense of potential ethical problems

what does the speaker suggest about traveling

it’s a way of fulfilling a fantasy or trying to force yourself into places where you don’t belong

what does the poem detail after the speaker questions the journey

the small, beautiful details they would have missed if they did not go on the trip

what are some of the small details the speaker describes

the trees along the road, the fat brown bird singing, and the rain

the poem speaks to what universal experiences

• travelers feeling overwhelmed on a journey

• travelers expect too much from their journeys - they focus too much on what they think is already there instead of being open to the new, surprising things they may find

• our worries about our destinations are often really anxieties about where we’ve come from

how does bishop subvert the idea that travel is always about going somewhere new and returning somewhere familiar

• home is not in a definite location

• the choice of where to go is “never wide and never free”

the poem asserts the idea that journeys are often as much about going somewhere as they are about …

rationalizing our decisions to leave