ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by a Peaceful Citadel. Until, of course, midnight

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comes, and it's converted into a popular, swanky night club.

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From the poem, it can be inferred that the author's attitude toward his youth is... what?

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And here are the potential answers...

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This question wants to know what we can glean from the poem about the author's opinion of youth. Like... is he one of those guys

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that shakes his fist out the front door and shouts, "You dang kids!"...

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...or is he more the... "forever young" type?

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We aren't directed to any specific lines, so it's basically just asking us to look

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at the poem as a whole and make a broad determination about... where the writer is coming from.

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Does he exhibit "bittersweet regret over his mistakes?"

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If he does, he doesn't let us in on it. There's no mention of past mistakes, so

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we can safely assume B isn't the correct answer.

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So... don't pick B, unless you want to regret one of your mistakes.

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Is his attitude one of sadness and remorse?

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Again... he can't be expressing remorse if the author hasn't hinted what he might

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be remorseful about. Since we aren't given a window into the speaker's past... we can

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be certain it's not about regret or remorse. Is his attitude one of joyous acceptance about youth's passing?

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As far as we know, there isn't a line of this poem that says, in essence: "Oof. High

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school, am I right? I wouldn't want to do that again!"

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Nah... the speaker seems pretty hot on youth, as a matter of fact. We doubt he would diss

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it. Is he cautious or fearful for what youth imports

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for the future?

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In other words, does he think youth is... like a gateway drug to some awfulness in old age?

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Nope... there are no ominous warnings here about potential threats or anything of the

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kind... so we can count E out. Our answer must be A -- "nostalgia and longing."

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Sure enough, that's exactly what the writer is going on and on... and on... about.

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He sees youth encapsulated in the urn... and longs for the blissful simplicity of his own youth.

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Back when he was, you know... in school, taking AP tests and whatnot.

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