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Copywork
About This Passage
These two sentences close the chapter's long survey of failed explorers and open the adventure. The first sentence tallies the record soberly, almost like a report, and lands on a startling fact — 'nearly three hundred degrees of longitude' of the Antarctic had 'not been crossed at all.' Then the second sentence turns from cold history to hot feeling: a 'wide field' for discovery, 'most intense interest,' and the resolve to push 'boldly.' Copying it shows how a writer can pivot from documentary fact to thrilling purpose, and how naming what is unknown can make an adventure feel vast and inviting.
These are the principal attempts which have been made at penetrating to a high southern latitude, and it will now be seen that there remained, previous to the voyage of the Jane, nearly three hundred ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: how Captain Guy resolves to turn the Jane Guy southward toward the pole instead of taking a safer route, how the narrator pauses to survey earlier explorers — Cook stopped by walls of ice, Weddel and Morrell who pushed far south and met surprisingly warm, open water, and Briscoe who found and claimed new land — and how the chapter ends with a vast, unexplored region still waiting, and the crew setting out to cross it. Pause where the chapter most surprises you and explain why.
Discussion Questions
- Poe lays out sharply conflicting reports of the far south: Captain Cook found 'gigantic ranges of ice-mountains' barring the way, while Captain Morrell, farther south, met warmer water and 'no field ice.' What might Poe gain by gathering such contradictory accounts before the Jane Guy sets out, and why might he include them? Use details from the chapter.
- Captain Morrell says the air and water grew milder the farther south he sailed, which is not what most readers would expect. How might that surprising report change the way this chapter makes the far south feel — more hopeful, more mysterious, or more confusing, and why? Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A wide, open stretch of area.
Item 2
Impossible to travel through or across.
Item 3
Enormous; of immense size.
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Critical Thinking
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