A critical appreciation of 'to my mother' by George Baker.

Sonnet To My Mother Most near, most dear, most loved, and most far, Under the huge window where I often found her Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter, Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand, Irresistible as Rabelais but most tender for The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her,- She is a procession no one can follow after But be like a little dog following a brass band. She will not glance up at the bomber or condescend To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar, But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain Whom only faith can move, and so I send O all her faith and all my love to tell her That she will move from mourning into morning. George Barker A critical appreciation of 'to my mother' by George Baker This sonnet by George Baker is, as the title suggests, a tribute to his mother, evidently, at the time of the aerial bombardment of Britain by the Luftwaffe in the Blitz during the Second World War. The poet was then, apparently, living in a far distant part of the world, as he refers to his mother being 'most far'. This was probably some time between 1942 and 1943 when Baker was living in the U.S.A and Canada. The poet's intension is not only to pay tribute to his mother but, more specifically, as the poem is addressed 'to' her, to send her his love and expression of his firm belief that she will 'move' from 'mourning to morning', in

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Poem Analysis: Felix Randall By Gerald Maneley Hopkins.

Niels Looije 4/10/2002 Poem Analysis: Felix Randall By Gerald Maneley Hopkins This poem written by Hopkins, in 1880, is a religious sonnet addressed to the dead Felix Randall, the farrier. It is a sonnet, meaning that it contains 14 lines, divided up into two quatrains and a sestet, which in turn is divided up in two tercets. This way of writing in fact keeps Randall from expressing himself completely because he is following a fixed rhyme scheme, but nonetheless he has written a powerful poem with an extensive use of vocabulary. The story that is told in the sonnet is divided up into two different perspectives: the physical state, and the mental or spiritual state. The fist quatrain is told in a physical point of view and is an introduction to Felix Randall who is horse farrier. This being mentioned immediately brings to mind that he must be a strong man, which in turn creates the physical perspective. After being introduced to Felix Randall, the reader is immediately thrown into the deep end by Hopkins and told that Randall is dead, that he had died from "four fatal disorders" and all Randall's harsh and hardy-handsomeness had been lost in his death by this sickness. The vocabulary, which Hopkins uses in this quatrain, brings out the harshness and the boisterousness of Felix Randall. Obviously a person needs to be strong and big-boned in order to be able to put

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  • Word count: 1148
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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