Context
- Hatred of sister due to snitching to parents about her love affair
- Lover died
- Speaker talks about how her lover didn’t like Maude anyway
- Maude will suffer for eternity
Form
- Ballard = Conventionally used to tell stories
- Regular Rhyme Scheme = Gives the poem a sense of flowing hatred
Structure
- First Stanza = Ambiguous start, Rhetorical Question leaves us wondering what actually happened
- 2nd 3rd 4th Stanza = Ideas about hatred are repeated therefore creates a vivid image of hatred. Building up
- 5th (final) Stanza = The Repetition of the sentence structure and “Maude” reflects the 1st Stanza and emphasises where the blame is.
Language and Semantics
- Religious
- “Father may sleep in paradise= Parents obviously very religious. Died of family shame?
- “Bide you with death and sin” = Cursing and wishes death extreme hate. Maybe guilt
- Anger
- “You might have spared his soul, sister” = Reflective. Use of Sibilance = Narrator almost spitting words out so angry and cursive.
EXTRA
Juxtaposition of corpse - Emphasises her pain. Vivid imagery
Repetition - Gives the reader a sense of assurance with who the blame lies with
Rhetorical Question - Drawing first line
Alliteration - “C” emphasis on her hatred
Comparatives
Nettles = Anger and vengeance
Nettles
Vernon Scannell
Themes
Protection, Parental Love, Anger, Revengefulness, Martial
Authorial Intentions
The narrative voice is one of a father that is very angered and vengeful. However can be interpreted as loving and caring.
Context
- 3 year old son has fallen into a nettle bed
- Boy seeks comfort from his parents
- Dad revenges his sons pain by cutting down nettles with a scythe and burning them.
- Dad feels defeated at the fact that they will return.
Form
- Written in 1st Person = Gives a more personal account. Parents can relate.
- Written in Iambic Pentameter = Strong rhythm. Regular hatred
-
Motif = Extended Metaphor LINK to the theme of Martial Language
- Narrative Poem = Tells a story/account
Structure
- Chronological
- Anecdote (1st line) = Portrays anger or shock. Sets the scene of the poem
- Ending line = Sums up the deeper meaning behind his anger
Language and Semantics
- Military Language
Personification = Used to give the nettles a purpose
- “Green Spears” = Metaphor - Sharp points and long stalks. The nettles serve only the entirety to hurt people
- “Regiment of Spite” = They work together in order to inflict pain
- “Funeral Pyre to burn the fallen dead” = Something that happens to mass bodies during war
- Painful Language
- “Blister beaded on his tender skin” = Alliteration of “b” and use of emotive language (“tender”) makes the reader empathetic and adds emphasis on the boy’s vulnerability
Comparatives
Sister Maude = Revenge and Anger
Born Yesterday = Hopes and fears for a young child
Personal Response
Parent feels defeated at the fact that he can never stop his child from getting hurt in life.
Build up of frustration shown by extraordinary measures taken to cut some nettles
Father knows that the kid will be hurt again but wont be able to do anything
Born Yesterday
Phillip Larkin = Written for best friends daughter and also read at her (Sally Amis) funeral
Themes
Honesty, Controversy, Hopes and Fears
Authorial Intentions
The voice is very colloquial. Seems like a pretense wish - not fully meant.
Context
- The narrators wishes for a newborn
- Doesn’t wish for the conventional things but for the more useful yet standard things
- The reason is then explained
Form
- Colloquial = adds emphasis on the rhyming couplet at the end (where the message is)
- 1st Person = Sets him aside from everyone else adds to the directness of the poem
Structure
- 1st Stanza = The reader feels poised at what poet is wishing for
- Change in attitude = Typical
- 2nd Stanza = A ballad = Praise of normal characteristics
Language and Semantics
Paradox - “Have like other women, an average of talents”
Irony - “None of the others would” = The ‘others’ would have “normal” characteristics
1. Cynical/Ordinariness Language
- “Not the usual stuff”
- “Well, You’re a lucky girl” = Caesura - inflicts a momentary pause. Makes the reader think about whether that is really what someone wants.
- “May you be ordinary”
- “Not good-looking”
EXTRA
Polysyllabic = The 5 adjectives at the end have numerous syllables to make them sound more desiring that other qualities
Consonance = “dull” “enthralled” “called” all have the “ll”. This may lead us to thinking that being “dull” is as equally as important that anything else.
Comparatives
Nettles = Protection & Hope and Fears
Sonnet 116 = Beauty is not important
Personal Response
Poet addresses the baby even when she cant understand. This makes it direct and personal
The colloquial language portrays a sense that Larkin wasn’t trying to impress anyone but merely wishing something personal to the baby.
The Manhunt
Simon Armitage
Themes
Body Parts, War, Fractured/Damaged Love, Ambiguity (Title? Search for lover?)
Authorial Intentions
The voice is that of a women. It seems calm. She is sensitive and patient with her lover.
Context
- Written by a wife (Laura) of a soldier who has returned from war with physical and mental injuries
- The poem describes the physical and mental scarring that the injury has left
- It discovers the effect that this has on their relationship
Form
- Written in couplets = Shows that they are still a couple. Also shows a step-by-step process to get to where they were before
- Irregular Rhyme = Some rhyme reflects the fractured love of the relationship
- Written to look like RIBS LINK the fractured love/fractured lines
Structure
- First 6 stanza Rhyme = Shows a change in attitude in the 7th
- Different injuries are expressed in different couplets
- Builds until Laura reaches the mind = The most heavily affected
- Reflects to the reader and Laura how we have to explore just as she did
Language and Semantics
- Body Language
- Objectification = “Blown Hinge” “Fractured Rudder” = Like an object he is passive
- “I could picture the scan the foetus of metal” = Reflection of alive but also unresponsive. Juxtaposition of baby scan
- “Porcelain collar-bone” “parachute silk of his punctured lung” = fragility of human body
- Caring Language
- “I bind the struts”
- Repetition - “and mind and attend” shows an ongoing process
EXTRA
Metaphor - “sweating unexploded mine” - Ambiguity, is that how he got his injury? Is this why it culminates with such intensity? Mine represents the Mind?
Comparatives
Sonnet 116 - Love doesn’t alter through hard times
Nettles - How people respond to suffering of a loved one
Personal Response
The poem has a certain flow to it that makes it sound like ‘marriage vowels’. “and handle and hold”. This maybe suggests that their marriage has been affected by war
The Farmer’s Bride
Charlotte Mew
Themes
Frustration, Desire, Fear, Unfulfilled love, Disintegrated Love
Authorial Intentions
The voice is frustrated and speaking in a country dialect. Helps to imagine the people involved
Context
- Farmer grieves an unhappy relationship
- Married a young women for 3 years
- She is afraid of intimacy and runs away
- She is comfortable with animals but not with men
- Sexual frustration builds throughout the poem
Form
- Dramatic Monologue - More personal and connecting
- Lament - poem in grieving or mourning
- Iambic Tetrameter - Heart beat but not regular. Demonstrates the frustration
- Regular Rhyme throughout the stanzas
Structure
- First 2 stanza - Tells a story
- Throughout the poem seems to be the passing of time “3 summers ago” “One night in fall”
- Motif - Wife’s character of a animal. “little frightened fay” “shy as a leveret” “all in shiver and scare” reflects her innocence of being chosen to young
Language and Semantics
- Similes - emphasises distance between them
- Animalism's - At one with nature but not the farmer
“flying like a hare” “shy as a leveret”
- Imagery - Of nature and wildness - links to who the farmer is
- Word Choice - “caught” “fetched” = animalistic
Comparatives
To His Coy Mistress - Frustrated Love
Sonnet 43 - Quality of True Love
Personal Response
Repetition = “her hair, her hair” illustrates the sexual frustration that even her hair is attracting him.
Hour
Carol Ann Duffy
Themes
Precious Love, Time, Intensity of New Love
Authorial Intentions
The voice is passionate and strong in belief that love is not affected by time. The poet wants the reader to realise that an “hour” with someone you love is precious and worth all the money in the world
Context
- Poem describes a precious hour between the narrator and her lover
- Poem talks about how Love and Time battle it out. But Love triumphs and manages to stop Time
Form
- Sonnet - (Shakespearian)
- Regular Rhyme Scheme - Love doesn’t change with time (as poem goes on)
- Varying Syntax - “Now.” emphasises the moment that she is trying to capture
Structure
Language and Semantics
- Fairy Tale = Gives their love a mystical dimension
- “Thousands of seconds” - Longing out the time they spend together
- The lovers hair is “like treasure”
- Time - Portrayed as the enemy of love
- Time is used as a currency “back handling the night so nothing dark” can end their intensive hour
- For the present moment - Love defies Time
EXTRA
Pun - “spend” can refer to the semantics of Money or Time
Metaphors - “Cuckoo’s spit” earring “Midas Light” sun
Repetition - “gold, gold, gold” emphasises the joy in loves power to transform something that is not real into something valuable
Enjambement - Shows the poet defying time or anything normal in that “hour”
Comparatives
Sonnet 116 - Personification of Time and Love
Personal Response
The alternate rhyming lines shows a debate or battle between Time and Love
In Paris With You
James Fenton
Themes
Unconventionality, Rebounded Love, Value of Love, Anti-Love, Ambiguity
Authorial Intentions
The Voice is colloquial. “Bamboozled” “Maroonded”. Tone is sardonic (mockery or cynical). Feelings are very humorous, self-pity and bitterness
Context
- The speaker is in Paris with a new love
- Has been hurt by a previous lover so doesn’t want to do the conventional things
- Wants to find out about new partner
- Feelings increase as poem goes on
Form
- 3rd Stanza Indented - Shows change in attitude to person speaking to and illustrates the poems idiosyncrasy
- Lament - First two stanza like song verse middle = chorus
- Refrain - “Don’t talk to me of love” “In Paris with you”
-
Insistent Rhyme - Burden being there but insistent to get his own way: Internal Rhyme help to emphasise the rhythm
Structure
- As the poem goes on the narrator becomes less selfish
1st and 2nd = About him 3rd = Paris 4th = Surroundings 5th = His Lover
Language and Semantics
1. Paris
- “I’m in Paris with you” = Title so evidently important, ambiguous as seen as a burden or privilege
- “Sod of to sodding Notre Dame” - Ignore the conventional romantic places
- Humorous”
- Unexpected rhyme in every stanza = keeps the reader amused
- Makes up words = reflect his drunkenness
-
EXTRA
Enjambement in first stanza = reflects drunk-ness and instability to form a standard sentence.
Anaphora - “I’m in Paris” covering all aspects.
4th Stanza about dingy hotel. Not that it matters because his new love is more important.
Comparatives
Sonnet 116 & 43 = The Value of real love
Coy Mistress = Use of humor to seduce loved one
Quickdraw = Feeling of hurt
Personal Response
The voice says that he doesn’t want to talk about love as he has been badly hurt but at the end of the poem he still says he doesn’t want “to talk of love” he starts to drift into talking about it... Falling in love?
Quickdraw
Carol Ann Duffy
Themes
Broken Love, Bitterness of Love, Hurt, Disintegrated Love
Authorial Intentions
The Voice is tense and alert to danger (her enemy). The Tone is vengeful and anxious. The Feelings are Hurt, Tension
Context
- A relationship is breaking down over texts and phone calls
- The breaking-up progresses like a Western Dual
- The speaker has two phones but the lover texts both
- The thing that hurts the speaker is the “silver bullet” kisses at the end
Form
-
Conceit = A comparison, often elaborate between two dissimilar objects.
-
Each Stanza has a specific broken structure = Emphasises the Pain Delay also adds tension to the start of the next sentence/structure - “I’m all/alone.
-
There is NO Rhyme Scheme = However the Internal Rhymes adds irregularity and tension as we don’t know when the rhyme is going to be
Structure
- The poem/story is revealed as it continues therefore we are just as tense as the narrator. We experience the order just as the character.
- Techniques like enjambement and the broken structures help to mirror the theme
Language and Semantics
1. Communication
- “You speak after the tone. I twirl the phone” - internal rhyme are irregular
2. Westerns
Contrasting between old fashioned ideas and new technology
- “I show the mobile to the Sheriff”
- “In the old Last Chance Saloon”
EXTRA
The enjambement makes the speaker sound breathless
Comparatives
Farmers Bride = The disintegration of love
In Paris With You = Romance resulting in Hurt.
Personal Response
Repetition of the T in “the trigger of my tongue” and the Polysyllabic Word helps the phrase to sound like a gun
Ghazal
Mimi Khalvati
Themes
Unrequited Love, Longing, Natural Love
Authorial Intentions
The Voice is very longing and desirable. The Tone is frustrated at the one sided-ness. The Feelings are obsessive, playful and pleasurable
Context
- The speaker expresses her desire to be wooed
- The poem encompasses different natural images and circumstances in each stanza
- The speaker goes to the extent of planning how it could end
Form
- Ghazal - Ancient poetry, at least 5 stanzas in couplets, concerned with unfulfilled love
Structure
- The difference of each comparison allows the reader to imagine all the different circumstances
- As they are all unconnected we realise the range of love
- In the first line of each stanza it makes the poem seem intense - The second line lightens the mood and relates it back to her desire
Language and Semantics
1. Nature
The use of natural imagery makes her love seem pure and profound and makes it seem like a timeless relationship
- “Dew to bedew me”
- “The venomous tongue, the serpents tail”
EXTRA
Caesuras emphasise the willingness and reflection
“If” at the beginning of each sentence suggests that she is imagining
Comparatives
Farmers Bride - Unrequited Love.
Personal Response
“Iron fist in the velvet glove” juxtaposition. Wants her lover to have a firm side but also a gentle side.
Brothers
Andrew Forster
Themes
Responsibility, Childhood, Sibling Relationships, Regret
Authorial Intentions
The Voice is proud. The Tone is reminiscent. The Feelings are frustrated, guilty, regretful.
Context
- Narrator remembers when he was 9 looking after his younger brother, with his friend.
- They set off across a field to get the bus
- Younger brother realises that he forgot bus fare
- Older brother unable to close ‘the distance’ he’d set by not waiting for him
Form
- Free Verse
- Narrative Poem
Structure
- Written from an adult reflecting on his nine year-old-self. Immaturity in first two verses and then adult perspective in the 3rd
Language and Semantics
- Youth
- “Windmilled home” = Demonstrating carefree and childlike movements
-
“Spouting six-year old views” = Sibilance not as relevant as ‘mature’ nine year old
- Maturity
- “Talking over Shef Wed.. views on Roth Utd” = Difference in club shows maturity/immaturity
- “Doing what grown-ups do” = Acting with maturity however looking back in hindsight regrets showing that he was the one in the wrong
EXTRA
Monosyllabic Words reflect the young brothers immaturity = “Tank-Top”
Enjambement in first two line showing the continuation of the journey
Internal Rhymes = “like mine said i was nine” nursery rhyme flow
Comparatives
Sister Maude - Unhappy sibling relationship
Nettles - Reflecting on an incident
Personal Response
Colloquial, some grammatical errors illustrate his young-self making mistakes and then learning from them in the final paragraph
“Unable to close the distance i’d set in motion” = Distance between brothers long-term and short term
Praise Song For My Mother
Grace Nichols
Themes
Praise, Motherly Love, Nature
Authorial Intentions
The Voice is thankful. The Tone is grateful. The Feelings are Praising, Joyful, Sadness
Context
- A tribute from a daughter to a mother
- Praises her for being everything to her
- Compares her to all kinds of natural imagery
- The last line recalls her mothers advice
Form
- 3 Stanzas of describing her qualities of her love
- No full stops, love is everlasting
- Song - so written with no punctuations
Structure
- The separate stanzas show the different stages in her life. Finishing with a recollection in the mothers memory
- Different Stanzas show the different essentials that her mother daughter from when she was young
- No punctuation creates a warm flowing movement to the poem
Language and Semantics
- Complicated vocabulary gives the pome an unordinary feel or non-formulaic “Fathoming” has 2 meanings or beyond their simple meanings
- Food
- Caribbean food is used to link the mother back to where she came from
- “The fish’s red gill to me/The crab’s leg” = Covers all senses all essentials needed for life. The mother’ influences her senses now.
EXTRA
Nichols uses an Imperative in the last line. Can be seen as a blessing or fearlessness.
The poem also slows with punctuation in the last line & the words are spoken so this can be seen as different to the other parts of the poem
Comparatives
Harmonium and Nettles = Parental Love
Ghazal = Natural Imagery
Personal Response
The Tone is sadness but the theme is praise. These are contradictory.
Harmonium
Simon Armitage
Themes
Father-Son, Fate, Passing of Time
Authorial Intentions
The Voice is sad. The Tone is drowned and regretful. The Feelings are speechless and bleak humour
Context
- The narrator (son) is picking up an old harmonium with his dad
- He realises that the harmonium has aged greatly
- Considers the generations of father-sons that have sung before it
- Father says that the next box his son will carry is his coffin
- Son reflects murmurs a ‘sorry’ reply
Form
- Free Verse - decisions are not made yet, still can choose his own way, nothing is structured
- Internal Rhymes = Helps link ideas “Freight/Weight” links the coffin idea
- Rhyming Couplet = Brings the poem to a gentle halt and represents the father and son
Structure
-
1st and Last Stanza are Dipodic they have a swaying metre = Gives the poem a flow and contrasts it with the gloominess of the poem, effective as it shows both sides of the story
EXTRA
Pathetic Fallacy - “Sunlight, through stained glass”
Personification and Motif = The harmonium reflects the fathers features and in turn subtly himself = “yellowed ... finger nails” “smokers fingers” - Harmonium is carried flat on its back
An unordinary Simile = “like the high notes of finches-had streamed out”
Comparatives
Nettles - Father-Son Relationship
Personal Response
- Armitage’s use of Puns help the reader to try look at the positive side of the story “Still struck a chord”
- The assonance help to create sound rhymes that reflect the harmoniums condition - half there “Stained, Saints, Raise”
- The Sibilance = “some shallow or sorry” whispering speechlessness of his reaction
Exam Technique
Themes
Relationships
- Contrasting Feelings about each other
- To His Coy Mistress - Contrasting Sexual Ideas
- The Farmer’s Bride - Frustration at not being able to love because too young
- Protectiveness in a Relationship
- The Manhunt - Narrator is protective over his feelings and their relationship
- Nettles - Father is protective over sons future/present
- Born Yesterday - Child needs to be protected from pressures of materialism
- Sister Maude - Wishing Sin and Death upon sister
- Quickdraw - Pains of breaking up
- In Paris With You - Insensitive to the person he’s with. Using as a rebound
- Brothers - Not caring for younger brother, recognises with hindsight regrets it
- The Farmer’s Bride - Doesn’t think to care for how she feels
Negative Emotions
- Bitterness within the relationship
- In Paris With You - self-pitiful, selfish to his new relationship
- Sister Maude - Bitter to her sister because of what she’s done. Dramatic Monologue means we only get one side of the story
- Regret and Other Negative Emotions
- Brothers - Looking back and frustrated that he caused the “distance”.
- The Farmer’s Bride - Impatience and Jealousy of animals
Love
- The Manhunt - Persistence with their relationship, keen to keep alive
- Sonnet 116 - Love doesn’t change with Time
- Ghazal - Natural Images uses to show the everlasting love
- Praise Song For My Mother - Thankful and Grateful for her mother
- Nettles - Parents job to protect child. Only doing it because of love
Death
- Harmonium - “sorry swallow” speechlessness “starved for breath” doesn’t want to accept it
- To Coy His Mistress - Frightens mistress with the use of limited time (death)
- Love being Eternal (after death)
- Sonnet 116 - “even till the edge of doom”
- Sonnet 43 - Imagery depicts that love is eternal. “Soul” “grace” “saints”
Memory
- The Manhunt - Soldier finds difficult to come to terms with himself. Wife finds hard to fight the reality of now compared to what it used to be
- Brothers - “the distance” is still in tact and this is something that he blames himself for
- The Farmer’s Bride - Recalls how unhappy she is, blames himself for picking her too young
Nature
- Causing a Positive Effect
- Ghazal - used to represent her type of paradise, to encompass all types of love
- Praise Song For My Mother - essential elements used to demonstrate the mothers role
- Causing a Negative Effect
- The Farmer’s Bride - Bride compared to small animals making her seem shy
- Nettles - The destructiveness of nature causes pain
Pain and Desire
- Characters in the poems often feel hurt
- Harmonium - By the fact that his father is accepting his own death and also that they were never that close
- Quickdraw - Upset by being dumped and metaphorically shot. Demonstrates how painful love can be
- Motivation by Desire
- In Paris With You - The desire to not be hurt again. Desire to move on from his past relationship and to discover positives of the new one
- To Coy His Mistress - Motivated by Sexual Desire
