A Song - Poetry

Question 1

name two motifs in ‘Bright Star’

Answer 1

Wealth/lack of it
Water/sea/tears

Question 2

set in the technique of

Answer 2

a ballad - as it is a story

Question 3

Motif of riches

Answer 3

‘Scanty store’
‘Boon’ of his heart
‘Gave’ ‘valued’ (the boon) - double meaning of value
‘His generous worth’ - double meaning, he is not wealthy but his soul is worth a lot
Equates his love with wealth
‘In search of gain’
‘Riches to obtain’
‘When love is all I prize?’
‘frugal meal’ - simple/plain
‘The lowly cot’ - links to lowly status
‘That simple fare, that humble lot, were more than wealth to me’

Question 4

emotive language example

Answer 4

‘Bliss on Earth’
Hyperbolic language
‘If blest my love with thee!’

Question 5

Sibilance is used because…

Answer 5

E.g. ‘soul sincere’
Melancholic ‘s’ sound

Question 6

Wealth motif: (part 2)

Answer 6

• frugal meal- simple/plain
• the lowly cot- links to lowly status

Question 7

Water motif

Answer 7

• my tears but vainly flow
• ‘faithless waves’
• ‘pour my woe’
• ‘dark, deep’ (night and water)
• ‘the storm is in my soul’

Question 8

State the layout/overall structure of the play:

Answer 8

• four lines per stanza
• ABAB rythme scheme
• iambic trimeter
• punctuation heavy

—-> very regular and simplistic structure

Question 9

How does the tone/mood change?

Answer 9

Tone begins as positive towards lover; ends lonely and dark in final paragraph
Overall is melancholy

Question 10

STANZA V analysis
While he the dangerous ocean braves,
My tears but vainly flow;
Is pity in the faithless waves
To which I pour my woe?

Answer 10

• negative; tone change (positive love —-> sad, yearning)
  ‘Vainly flow’ - powerless, she cannot change what will happen
  ‘Faithless’ - adjective; waves are personified - the partner will not be able to fulfill his promise to her if he dies, connotations of a faithless partner
  Figurative speech/metaphor - ‘pour my woe’ - idea that the waves are endless/comparing the sadness to the width of the ocean (endless sadness)

Question 11

Language techniques:

Answer 11

Sibilance, constant rhythming, caesuras, some enjambment

Question 12

STANZA VI
the night is dark, the waters deep
Yet soft the billows roll,
Alas! At every breeze I weep-
The storm is in my soul

Answer 12

Compares/parallels the images of her sorrow and his plight
- —-> water motif
——> ‘The night is dark’ uses pathetic fallacy
‘The waters deep’ and ‘At every breeze I weep’ - rhyme
‘The storm is in my soul’ - even when the sea is quiet, her feelings are agitated
= semantic field; words in the same family of meanings

Has an edge of finality in the last line without fulfilment: the feelings are ongoing but the last stanza depicts no happy resolution.

Question 13

Key things to remember:

Answer 13

• poverty contrast to wealth (semantic field of each) -> linked to love
• the sea is presented as dangerous, endless and unpredictable used as a metaphor for her emotions and her love (‘the storm is in my soul’)