Acquanited With The Night

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

West running brook 1928
Urban setting
Bleak sinister landscape of city lights and lanes that reflect the bleakness of the poems theme.
Speakers physical journey into darkness mirrors his mental journey into despair.
Intense expression of loneliness presenting how in vast modern cities.
Millions of people live in close proximity to one another paradoxically lonely.

Question 2

Title

Answer 2

Acquainted suggests knowledge but no affection
Suggests nighttime is a time of loneliness.
Extended metaphor for depression as contextually based on own experience of suffering w depression.

Question 3

Form and structure

Answer 3

Sonnet of 14 lines
3 tercets
Couplet with rhyming scheme aba
Pattern corresponds to terza rima- Italian poet Dante.
Iambic pentameter with regular measured best mimicking the rhythm of the speaker working on his journey through the city.
3 lined stanzas intertwined with rhyme scheme- circular presenting repeating issues of speaker- how he is really stuck.

Sonnets slow but steady iambic rhythm echoes the sound of footsteps on a midnight street.

Question 4

Pattern

Answer 4

Pattern created sense of an endless cycle through repetition of first line and last line.

Reflecting way depression can be self perpetuating.

Unable to break free from his behaviour.

Pattern with long drawn out vowel sounds predominating in the rhymes “lane” “explain” almost onomatopoeic effect as it echoes the sounds of lament.

Long vowel sounds.

Repetition slows the pace of the verse and creates a sad aching music. “I have looked down the saddest city lane”.

Question 5

Rhythm pattern

Answer 5

Created by anaphora “I have” with interlinking rhyme create chant like, incantatory effect drawing reader into poem.

Implying reader has to experienced these feelings.

Personal pronoun repeated 7 times throughout poem emphasising complete isolation.

Used to chart the gloom of the journey through the streets creating the feeling of monotony. Nothing will change for him.

Question 6

Choice of diction

Answer 6

One
Showing others like him
One person like this
Singular term paradoxically reinforces loneliness.

Question 7

Setting

Answer 7

Bleak urban night landscape emphasising speakers solitary walking.

Metaphorical image of night evokes loneliness and even terror perhaps symbolising depression or a sense of despair.

Sense of depression is heightened by lines such as “I have looked down the saddest city lane” “I have outwalked the furthest city light” superlative reinforces darkness contributing to the gloomy oppressive atmosphere.

Unusual as he is a pastoral poet grounded in nature contrasting in the urban setting of city streets.

Question 8

Nature

Answer 8

Reflect his sadness and despair in the rain and the darkness of night.

“Out In rain” suggesting metaphor for journeying to the depths of his mind and emotions. Comes back in depressed state through pathetic fallacy of the weather “back in rain”

Question 9

Punctuation - caesura finished sentences no enjambment

Answer 9

Caesura highlights journey has been meaningless, nothing of substance or significance has happened- only Walked out and walked back that nothing fulfilling has happened him on his urban journey.

Caesura creates slow pace emphasising world weary tone.

Finishes sentences at end of each line forces the reader to stop. Giving a disjointed idea of how depressed. No flow.

No emjambment- speaker is making no progress with his issues.

Question 10

“I have outwalked”

Answer 10

Physical distance between him and others act as a metaphor for his loneliness.

Everything else is physically distanced- creating pathos for the reader.

Question 11

Imagery of light

Answer 11

Conveys a lack of hope that his situation will improve “furthest city light”- depressed no light or happiness in his life.

Question 12

City

Answer 12

Poets of modernist movement- present city as image of alienation in their work.
Protagonists of poems solitary figures who express isolation and despair.

Question 13

Atmosphere

Answer 13

Final couplet image of time and repetition encapsulates atmosphere of melancholy which pervades the poem.

Question 14

Repetition

Answer 14

Chant like effect
Emphasised by interlinking rhyme scheme.

Repetition “I have” impression of monotony dull hopelessness.

Like nature city is seen to take on speakers depression and despair.

Suggestion of hidden voice.

“Interrupted cry… from another street” sense of alienation that speaker expresses.

Question 15

“Unwilling to explain”

Answer 15

Suggests speakers detachment is somehow self induced deliberate.

Question 16

Sense of isolation

Answer 16

Sense of isolation intensified as the speaker stresses that the cry he hears is not intended to make any contact with him. “Not to call me back or say goodbye”.

Note of self pity.

Image follows brings tone of the poem beyond mere self pity.

“Luminary clock” at an unearthly height may symbolise- time passing inexorably.

Question 17

Solitary wondered

Answer 17

Symbolises further his alienation from society, even from the time in which he is living “the time was neither wrong nor right”.

Metaphor for apathy and alienation this could hardly be more intense - hamlets expression of despair.

Question 18

Imagery

Answer 18

Contributes to melancholy atmosphere.