Appealing to the Senses Flashcards
Quotes to show how the poet appeals to the senses in Aunt Julia
“stained with peat” - metaphor, smell, sight of natural landscape, colours of natural landscape
“treadle of the spinning wheel” - sight, harris tweed
“absolute darkness” - imagery, refines the senses
“she was winds pouring wetly/round house ends” - elements, sound, sight
“a seagulls voice” - metaphor, sound
“peatscrapes and lazy beds” - references to natural landscape
Quotes to show how the poet appeals to the senses in Visiting Hour
“The hospital smell” - distinct, invasive and relatable smell
“combs my nostrils” - combines senses of touch and steel to convey the pungent nature of the odour. It is so strong it is almost palpable.
“green and yellow corridors” - links to colours of sickness and ill health
“in a white cave of forgetfulness” - sight, metaphor
“trembles on its stalk” - metaphor, sight
“in the round swimming waves of a bell” - multi sensory
Quotes to show how the poet appeals to the senses in Assisi
“like a half filled sack” - scratchy material, not nice to touch
“clucking contentedly” - alliteration mimics the sounds of chickens
“whose eyes wept pus, whose back was higher than his head, whose lopsided mouth said Grazie in a voice as sweet as a child’s” -imagery, appeals to sound and sight
Quotes to show how the poet appeals to the senses in Memorial
“No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain.” - sight
“the silence of her dying sounds” - oxymoron feel, links to defeating silence
“Carousel of language” - sight, vibrant colours
“tick death” - personification, sight
“I am her sad music” - sound of pain
Quotes to show how the poet appeals to the senses in Basking Shark
“On a sea tin tacked with rain” - alliteration, sight
“rise with a lounge” - neologism, a pleasing sounds
“swish up the dirt” - alliteration
“sail after sail, the tall fin slid away and the the tail” - assonance, majestic, mimics the slow movement of the shark
Quotes to show how the poet appeals to the senses in Sounds of the Day
The parallel structure of the sentences in the opening stanza is suddenly disrupted - the door, scraped shut, is not linked to something straightforward, it stands for the significance of parting.
The horses clatter, the air creaked, with the sound of the lapwing, the waves emit a snuffling puff over the rock and the waterfall is the sound of black drums.
MacCaig uses onomatopoeia and alliteration to imitate these specific sounds, some of which seem to startle the speaker while others are more pleasing.
Hyperbole is again used to communicate the extreme emotional pain associated with parting, as he is left in a room with what he describes as the quietest fire in the world.
An old man, at home, sitting in an armchair by the fire
This line highlights the suddenness of this new silence. This also creates an interesting paradox since the effect of being alone should only exaggerate the sound of the fire, when in fact it seems to mute it.
The shock of freezing water, followed by the numbness, conveys the complexity of parting.
In stark contrast to the pleasing imagery and mood of the opening stanza, the final verse is utterly bleak as the speaker reaches his conclusion.
The sensory focus of the poem moves from sound to touch as he equates the effect of the parting to immersing a hand into freezing water.
This is effective in describing the initial jarring pain of this experience and the subsequent feeling of numbness it is replaced with.
This is a paradox since the hand is a part of the body we most associate with touch, yet the effect of touching the ice cold water renders him unable to feel.
In this way then, he conveys the emotional pain that still lies, like the hand, beneath the surface even if he is numb to it at the moment.
The metaphor of the bangle of ice also helps to capture and describe the intensity of the raw and painful sense of loss experienced in the initial aftermath of a break-up.
