At An Inn

Question 1

Who wrote this poem?

Answer 1

Thomas hardy

Question 2

What historical period was the poem written in?

Answer 2

Victorian period

Question 3

What societal issues were faced during the Victorian period

Answer 3

• Carefully censored, straight and exacting in standards
• Hardy passionately opposed these constraints
• Strict in terms of permitted sexual relations
• Moral panic over prostitution
• Victorian-age poetry included themes of isolation and loss of innocence
• Oppose and object to the unfair social and political systems
• Highly idealistic

Question 4

Give some information on Thomas Hardy

Answer 4

• Victorian realist
• High in Victorian decorum
• His work mostly revolves around the tragedies cause by social circumstances
• Significant that his speaker questions the influence of much greater forces as a means of explaining the intensity of emotion

Question 5

What autobiographical elements are included in the poem

Answer 5

Based on the relationship Hardy had with Florence Henniker

Question 6

What themes are explored in this poem

Answer 6

• Love and loss
• The past being better than the present
• Irony
• Proximity and distance
• Gender and sexuality
• God, Gods and the indifference of the universe

Question 7

What theme do these sentences cover and why?

• “Severing sea and land”
• “they opined/us more than friends”
• “ah, God, that bliss like theirs/would flush our day!”

Answer 7

• Loves and loss

• In the first sentence he is bitterly distraught by the final stanza that what was once a promising friendship/relationship is now squashed

• In the second sentence, the voice, in saying this implies that the two were friends but the people in the pub thought they were more

• Their determination to see love between the couple clouds their vision and veils them from the cold reality of the situation

Question 8

What theme does this quotation fall under and why?

• “never the love light shone”

Answer 8

• The past being better than the present
• Demonstrates the speakers yearning for the past and the speakers dangerous use of retrospective. Retrospective makes it easier for him to glorify the past and forget the challenges such a relationship would have posed.

Question 9

How is irony used in this poem

Answer 9

The ironic and tragic element is found at the end of the poem especially when the narrator suggests that now the couple desire each other as lovers, the opportunity is gone

Question 10

How is the theme proximity and distance used in the poem

Answer 10

When they were together, their relationship was “chilled” and there seemed no possibility of love; now that the pair are separated, they are close and “aching” for each other. Is this because distance has allowed them to idealise the other to create an image that does not match reality?

Question 11

How is the theme of gender and sexuality used in the poem

Answer 11

The only voice we hear is masculine. The companion, whom we presume is a woman, is both nameless and voiceless and seems to uphold the societal ideals of a lady.

Question 12

What is the form of the poem

Answer 12

5 stanzas are of octets. The regularity of the form reflects the speakers comfort in the inn with his companion. Their friendship is easy and comes naturally

Question 13

What metre is used in the poem?

Answer 13

• Iambic trimetres and dimetres

Question 14

What is the thumbs scheme and what is its purpose

Answer 14

• Abab cdcd
• Ease between the supple is established
• Light hearted

Question 15

Which stanza contains accented beats that reveal tension and why?

Answer 15

• Stanza 1
• Ambiguity in the word “strangers” does not directly imply if their strangers to one another or the people at the inn

Question 16

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences and why?

• “Strangers sought”/ “catering care”
• “Swift sympathy”/“With living love”
• “Love lingered numb

Answer 16

• Alliteration

• In the first line alliteration creates a tone of comfort and affection in its softness

• In the second line, alliteration of ‘s’ creates a swooping sensation, the reader can almost sense the way the sympathy for the pair spread throughout they are observed and perceived to be in love

• The ‘s’ also creates immediacy, implying the readiness of others to pass judgements

• The “l” gives the word a vibrancy which demonstrates people’s eagerness to interpret the situation as the one that brings them the most joy.

• The ‘l’ in the third sentence is elongated because love is a single syllable whereas lingered in a double syllable. There is a silencing of hope and futility of the pair’s live is made evident

Question 17

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences and why?

• “Love’s own pair”
• “Love lingered”
• “Why cast he on our port A bloom not ours? Why shapes us for his sport in after-hours?”

Answer 17

• Personification

• In line one personification is used to show that the speaker and his companion have a lack of control. It may hint at the controlling and dictating functionality of society but also relate to the speakers inability to grapple with the immensity of his emotions.

• In the second line, personification is used to give love a persons, it possesses autonomy and is a physical presence for their intangible love

• The use of personification is used to indicate that love is playing a cruel ‘sport’ with them which is paradoxical because live by definition cannot be cruel

Question 18

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences

• “Spheres above”
• “Quicks the world”
• “Breath/ “Of afternoon”

Answer 18

• Cosmic Imagery
• The speaker is so unsure of how is develops a desire more than friendship
• Seems to have no worldly explanation
• Over powering, magical nature of love
• The first flushes of love are so intoxicating that the world moves at a faster pace
• Whimsical and romantic notions
• Familiar with love

Question 19

What type of structure is found in the poem and why?

Answer 19

Cyclical structure, hardy starts and ends with the same memories

Question 20

What figure of speech is used in the following sentence?

• “Yet never the love-light shone/Between us there!”

Answer 20

• Metaphor
• Indicates love is something that emits light and is a source of clarity

Question 21

What quotations in this poem parallels the great Gatsby

Answer 21

“Severing sea and land”
“He stretched out his arms towards the dark water” Chapter 1

“Palsied unto death the pane-fly’s tune”
“We drove on toward death in the cooling twilight” chapter 7

Question 22

What are the similarities and differences between This poem and the ruined maid

Answer 22

• Gender sexuality: stereotypical representation, upholds Victorian standards of female propriety, yoked to the expectations of society

• love and loss have different manifestations. Amelia has lost physically as a “ruined maid” she has lost her virginity and innocence not for love but for social acceptance. At an Inn presents the tragedy of the irretrievable loss of opportunity

• Social conventions and taboos: In this poem, a woman and man together in public, unmarried, was also socially unacceptable. “The ruined maid” criticises social conventions more overtly

Question 23

What are the similarities and differences between this poem and La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Answer 23

• Love and loss: In lbdsm, the knight is completely alone, ‘Alone and pallet loitering’. In this poem, speaker never seems to extract himself from the partnership he longs for. In this poem, the speaker is only separated from his lover physically whereas the knight is both physically and emotionally estranged.

• Romantic love of many kinds: Closer to infatuation or obsession. The love between the pain in “At an Inn” can never be consummated or come to fruition

• Proximity and distance: In neither poem do we actually meet the female lover only iterations of her through memories. Dreams/memories.

Question 24

Note

Answer 24

Stanza 1: Preoccupation with how the couple are perceived, engrossment in what they could be

Stanza 2: Supernatural forces

Stanza 3: Their situation is tragic, change in tone. Relationship is as futile as a fly hitting the glass

Stanza 4: Shift to third person narrative. The speaker is frustrated that it is a “bloom not ours”, why would others do or God suggest their love could work if it is certain it cannot?

Stanza 5: Perhaps they wish to have been together, desperate, ignite questions of how Victorian society makes superficial judgements. Loop is paranoia, questions left unanswered and unresolved. Pessimistic and brutal