Carol Ann Duffy poems Flashcards
EXAM
YOU - form/themes/links
Form- loose sonnet structure but unrhymed
Themes- passion and excitement of the new relationship - obsession
Links- hour (obsession) Rapture (passion) Over (stages of love)
YOU- Key quotations and language
‘uninvited’ - personification of speakers thoughts and inverted syntax shows lack of power/loss of control
‘like a charm, like a spell’ lexical parallelism- magical experience, uncontrollable
‘falling in love/glamorous hell’- oxymoron- contradicts not all love is positive - juxtaposition
YOU- CONTINUED QUOTES
‘like a tiger ready to kill; a flames fierce licks’- simile indicates love is predatory, animalistic desire, fricatives echo crackling of fire, sensory experience.
‘like a gift, like a touchable dream’- parallelism- unquantifiable emotions, similes show admiration of the lover. Noun ‘gift’- to be treasured, noun ‘dream’ - idealising lover.
HOUR- form/themes/links
Form- sonnet form richness and reality of love
Themes- time , power of love and obsession
Links- You (Obsession) Answer (connection to lover) Over (time spent with lover)
HOUR- Key quotations and language
‘loves time beggar’ - allusion to Shakespeare but inverting his idea by suggesting love is fighting for time
‘for thousands of seconds we kiss’- sensual imagery, remembers intimate moments
‘the Midas light’ - allusion to greek myth, indicating admiration of lover
HOUR- CONTINUED QUOTES
‘nothing dark will end our shining hour’- negative (also ‘no’ is repeated) showing intensity of feeling, adjective ‘shining’ positive view of their time together.
‘love spins gold, gold, gold from straw’- allusion to fairytale Rumplestilskin- love is resourceful, ‘gold’ characteristics of Duffy’s style, indicating the value of their connection, speaker treasures lover
RAPTURE- form/themes/links
Form - Shakespearean sonnet, Volta ‘then’ changes from unrequited to requited love.
Themes- Passion, power of love, beauty of love, obsession
Links- You (passion), Hour (obsession), Love (power of love)
RAPTURE- Key quotations and language
‘thought of by you all day, I think of you’- mirrored syntax; speaker assumes lover shares obsession. Lover positioned before speaker.
‘we stay trapped in time,/queuing for death’- metaphor; monotony of life without lover
RAPTURE- CONTINUED QUOTES
‘then love comes like a sudden flight of birds’- Volta; loves’s arrival changes everything, echoes earlier bird imagery to signal romance.
‘your kiss/ recalled, unstrings, like pearls, this chain of words’- simile to link love to death/value
‘huge skies connect us’- metaphor to show strength of connection, inclusive pronoun to indicate togetherness
ELEGY- form/themes/links
Form- poem of mourning / serious reflection, two octaves, irregular rhyme scheme.
Themes- obsession, loss, physicality, idealisation of lover.
Links- Answer (physicality), Betrothal (death), Grief (loss)
ELEGY- Key quotations and language
‘grave’, ‘bones’, ‘skull’- semantic field of death, sense of loss, negative imagery.
‘perfectly fits the scoop of my palm’- idealised, romantic imagery- lover is perfectly matched, held as a precious object.
‘love, which wanders history/singled you out in your time’- love personified as ageless/timeless, significance of loved one as chosen
ELEGY- CONTINUED QUOTES
’ a flame, like talent, under your skin’ - passion and desire
‘I mirrored your pose, your infinite grace’- speaker emulating lover, ‘infinite grace’ shows lover is idealised even in death.
BETROTHAL- form/themes/links
Form- echo of ballad form, nine quatrains, all rhyming couplets, moves through the elements.
Themes- Dangerous nature of love as all- consuming, obsession, passion, death, love linked to elements
Links- Elegy (death) Answer (dangerous obsession)
BETROTHAL- Key quotations and language
‘I will be yours, be yours/’I’ll walk on the moors’- repetition of ‘I will’ opens each stanza, echoes discourse of wedding ceremony, shows earnest emotion. ‘moors’- natural imagery
‘my gown of stone’- metaphorical willingness to die for love, allusion to hamlet admiration.
‘the one’, ‘be wed’- deviations from other stanzas indicates unity, excluding all others.
BETROTHAL QUOTES CONTINUED
‘ill be ash in a jar’- sense of danger involved in all-consuming love. Lexis of fire/death
‘make me your wife’- imperative sentence, need for connection. Lexis of weddings, especially final word, demonstrates commitment.
