Comedy Poetry Revision Cards Flashcards
The Flea - Summary
A comic stand off between the sexes arises as a desperate man persuades a woman into bed
The Flea - Characters
Male speaker - uses metaphysical conceit of a flea mixed with religious language, disrespects marriage
The Woman - resists and overpowers the man’s argument by killing the flea
The Flea - Key messages
- sex and religion are blurred to create manipulation, showing the wit and desperation of men
- mockery of marriage
The Flea - Key elements of comedy
- metaphysical conceit of the flea
- gender stereotypes, reinforced by man, challenged by woman?
- religion used as a justification, mocking of religion?
The Flea - Key Quotes
- three lives in one flea spare
- more than married are
- a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead
- three sins in killing three
- purpled thy nail in blood of innocence
Satirical Elegy - Summary
The death of an upper class general who exploited the Irish lower classes is satirised through a Juvenalian elegy
Satirical Elegy - Characters
Duke of Marlborough - general, promoted the colonization and suppression of Irish, religious persecution
Speaker - carries a universal message from the Irish and criticizes those in power
Satirical Elegy - Key Messages
- condemns those in power who do not stand with their people, those who are selfish and power hungry
- hubristic nature of those who have not earned their power
Satirical Elegy - Key elements of comedy
- the attitudes towards death
- use of Menippean satire
- change of tone through the volta, dark comedy
Satirical Elegy - Key quotations
- loud last trump
- that mighty warrior fall?
- so great a stink
- bubbles raised by breath of kings
- nor orphan’s tears
Tam o’Shanter - summary
A mock epic hero Tam, whose drunken behaviour takes him on n eccentric journey home, exploring lower class relationships with alcohol
Tam o’Shanter - characters
Tam - drunken man whose story is told
Kate - Tam’s wife, explores treatment of women by husbands
Meg - the true hero
Nannie - the comic villain, challenges gender stereotypes?
Tam o’Shanter - moments
- introduction to Tam and Kate
- Tam in the tavern
- Tam’s journey
- Tam in the kirk
- the witches’ dance
- the final chase
Tam o’Shanter - messages
- no real didactic message, trivial focus
- dangers on indulgence
Tam o’Shanter - key elements of comedy
- absurdity of the supernatural
- Meg’s fate as true hero, gender stereotypes inverted
- mockery of marriage
- happy resolution, but not for Meg
Tam o’Shanter - quotations
- blethering, blustering, drunken bellum
- husband frae the wife despises
- kings may be blest but Tam was glorious
- the landlady and Tam grew gracious
- lang the thunder bellow’d
- a child might understand
- maggie stood, right sair astonish’d
- warlocks and witches
- kept the countryside in fear
- weel done, cutty sark
- her ain grey tail
- remember Tam o’Shanter’s mare
Sunny Prestatyn - summary
A condemnation of violence against women as a result of antisocial behaviour in working class communities due to false hope and expectation
Sunny Prestatyn - characters
Girl - exploited by a capitalist society, represents women who have been domestically abused
Titch Thomas - man who vandalises, represents sexual frustration of men
Sunny Prestatyn - messages
- consequences of false advertisement
- commercialisation, women exploited by men for men
- domestic violence
Sunny Prestatyn - elements of comedy
- comedy of the sexual nature
- power dynamics of men and women, conforms to societal stereotypes
- Menippean satire
Sunny Prestatyn - quotations
- laughed the girl on the poster
- white satin
- huge tits and a fissured crotch
- autographed Titch Thomas
- stab + moustached lips of her smile
- now fight cancer is there
My Rival’s House - summary
The relationship between a woman and her MIL is explored through a comic rivalry and her own insecurities
My Rival’s House - key characters
DIL - insecure and obsessed with their relationship, a female voice in a typically masculine narrative
MIL - the stock MIL, incorrectly percieved?
My Rival’s House - messages
- explores the stock character of the MIL, underserved fate?
- false perception caused by insecurity
My Rival’s House - elements of comedy
- the stock character of the MIL
- mockery of manners
- irony of insecurity
My Rival’s House - quotations
- cushions so stiff you can’t sink in
- lady of the house
- this son she bore
- she has taken even this from me
- salt tears pepper our soup
- she wont
give up
Mrs Sisyphus - summary
The suffering of a wife dealing with her isolated and work-obsessed husband is explored, as those whose voices are typically rejected in favour of men’s.
Mrs Sisyphus - key charaters
Wife - provides a voice of women in general, stern and uncaring
Husband - inspires the poem, rejects his wife
Mrs Sisyphus - messages
- a feminist critique of the patriarchal society
- criticises women who have taken a backseat in history
Mrs Sisyphus - elements of comedy
- colloquial language of the woman
- masculine role that the woman takes on
- the woman’s eventual fate back in her original stereotype
Mrs Sisyphus - key quotations
- fecking stone’s no sooner up
- one hundred percent and more to his work
- jerk, kirk, dirk
- feeling like Noah’s wife did
- reduced to a squawk
Not my Best Side - summary
Based on the poem, St George and the Dragon, the characters subvert their typical stereotypes and become voices in the second wave of feminism. Menippean satire
Not my Best Side - key characters
Dragon - egotistical, criticises the knight and derails the legend
Maiden - promiscuous, sexually motivated, masculine, feminist
Knight - insecure, youthful, a criticism of capitalism
Not my Best Side - messages
- self obsession
- always more to a story than initially thought
Not my Best Side - elements of comedy
- inversion of gender roles
- mocking of the second wave of feminism
- colloquial language
Not my Best Side - quotations
- ostentatiously beardless
- eat me
- hard for a girl to be sure if she wants to be rescued
- you’re in my way
- endangering job prospects
