context and quotes

Question 1

context for The Prelude:

Answer 1

• 1778- 1850
• key English Romantic poet
• born in Cumbria, Lake District (had a huge influence on his writing)
• distant relationship with his father, mother died when he was 8, was sent to boarding school
• lived with his maternal grandparents and Uncle- they didn’t get on, he contemplated suicide
• spent a lot of time outdoors, believed nature could be like a parent or teacher
• loved to ice skate, learned how to on Esthwaite lake
• poem is part of an ‘epic poem’- 44 stanzas, part of a bigger narrative, starting writing in his 20s but never finished it even though it is 14 books long
• is autobiographical and focuses on his childhood and relationship with nature

Question 2

key quotes for The Prelude:

Answer 2

• frosty season
• the cottage windows through the twilight blazed
• happy time
• proud and exulting like an untired horse
• woodland pleasures, polished ice, distant hills
• resounding horn, Pack, hunted hare
• meanwhile the precipices rang aloud
• leafless trees, every icy crag, alien sound
• of melancholy, not unnoticed
• the orange sky of evening died away

Question 3

context for Death of a Naturalist:

Answer 3

• published the same year he first became a father- mediating on his own childhood in rural Ireland
• inspired by the death of his younger brother (explores loss of innocence- seen in shift from fascination to terror)- died in 1953 aged four
• Irish poet, 1939-2013
• massively acclaimed- one Nobel Prize in literature in 1995
• teacher, lecturer, poet
• grew up in rural Northern Ireland on his family’s farm- described his childhood as ‘an intimate, physical, creaturely existance…in suspension between the archaic and the modern’
• grew up with the IRA terrorist attacks- explains the sense of conflict in his writing

Question 4

key quotes for Death of a Naturalist:

Answer 4

• bubbles gargled delicately
• best of all was the warm thick slobber
• dragon-flies, spotted butterflies
• repetition of ‘and’
• and wait and watch
• I sickened, turned, and ran.
• every spring
• if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it
• great slime kings
• poised like mud grenades, cocked

Question 5

context for Valentine:

Answer 5

• contemporary Scottish poet and former poet laureate- perhaps changes her perception of romance
• her writing explores ideas about gender, oppression and sexuality
• openly part of the LGBTQ+ community
• was first written in 1993 when a radio station asked her to write an original poem for Valentine’s day
• explores the commercialism of love

Question 6

key quotes for Valentine:

Answer 6

• title Valentine
• not a red rose of a satin heart
• I give you an onion
• cute card or kissogram
• it will blind you with tears like a lover
• will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief
• platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring
• lethal
• its fierce kiss will stay on your lips, possessive and faithful as we are for as long as we are

Question 7

key quotes for Hawk Roosting

Answer 7

• i sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed
• hooked head and hooked feet (..) sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat
• convenience of the high trees
• earth’s face upward for my inspection
• now i hold creation in my foot
• I kill where i please because it is all mine
• my manners are tearing off heads
• allotment of death (..) bones of the living
• no arguments assert my right
• the sun is behind me
• nothing has changed since i began
• my eye has permitted no change
• i am going to keep things like this

Question 8

context for Hawk Roosting:

Answer 8

• highly celebrated English poet
• Poet Laureate (1984-98 his death)
• spent most of his life living in rural areas and spent lots of his childhood outdoors, enjoyed hunting, fishing and swimming
• fascinated by animals as a child, collected and drew toy animals, helped his brother when he went shooting
• violent imagery influenced by his father who was a WW1 veteran
• a ‘war poet once removed’
• studied English Lit at Cambridge uni but switched to anthopology
• influenced by Romantic poets
• interested in the innocent savagery of animals
• had many jobs before being a famous poet including working at a zoo
• completed his national service between 1949 and 1951- was relatively peaceful
• image of bird sat atop of a tree (the Imperial Eagle) was a Nazi party symbol of WW2

Question 9

context for She Walks in Beauty:

Answer 9

• 1788- 1824
• ‘mad bad and dangerous to know’
• Romantic poet, politician and eventual revolutionary
• a celebrity- famous for both his writing and aristocratic excesses
• involved in numerous affairs and sex scandals (men and women)
• had a deformed foot
• spent lots of time travelling Europe
• was flamboyant, radical and notorious
• well connected in literary circles
• SWiB was published in 1815 in his collection of ‘Hebrew Melodies’ and was intended to be accompanied by music
• wrote this after he met his cousin’s wife Mrs Robert Wilmat (was wearing a black gown like the night)
• rumoured to have fallen in love with his half sister
• was exiled to Italy

Question 10

key quotes for She Walks in Beauty:

Answer 10

• she walks in beauty like the night
• cloudless climes and starry skies
• best of dark and bright
• tender love
• one shade the more one ray the less
• nameless grace
• where thoughts serenely sweet express, how pure, how dear their dwelling place
• so soft, so calm
• days in goodness spent
• a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent