DOBSON QUOTES Flashcards
Young Girl at Window 1/5
LSOTT
“Lift your hand to the window latch: sighing turn and move away”
- apostrophe/imperative
- Contrast idea of being open to change
Young Girl at a Window 2/5
LSOTT
“Since time was killed and now lies dead…or time was lost”
- personification of death
- preposition ‘since’
Young Girl at a Window 3/5
LSOTT
“Over the gently-turning hills, travel a journey with your eyes”
- allusion to her journey
- Hills metaphor of adversity
Young Girl at a Window 4/5
LSOTT
“The guiltless minute hand stood still”
- personification
Young Girl at a Window 5/5
LSOTT
“Through grass and sheaves and, lastly snow”
- Tricolon symbol of 3 stages of life
- time is inevitable
Over the Hill 1/5
TBHHH
“This workman dredges home at dusk”
- explicit omission of ‘workman’
Over the Hill 2/5
TBHHH
“Bluntly forward boots”
- Oxymoron
- cacophony
Over the Hill 3/5
TBHHH
“He crests the hill and fills the sky”
- Hyperbole ‘filling sky’
- Calm rhythm: blank verse structure
Over the Hill 5/5
TBHHH
“He could move mountains if he cared”
“or lifts one, looks at it…turns it and puts it down”
- biblical imagery
- allusion to ability to achieve but content with life
Over the Hill 4/5
TBHHH
“He stands to light his pipe with quite unconscious insolence”
- Polysyllabic ‘unconscious’/’insolence’ - shift to complex syllables emphasise rebel against presence of death
- cognitive dissonance symbol of rejection to change
Summer’s End 1/5
ATTBD
“after the summer season with the miraculous cleansing of waters”
- ‘cleansing’ connotations to new cycle
- ‘after’ preposition establishes poem as one of reflection
Summer’s end 2/5
ATTBD
“the children screaming at the water’s edge”
- negative elements of memory and transition into new phase
- collective experience of change in season being abrupt, like the transition into adulthood
Summer’s End 3/5
ATTBD
“the lonely mermaid…weeps at the edge of the water where the sand is like knives to her feet”
- mythological allusion - connecting persona to deeper experience of shared grief
- simile/negative connotation - inability to relive past experiences
Summer’s end 4/5
ATTBD
“blackberries burnt on the fire with an autumn savour of sadness…I was a child again”
- vivid visual imagery
- sibilance ‘s’ to emphasises reflection
Summers’s end 5/5
ATTBD
“dreaming by the fire I called myself, watching for a child to run back through Time to a picnic”
- alludes to idea that memories create comfort, but they must not be a substitute for the future and individuals moving forward
- nature of piece as a reflection
- capitalisation of ‘Time’ - personification
The conversation 1/5
HTOHT
“He punched into his cap. meaning. this is a morning!”
- interjection of dialogue
- appreciation of nature and the beauty around you as you age
The conversation 2/5
HTOHT
“the wind will comb and spin and night will wind it in”
- metaphor for ageing - future becoming present and past dying out
- girl reaching a level of content
The conversation 3/5
HTOHT
“over the hills lay China and both of us should go”
- intertextuality of prior poem - imagery on experiences of life
- hyperbole ‘China’ metaphor for expanding reach and meeting new people
- Inclusive language rhyme couplet ‘both of us should go’
The conversation 4/5
HTOHT
“having such talks as only children and fools may try”
- irony - ‘fool’ and ‘child’ able to communicate complexity without words
The conversation 5/5
HTOHT
“that excellent old madman wordless and wise, and I”
- ‘that’ pronoun allusion to death
- irony
- juxtaposition suggesting that age = wisdom
Cock Crow 1/6
WTTOAI
“wanting to be myself, alone, between the lit house and the town”
- first person imperative
- juxtaposition
- caesura - pause/break in verse
Cock Crow 2/6
WTTOAI
“three times I took that lonely stretch”
- biblical allusion (peter denying christ 3x)
- attempted to move on from commitments
Cock Crow 3/6
WTTOAI
“the night absolved me of my bonds, only my footsteps held the ground”
- personification of night as freedom
- she is not completely able to move on
Cock Crow 4/6
WTTOAI
“one life behind and one before and I that stood between”
- symbol of stages/thresholds of life
- metaphor past present future
Cock Crow 5/6
WTTOAI
“and walking up and down the road knew myself…cut off from human cries and love that grows about the bone”
- paradox and contrast of walking and knew myself - somewhat ironic
- enlightening moment of reflection
Cock Crow 6/6
WTTOAI
“I heard the cock crow on the hill…thinking I knew his meaning well”
- understanding of Peter’s betrayal to Jesus and the tension between societal responsibility and our personal needs
- repetition of betrayal and her brief experiences of freedom
Amy Caroline 1/5
MHTAS
“my grandmother, living to be ninety”
- possessive pronoun - powerful opening line establishing it as anecdotal
- room for romanticisation of events
Amy caroline 2/5
MHTAS
“held her head on one side like a sparrow, had a bird’s bright eyes”
- zoomorphic simile - symbol of freedom and intelligence
- rediscovery of connection to nature as she ages
Amy caroline 3/5
MHTAS
“this was done she said in Bendigo and Eaglehawk”
- justification need to express kindness
- allusion to personality and control society has in pressuring women to act a certain way
Amy caroline 4/5
MHTAS
“at twilight at the meditative hour…she liked to strum the songs learnt long ago”
- metaphor of night as her escape and freedom away from her expectations and role
Amy Caroline 5/5
MHTAS
“she had eight children, little money, many griefs”
- asyndeton - rhythmic sense of normality disallowing her true feelings as those defined by hardship
- alludes to low SES position
Canberra Morning 1/5
MATLN
“morning: such long shadows like low bellied cats creep under parked cars”
- ominous opening
- juxtaposing positive connotations associated with morning
Canberra morning 2/5
MATLN
“at the bus stop a flock of starlings”
- zoomorphism of children
- metaphor for children being loud and obnoxious
- observation a symbol of generational disconnect
Canberra morning 3/5
MATLN
“the driver’s got a book by Sartre in his pocket, he wears dark glasses, listens moodily to the top forty”
- symbol of his mysterious nature or desire to escape from current position
- irony of him being originally perceived as intelligent juxtaposed with music taste
Canberra morning 4/5
MATLN
“life gets better as i grow older”
- manipulating perspective to understand others
- external observations provide sense of enlightenment to individual and deeper understanding of self
Canberra morning 5/5
MATLN
“not giving a damn and looking slantwise at everyone’s morning”
- emphasis on introspective nature of composer as observing of individuals to better understanding
- ‘not giving a damn’ use of colloquial language to indicate loss of euphemism and conclusion of her poetry
Dobson contextual ideas
- born in Sydney, heavily influenced by rural surroundings
- later work influenced by motherhood
- wrote experimental poetry post WWII “a heightened sense of awareness of being alive”
- exploration of the need to embrace change instead of rejecting it
Young girl Form and themes
- structure in 3 sestets (stanza with 6 lines)
- regular rhyme scheme and rhythm - evoking ongoing march of time
- Horatian ode: regular structure, using contemplative personal ideas
- conflict
- change
Over the Hill form and themes
- one 18 line structure (uninterrupted) - mimicking the continuation of life
- iambic tetrameter - 8 syllables every one is stressed and mimicking of worker dredging home
- blank verse rhyme adhering to conversational and collective nature
- old age
- hardship
- change
- death
Summer’s end themes form
- numbering to segregate stanzas - inability for individuals to leave behind phase of life
- 2 part structure showing juxtaposition between changes that accompany summer and the inability to accept conclusion of life.
- memory, reminiscent
- happiness
- transition to next stages of life
The conversation form and themes
- rigid structure in four stanzas of sextains - emphasising the wisdom of conversations that are had at older age
- separating each of the stanzas on the man’s perspective, then narrator and then both
- wisdom
- experience
- resilience
Cock Crow form and themes
- iambic tetrameter constraining the protagonist and strengthening her reasoning for not fully being able to move forward
- gender roles
- escape
- freedom
- isolation
- responsibility
- motherhood
Amy Caroline themes and form
- free verse, conversational reflective tone
- motherhood
- kindness
- nature
- simplicity of past lives
Canberra morning themes and form
- observational poetry - commenting on landscape and small events
- observation
- reflection
- understanding/re-evaluating
- contentment
