Drear-Nighted December

Question 1

‘In drear nighted December Too happy, happy tree
Thy Branches ne’er remember Their green felicity—’

Answer 1

• wistful apostrophe to leafless tree
• December month of longest night
• epizeuxis of happy - contrasts speakers own feelings
• winter ancient symbol of death

Question 2

‘The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them Nor frozen thawings glew them From budding at the prime—’

Answer 2

• poem’s rhyme changes and with it the tone of the poem
• ^^ explored forgetfulness but now explores all things that can’t happen to trees
• ^^ speaker envies saddening yet defiant power of trees - grief/loss affects humans far more even after
• Uncharacteristically as Romantic doesn’t find comfort in nature - tree personified to envy, not relate to

Question 3

‘In drear nighted December Too happy happy Brook
Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s Summer look
But with a sweet forgetting They stay their crystal fretting Never never petting
About the frozen time—’

Answer 3

• repetition of earlier stanza suggests similar envy towards brook
• Apollo God of sun BUT ALSO poetry, prophecy and medicine - allusion that one may lack healing and inspiration when their mind is in an EMOTIONAL winter
• lightness of language ‘petting’ (19th century for fussing teenager) shows how dreary December doesn’t impact brook

Question 4

‘Ah! would ‘twere so with many A gentle girl and boy—
But were there ever any Writh’d not of passed joy:’

Answer 4

• third stanza not same as repetition of opening of first and second - starts with sigh - alludes to different point being made
• idea that pain isn’t the same for humans as it is nature
• ‘gentle girl and boy’ echoes Shakespeare’s Cymbeline (‘Golden lads and girls’) sang by graveside
• ^^ idea we will only gain nature’s equanimity through death
• idea simply being alive and things changing creates suffering (if you have memory) - ‘passed’ joy not lost

Question 5

‘The feel of not to feel it When there is none to heal it Nor numbed sense to steel it Was never said in rhyme—’

Answer 5

• poem reaches final triplet
• now ‘it’ not ‘them’ - it refers to many things: passed joy, pain of loss and the speaker’s heart/soul &laquo_space;ANTANACLASIS
• ^^ shows overwhelming pain - can’t get to grips
• unlike nature, people can get frozen in place by grief - feelings not as reliable as nature
• ‘rhyme’ rhyming with ‘prime’ and ‘time’ - also ironic as he has said it in rhyme - ending on hopeless note

Question 6

Form

Answer 6

• each 8 lines of stanza written in iambic trimeter - copious feminine endings e.g a GENtle GIRL and BOY’ make even brief lines sad
• combined with echoing repetitions, form makes poem sound like universal tale of grief (sing-songy ABAB)

Question 7

When written

Answer 7

1817 - BROTHER HAD NOT DIED YET NOR DID KEATS HAVE TB