English Literature Poem Anthologies Flashcards
If-, Rudyard Kipling
Themes: advice, relationships (parents) + masculinity, What’s it saying: giving vision of perfection, perfection is extremely hard thing to achieve, but we should all try, Key structural features: 1 sentence poem, repetition of ‘if’ at beginning at every stanza, there is almost always contrast, Key language features: direct address, conditionality and relatively conversational and Poem/(s) to compare with: Do not go gentle into that good night + Prayer Before Birth.
Prayer Before Birth, Louis MacNeice
Themes: religion, life + defiance, What’s it saying: life is full of sins + bad things are inevitable to happen, but you should still try as long as you can to avoid them, Key structural features: every stanza except last one starts with ‘I am not yet born’, stanza slide from left to right, poem is in free verse, so there’s no meter + there is always prayer after ‘I am not yet born’, Key language features: semantic field of sin, vivid, natural + religious imagery + repetition of harsh sounds + Poem/(s) to compare with: The Tyger + Do not go gentle into that good night.
Blessing, Imtiaz Dharker
Themes: inequality, hope + weakness, What’s it saying: life is unfair, God chooses who will survive + life is chaotic, Key structural features: enjambment throughout most of poem, asyndetic list + caesuras for emphasis, Key language features: onomatopoeia, sibilance + sensory imagery + Poem/(s) to compare with: Prayer Before Birth + War Photographer.
Search For My Tongue, Sujata Bhatt
Themes: identity (+ culture), nature + beauty, What’s it saying: your identity + culture is very important in your life for your strength + vitality, we should all strive to find our own identities + you should always try throughout life to stick to your identity, Key structural features: one stanza is in Gujarati, opening introduces double meaning, which is reinforced throughout poem + last stanza is translation of second, Key language features: second stanza is transliteration, direct address + euphemisms + Poem/(s) to compare with: Half-caste + Half-past Two.
Half-past Two, U A Fanthorpe
Themes: childhood, imagination + reality, What’s it saying: childhood is adventure, time is challenging for young children to understand + children take everything very seriously, Key structural features: infantile + parental voice, fairytale like + enjambment + caesuras create sense of movement, Key language features: lot of sensory imagery, vernacular of childhood + anaphora + Poem/(s) to compare with: Hide and Seek + Piano.
Piano, D H Lawrence
Themes: memory, family + childhood, What’s it saying: childhood is best time of your life, so embrace it while you can, childhood is very safe time + world is very harsh + unforgiving, Key structural features: poem flows + is very elegant, rhyme scheme is AABB + themes go from happiness to futility, Key language features: sibilance at start of 1st + 2nd stanza, infantilisation + strong emotional imagery + Poem/(s) to compare with: La Belle Dame sans Merci + Poem at Thirty-Nine.
Hide and Seek, Vernon Scannell
Themes: hope, desperation + isolation, What’s it saying: learning that world can be cruel, not only this, but children can also be very mean, Key structural features: repeated use of imperatives, dramatic irony + repeated use of sensory imagery, Key language features: written in second person, sibilance + animalistic language + Poem/(s) to compare with: Half-past Two.
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds, William Shakespeare
Themes: love, time + permanence, What’s it saying: love is eternal + unchanging throughout time, love is priceless + time is insignificant, Key structural features: volta, sustained alternate rhyme scheme throughout poem + written in iambic pentameter, Key language features: personification, bright imagery + emphatic imagery + Poem/(s) to compare with: Remember.
La Belle Dame sans Merci, John Keats
Themes: infatuation, obsession + reality, What’s it saying: women are dangerous as they’re very seductive + powerful, Key structural features: semantic field of archaic imagery runs through poem, repetition + rhyme scheme in lines 2 + 4 of every stanza, Key language features: metaphors, euphemisms + imagery of sickness + Poem/(s) to compare with: My Last Duchess, Ferrara + Piano.
Poem at Thirty-Nine, Alice Walker
Themes: connection, regret + gratitude, What’s it saying: always be grateful for what other people do for you + be brave + have self-confidence, Key structural features: enjambment, varied sentence structures + repetition of using conditional tense, Key language features: double meanings, diacope + juxtaposition + Poem/(s) to compare with: If- + Piano.
War Photographer, Carol Ann Duffy
Themes: suffering, trauma + inequality, What’s it saying: people don’t care what war photographers have to mentally go through + what pain + trauma it causes them forever + narrator thinks that it’s his duty to do his job, Key structural features: written in iambic pentameter, repetition of use of harsh sounds + enjambment, Key language features: semantic field of photography, pain + conflict, metaphors + juxtaposition + Poem/(s) to compare with: Hide and Seek.
The Tyger, William Blake
Themes: religion, fear + humanity, What’s it saying: questions evils in world, why God let them exist + how he created very different things, Key structural features: coupled rhyme scheme, changing meter + rhetorical questions throughout poem, Key language features: double meanings, direct address + harsh sounds + Poem/(s) to compare with: Prayer Before Birth.
My Last Duchess, Ferrara, Robert Browning
Themes: arrogance, performance + control, What’s it saying: duke has had many wives, he thinks that his last one was very attracted to other men + wasn’t loyal to him + that she was very attractive, Key structural features: sustained coupled rhyme scheme, written in iambic pentameter + it’s only one stanza long as it’s monologue, Key language features: sense of looking, euphemisms + use of parenthesis + Poem/(s) to compare with: La Belle Dame sans Merci + Sonnet 116.
Half-caste, John Agard
Themes: identity, racism + justice, What’s it saying: people should not judge other people + you should always think of other people + their feelings, Key structural features: very little punctuation throughout poem, no end stop in whole poem + he disarms reader at start of poem, Key language features: intrinsically links everything to identity, vernacular of Caribbean language + rhetorical questions + Poem/(s) to compare with: Search for My Tongue.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas
Themes: strength, determination + futility, What’s it saying: even though death is inevitable, fight it with everything you have + never give up fighting, Key structural features: written as villanelle, last two sentences of poem are end-stopped + tone becomes more desperate + pleading as you read poem, Key language features: metaphors, religious + light imagery + sense of futility + Poem/(s) to compare with: Remember + If-.
Remember, Christina Rossetti
Themes: futility, dominance + death, What’s it saying: she just wants her dead husband to forget her completely just so that he can be happy, Key structural features: sonnet, volta + tone of narrator goes from commanding to imploring, Key language features: imperatives, metaphor + sense of futility + Poem/(s) to compare with: Do not go gentle into that good night + Sonnet 116.
