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: Poem at Thirty-Nine Do not go gentle into that good night, Piano.
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: Blessing, Hide and Seek + War Photographer.
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, Hide and Seek + Search For My Tongue.
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: Blessing, Half-caste + If-.
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: Piano, Hide and Seek + Prayer Before Birth.
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 Half-past Two, Hide and Seek + Prayer Before Birth.
Hide and Seek, Vernon Scannell
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Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds, William Shakespeare
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La Belle Dame sans Merci, John Keats
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Poem at Thirty-Nine, Alice Walker
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War Photographer, Carol Ann Duffy
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The Tyger, William Blake
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My Last Duchess, Ferrara, Robert Browning
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Half-caste, John Agard
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Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas
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