English Poetry Anthology Flashcards
The Manhunt - context and what can it be compared to?
Written from Laura’s perspective about her husband Eddie Bedoe who was a peacekeeper in Bosnia, was shot once and it richocheted all through his body, could compare with a Wife in London
key quotes in manhunt
- parachute silk of punctured lung
- ‘only then’ and ‘then’ - anaphora
- unexplored mine
- damaged porcelain collar bone
themes of manhunt?
relationships and war
who’s manhunt written by and context?
Simon Armitage, has never been in war, but quite anti war - likes to write from other peoples perspectives
A wife in London - context and what can it be compared to?
written about the second boer war, which was fought in South Africa, no brits in uk or sa knew what they were fighting for, uk gov only cared about diamond reavers so individual families with husbands fighting wouldn’t have been benefitted and wouldn’t have compensation for death. manhunt
a wife in London who was it written by and context on them?
Thomas Hardy - lived through Victorian and Edwardian era and through WW1, famous for novels - far from madding crowd, at end of century started to write poems instead. was not involved in conflict - like Owen sheers. also in third person narration
what could a wife in London also be linked to?
mametz wood - wanted people to see war from people who were affected’s thinking/ perspectives
a wife in London - points and quotes
- iambic tetrameter
- 2 named and numbered parts - the tragedy and the irony
- 5 stanzas
- his hand whom the worm now knows
- penned in highest feather of his hoped return
- in the far south land
- street lamp glimmers cold
who wrote death of a naturalist and context?
Seamus Heaney - Northern Irish poet - used the Irish identity in his poems a lot, experienced ‘The Troubles’ - civil war between British gov and catholic party
death of a naturalist context and comparison?
writes about natural world and memories of growing up in a farm in Northern Ireland, a flax dam - stinky pool that flax rota and softens in. about Seamus Heaney losing some of his innocence. could compare with hawk roosting as they are to do with natural world
Death of a Naturalist structure and quotes?
- free verse and enjambment - flows
- 2 stanzas - 1st is childhood innocence and 2nd is death of innocence
- lots of references to senses and animals: 1- bubbles gargled, huge sods , warm thick slobber 2- bass chorus, gross bellies frogs, blunt heads farting
- innocence - talks about tadpoles and mammy frogs in p1
- discovery - talks about the spawn dragging him in and being chased and told off by frogs
hawk roosting who wrote it and context?
Ted Hughes - more interested in darker parts of nature, was productive in second part of 20th century, lived and grew up in countryside and campaigned for disarmourment of nuclear bombs
Hawk roosting - context and what can it be compared to?
written from point of view of a hawk, animal possessed of its power, hawk could represent the eagle of Nazism, hawk has hubris feeling of power above the gods. could be compared to death of a naturalist
structure and info about quotes of hawk roosting:
- enjambment makes the poem flow ‘c and full stops draw attention to the sentence at the end of the line
- simple and short sentences
- formal, rigid structure shows of how the hawk sees himself (top of the hierarchy)
- lots of words about death
who wrote manhunt?
Simon armitage
Who wrote a wife in London?
Thomas Hardy
Who wrote Death Of A Naturalist?
Seamus Heaney
Who wrote Hawk Roosting?
Ted Hughes
Who wrote Mametz wood
Owen Sheers
Who wrote To Autumn
John Keats
Who wrote excerpt from the prelude?
William Wordsworth
John Keats context (To Autumn)
Only 25 when he died as his family all got tuberculosis and slowly died from it. only wrote poetry for a few years, was mocked due to his class and his cockney accent. not born into wealth, very prolific writer. Interested in natural world and his own experiences
Structure of To Autumn
4 lines of alternate rhyme (ABAB), 3 stanzas with 11 lines each to show the abundance of autumn. structured with rhyme and the progression of autumn. written in iambic pentameter (mainly!). lots of punctuation - commas and dashes to make it flow more
To Autumn context and description
One of the last works of Keats before his death, one of the most famous poems. based on a walk he went on a couple years before his death. The name ‘to autumn’ talks about death as autumn leads to winter the season of death - expresses his mortality. Morning - stanza 1 , afternoon - stanza 2 and evenjng - stanza 3 all represent the passing through and development of autumn
Quotes from to autumn
Stanza 1
‘Season of Mists and mellow fruitfulness’
‘To set budding more, and still more’
‘Fill all fruit with ripeness to the core’
Quotes from to autumn
Stanza 2
‘Thee sitting careless on a granary floor’ (Talking about leaving his work)
‘Drows’d with the fume of poppies’ like a drug
‘Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours’ talking about things coming to an end
Quotes from to autumn
Stanza 3
‘Where are the songs of spring? At where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too’
‘ full grown lambs loud bleat… hedge cricket sing… the red breast whistles’
‘gathering swallows twitter in the skies’
Structure of mametz wood
2 halves - stanzas 1-4 are general, stanzas 5-7 are specific. (3 lines per stanza) full stops show a clear regular structure, whereas the varied length of line breaks up this structure like war breaks up life.
Context of mametz wood
One of the many battles of the battle of the Somme, looks at the experience of war on the people and environment, was in belgium/ france - British soldiers were ambushed and attacked, very bloody
Mametz wood quotes against war
‘The wasted young, turning up under their plough blades’
‘They were told to walk, not to run’
‘Their jaws, those that have them, dropped open’
‘Twenty men buried in one grave’
Mametz wood quotes about machinery and nature taking over
‘All mimicked now in flint’
‘Earth stands sentinel’
‘Boots that outlasted them’
Mametz wood quotes about frailty and bones
‘Chit of a bone, the chins plate of a shoulder blade’
‘Broken birds egg of a skull’
‘Skeletons paused mid dance-macabre’ -acknowledgement of all the people who died in the plague
‘The notes they had sung had only now slipped from their absent tongues’
Excerpt from the prelude context
Is written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), comes from book 1 of 12. compare with death of a naturalist for childhood. is about a young boy supposed to be going home at 6 but is skating on the lake with his friends.
William Wordsworth context
Was from Lake District - wrote about it and made it famous, was referred to as a ‘love poet’ was an early romantic. Begun the prelude at age 28 and worked till his death at age 80. He was a child of nature, valued the feelings and experiences of ordinary people and wanted to write poetry that anyone could appreciate/ relate to, was very successful due to this.
Who wrote dulce et decorum est?
Wilfred Owen
Who wrote dulce et decorum est and context?
Enlisted in the war in October 1915, age 22 - went to Craig Lockhart (a mental asylum) where he met Siegfried Sassoon who helped him improve his poems and tell the truth about his awful war experiences. Killed a week before armistice, died in his prime. Most prolific war poet. Wrote Dulce Et Decorum Est in response to Jessie pope who wrote a poem to help the recruiting effort
What are the 3 sections of dulce et decorum est?
1 - scene before the gas
2- scene during the gas attack
3- aftermath of the gas attack and attacking the saying dulce et decorum est
Quotes from part 1 of dulce et decorum est
‘Like old beggars… coughing like hags,’ dehumanising
‘Men marched asleep… all went lame;all blind;’
‘Deaf to… gas shells dropping behind’
Quotes from part 2 of dulce et decorum est
‘Gas! GAS! Quick, boys’
‘An Ecstasy of fumbling’
‘As under a green sea, I saw him drowning’
‘He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning’
Quotes from part 3 of dulce et decorum est
‘White eyes writhing, his hanging face, (like a devils sock of sin)’
‘Blood come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs’
‘Vile incurable sores on innocent tongues’
‘You would not tell with such high zest /to children/ The old lie : Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori’
Manhunt - delicate/gentle words
‘Handle ans hold’
‘Finger ans thumb’
‘Mind and attend’
‘Foetus of metal beneath his chest’
‘After passionate nights ans intimate days’
Quotes of hawk roosting
- i hold creation in my foot, the earths face for my inspection - very egotistical
- the allotment of death
- is in control -( ‘no arguments assert my right’) and ‘I am going to keep things like this’!
- ‘I kill where I please because it is all mine’
‘My manners are tearing off heads’
Comparison of stanza 1 ans 2 in death of a naturalist
1 ‘Mammy frog laid hundreds of little eggs’
2 ‘Great slime kings’
1 ‘brown in rain’
2 ‘poised like mud grenades’
Structure and description of excerpt from the prelude
Lots of caesuras in the middle of lines - as contrasts, and lots of enjambment to let it flow. 3 parts - 1st is about Wordsworth on his way to skating/ the domestic world, 2nd is about them skating and lots of imagery of animals and 3rd is about the effect of the kids on the environment
Part 1 - eftp quotes
‘And in the frosty season when the sun was set’
‘Happy time/ it was, indeed, for all of us; to me/ it was a time of raptyre’
‘Like an untir’d horse… all shod in steel’
Part 2 - eftp quotes
‘Hiss’d along the polish’d ice’
‘The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare’
‘Not a voice was idle, with the din’
Part 3 - eftp quotes
‘Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud’
‘The distant hills…. sent An alien sound/ of melancholy, not unnoticed’
‘And in the west the orange sky of evening died away’
context on Percy Byssche Shelley
- died from a sailing accident
- was expelled from Cambridge for writing an atheist essay
- was vegetarian and beloved in free love
- Shelley married early, had two kids and then left his wife for another woman called Mary Godwin and then his wife drowned herself
- Shelley then married Mary - to become Mary Shelley
- was a radical ist - involved in revolt and revolutionary
- best friends with Byron and died in 1922 and was born in 1892
What was oxymandius about
The bringing down of power, Greek name of Ramesses II
what is the tone of ozymandius?
- mostly a speech from a traveller
- Shelley is telling a story he’s been told
- Shelley is imagining what the statue looks like
4 examples of comparison of size and grandeur, and depressing and dead words
- vast and trunkless legs
- look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
- round the decay / of that colossal wreck
- boundless and bare
how is ozymandius’ face described?
‘a shattered visage lies, whose frown/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command’
Two ways Ozymandius emphasises time/ lack of anything
‘Nothing beside remains’
‘The lone and level sands stretch far away’
Philip Larkin context
- particular poet who turned his back on modernism, and turned back to traditional poetry
- never married, had kids or left UK but still had a lively sex life
- was only child from a middle class family
- went to Oxford during war as he was v short sighted
- wrote a novel called ‘Jill’ but decided that his friends were better novelists and turned to poetry
- writes about ordinary happenings in life
- was the librarian for the last years of his life in uni of hull
3 ways ozymandius is shown to have power
‘Cold command’
‘King of kings’
‘The hand that mocked them (and the heart that felt)’
example of antithesis in ozymandius
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things
Where does ‘Afternoons’ come from?
Comes from the Whitsun Weddings collection - where unseen observers comment on lives of others. Presents lots of views of working class life, although is normally quite distanced and dispassionate
When was afternoons written and context for this
Britain was building itself up after WW2 - socialist government was brought in and they brought in privatisation and build lots of council houses of which afternoons is based on
structure of Afternoons and reason?
3 stanzas, 8 lines long each, regular line length - this regular structure could show the regular structure of the women’s lives and also its monotony
Use of epistrophe in afternoons
‘Is ruining their courting-places/
That are still courting-places’ also a use of enjambment showing how everything will keep going in a cycle
3 main uses of language in afternoons and their affect
‘Summer is fading:’ is slow and unnoticeable, also the word ‘fading’ dictates the rest of the poem as the afternoons and the love fading
‘Hollows of afternoons’ - have to get through the last part of the afternoon - relatable
‘Something is pushing them/ To the side of their own lives’ - use of soemthing is ambiguous and allows the reader to interpret
Change of love in Afternoons
‘And the albums, lettered/ Our wedding, lying/ Near the television’ showing how TV is more centered in their lives while the albums are discarded
‘Young mothers assemble… Behind them, at intervals, / Stand husbands in skilled trades’ compare as that shows their separation while the first one shows what they were like when they first got married.
‘Their beauty has thickened’
Presentation of children in Afternoons
‘Setting free their children’
‘Their children, so intent on/ finding more unripe acorns,/ Expect to be taken home’
Carol Ann Duffy context
- born 1955 Glasgow
- Scottish poet
- moved to Stratford when she was 7 and was educated there
- catholic
- former poet laureate
Valentine info
Challenges the stereotypical view of a valentines gift
Will deal with the fairly conventional norms of love
From a collection of poems called Meantime (1993)
Extended metaphor - comparing the onion to a lover
Form and structure of valentine
- 1st person
- central conceit/ concept used - the onion
- some single line stanzas
- free verse and irregular stanzas support its content of its strange representation of love
- each stanza starts with a line then a full stop/caesura - which emphasises the line
What phrase is repeated in stanza one and 5 and what’s it called?
Anaphora - I give you an onion
What it stanza two of valentine
‘It is a moon wrapped in brown paper/ It promises light/ like the careful undressing of love’
Represents women and virginity - Artemis was the goddess of the moon, represents something out of reach and longing
First 3 lines of stanza 3 valentine
‘Here. / It will blind you with tears/ like a lover’
Stanzas 4 and 5 valentine
‘I am not trying to be truthful’ - most valentines aren’t truthful because they try to cover up cranks of love
‘Not a cute card or kissogram’ - serenadogram
Stanza 6
‘Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,/ possessive and faithful/ as we are, / for as long as we are’ - epistrophe, love doesn’t always last
How does the smell of the onion metaphor present love
‘Take it.’ Instructive
‘Its scent will cling to your fingers,/ cling to your knife’ - repetition of ‘cling’, onions linger - like love they stay with you, love doesn’t end when the lover leaves - the memories stay and the impact will be permanent and unerasable
What first line of valentine rejects the norms of a valentine
‘Not a red Rose or a Satin heart
Rita dove what poem did she write and context
Cozy Apologia
Born in Ohio in 1952
First African American poet laureate from 1993-95
Married to Fred Viebahn
2nd to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987
Cozy Apologia context
- ‘cozy’ this love is cosy
- first person narrative
- autobiographical
- from American Smooth connection
- ‘defence of the cosy nature of their love’ - defence of ordinary and normal happiness
Structure of cozy apologia
In stanza one - rhyming couplets, in stanza two - memories are hazy so a less orderly rhyme scheme, stanza three - alternate rhyme scheme
3 stanzas - imagination, past, present
Changing from reality to memories to imagination
Cosy apologia stanza 1 quotes
‘I could pick anything and think of you - /This lamp, the wind - still rain, the glossy blue/ My pen exudes’
‘And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart/Astride a dappled mare,(legs braced as far apart/As standing in silver stirrups will allow)’
‘One eye smiling, the other firm upon the enemy’ personification
Cosy apologia stanza 2 quotes
‘Today a hurricane is nudging yo the coast,/Oddly male : Big Bad Floyd’
‘Awkward reminiscences/ Of teenage crushes on worthless boys’
‘They all had sissy names - Marcel, Percy, Dewey;/ Were thin as liquorice and as chewy,/ Sweet with a dark and hollow center’
Cozy apologia stanza 3 quotes
‘Floyd’s cussing up a storm. You’re bunkered in your/Aerie (eagles nest), I’m perched in mine’ imagery of birds
‘We’re content, but fall short of the Divine’
‘Still, it’s embarrassing, this happiness - / (Who’s satisfied simply with what’s good for us, )/When has the ordinary ever been news?’
‘To keep me from melancholy (call it blues)/ I fill this stolen time with you’
Context on Byron
George Gordon Byron
One of the late Romantics (more focused on politics and revolution)
Shelley and Byron were very close (came from wealthy backgrounds)
Initial poems were less well received, but became famous overnight from one poem
Had a limp which disadvantaged him at school
Women liked him - was known for ‘wild private life’ - had a massive affair with Lady Caroline Lamb and had to leave England due to rumour of an affair with his half sister
Became involved in the movement for Greek independence- very highly regarded in Greece
Least stereotypically romantic (less nature poetry and more heavily structured)
Context on she walks in beauty
Completely starstruck - love at first sight
Shows deep feelings of romantics
Wrote about when he met his cousins wife (Anne Beatrix Wilmot) who was mourning and met at a party - was struck by her dark features and beautiful dress and unusual beauty - she was dressed in a sparkly black dress
Structure of she walks in beauty
Alternating rhyme scheme
Written in iambic tetrameter
3 stanzas each 6 lines long
Stanza one quotes of she walks in beauty
‘She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies’
‘And all that’s best if dark and bright/ Meet in her aspect and her eyes’
‘This mellowed to that tender light/ Which Heaven to gaudy day denies’
Stanza two quotes of she walks in beauty
‘One shade the more, one ray the less/ Had half impaired the nameless Grace/ Which waves in every raven tress’
‘Or softly lightens o’er her face/ Where thoughts serenely sweet express’
Stanza three quotes of she walks in beauty
‘So soft, so calm, yet eloquent/ The smiles that win, the tints that glow’
‘But tell of days in goodness spent/ A mind at peace with all below/ A heart whose love is innocent!’
William Blake context
- one of the Romantic poets
- the outlier of the early romantics - very different from rest of them
- very original and unique voice
- had a very radical and unconventional view of world and religion
- Londoner by birth, cockney, always lived in London
- was an artist - published his poems in hand made hand painted books/ was a printer
- simple structure - rhyme scheme but harsh and difficult themes
- didn’t like reason, logic or law and preferred imagination
London context
- Blake related to John Jack Russo - was a philosopher who persuaded people to treat and raise children well
- talking about a controlled and constrained society
- first appeared in ‘songs of experience’ in comparison to ‘songs of innocence’
- written in ballad form
London stanza 1
‘I wander thro each charter’d street/ Near where the charter’d Thames does flow;/ And mark in every face I meet/ Marks of weakness, marks if woe’
Structure of London and what does it represent
Alternate rhyme scheme
4 stanzas, 4 lines each, 4 iambs as is written in iambic tetrameter, similar line length - corroding the regularity of society, used this as a comparison to the horror of the poem and also similar to structure of children’s poems
London stanza two
‘In every cry of every Man/ In every Infant’s cry of fear, /In every voice, in every ban, / The mind forged manacles I hear’ - Anaphora, manacles - you are manacleing yourself by adhering
London stanza 3
‘How the Chimney- sweeper’s cry/ Every black’Ning Church appalls;/ and the hapless Soldier’s sigh/ Runs in blood down palace walls’ - chimney sweepers links to children back then in 1800s who were treated badly and many died as chimney sweepers - didn’t like church either as they didn’t help poor . Sighs in blood - attacking aristocracy
London stanza 4
‘But most thro’ midnight streets I hear/ How the youthful Harlot’s curse/ Blasts the new born Infant’s tear/ And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse’
Harlots curse is syphilis - children with Syphilis are unable to see
Marriage hearse - antithesis - men would sleep with prostitutes and then pass it on to their wives and they would all die
Rupert Brooke context
- Died during war but didn’t fight in it (age 28)
- At start of war, people were very excited to sign up for war and defend England - he had very romantic ideas about war
- A part of an aristocratic family - found war as a redemption - sense of a noble sacrifice (was religious and VERY patriotic)
- Both Sassoon and Owen started with similar view to Brooke and many people thought he’d have similar views at the end if he’d fought in it
- Did training, went to Italy, got bitten by a mosquito got sepsis and infected and then died before he got chance to fight
The soldier context
Sonnet
England is talked about as a place of live
Both Petrarchan and Shakespearean elements
Could contrast with Shakespearean octave
Themes of love, pride, lack of vivid realistic detail of war, extreme patriotism, idealised imagery, England is a force of good
Compare with dulce et decorum est
6 mentions of ‘England’
The soldier context
About love
Halfway between Shakespearean and pretrarchen sonnet
England is talked about as a place of love
Themes of love, optimism
Part 1/ octet of the soldier
‘If I should die, think only this of me:/ That there’s some corner of a foreign field/ That is for ever England’
‘A body of England’s, breathing English air, / Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home’
Talking about his body - more physical
Part 2 sestet - talking about metaphysical and religion
‘And think, this heart, all evil shed away,/ A pulse in the eternal mind’
‘Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day’
‘And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,/ In hearts at peace, under an English heaven’
What did Imtiaz Dharker write and context on her
Born in 1954
Born in Pakistan and brought up in Scotland
5 collections of poetry
Often deals with themes of identity, role of women in (contemporary) society, search of meaning
Draws on her multicultural experience
Also a film director and has scripted documentaries in India to help women and children
Intimate knowledge of Mumbai in poem
Works to raise awareness of issues in other countries
Divides time between Wales, London and Mumbai
What did Imtiaz Dharker write and context on her poem
Living space -
Themes of fragility, faith and boldness
Comparison of short, sharp sentences in stanza 1 and then stanzas 2 and 3 are all one sentence
Has religious qualities (have to have faith in something to live there)
Ramshackle living space with its lack of ‘straight lines’ and beams ‘balanced crookedly on support’
Why should living space be compared to cozy apologia
Similarities:
Both describe a precarious contentment
Use a conversational style that includes the reader
Both refer to faith
Describe an immediate experience
Difference
Living space uses a distant voice while cozy apologia is in first person narrative
Dharker uses mainly short, irregular lines, while Dove uses longer similar length lines
Living space stanza 1 quotes
‘There are just not enough/ straight lines. That/ is the problem.’caesuras show the instability of the poem
‘Beams/ balance crookedly on supports’ enjambment emphasises the words beams and balance and provides a comparison. ALSO the word crooked may refer to corruption in the world/class system
‘Nails clutch at open seams,/The whole structure leans dangerously /towards the miraculous’ seams and leans rhyme acts as a way of holding the poem together. MIRACULOUS quality links to faith and also presents optimism of people living there. ‘Nails clutch’ use of personification and means they want to hold the structure together, perhaps showing desperation of the people
Living space stanza 2 quotes
‘Into the rough frame, / someone has squeezed / a living space,’ squeezed is literal as the stanza is squeezed into the small space between stanza 1 and 3
Living space stanza 3 quotes
‘ and even dared to place/ these eggs in a wire basket’ - act of faith, like the buildings are miracles. Also the use of eggs are a metaphor for the people living their ‘hung over the dark edge’
‘Slanted universe’ and ‘balance crookedly’ and ‘lean’ these words all represent/ emphasises the instability of the living space
‘Bright thin walls of faith’ contrasting words show the different aspects of faith - as it is hopeful but also easily broken
Elizabeth Barrett browning poet
1806-1861 Early Victorian poet
Not only known for poetry but also for her life story:
Lived with manipulative father, and due to suffering from illness she was imprisoned in the house and lead a lonely, unhappy and empty life
Robert a browning was an admirer of her poetry and came to visit her when they fell in love and she had to run away from her father
Moved to Italy for health and wrote most of sonnets there
Sonnets from the Portuguese - she pretended they were translations of other people’s poems when they were her own - as it was untold at the time to write about such passionate feelings if love
Was intensely in love with browning and got married to him age 40
Brought up as very religious and lost her faith but still refers to it sometimes
Sonnet 43 info
Normally a love poem
14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, strict rhyme scheme
Petrarchan sonnet - rhyming scheme of ABBA ABBA - octet AND CDC ECE - sestet
First 3 lines of sonnet 43
‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’ - hyperphora - when you ask a question and answer it yourself
‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight,’ Polysyndetic listing, semantic field (relating to a similar theme)
