Exam: Poetry Flashcards
Quotes for ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
use mnemonic TNL
T-ake it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring
If you like.
N-ot a red rose or a satin heart
I give you an onion
L-ethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
Cling to you knife
Facts about ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
The poem is written in FREE VERSE. Each stanza is very short, and several are only one line long. This form echoes the FORM OF AN ONION itself, and the layers that go to make it up. There is a sense in which Valentine is within the tradition of list poems, as the speaker tells you what the onion is, and then what it is like.
The poem is a first person narrative, in the form of a DIRECT ADDRESS.
The language of the poem is quite simple and straight-forward, particularly in the clear sentence structures that are often repeated. This reflects the idea of it being an HONEST love.
There is a sense that love can be DANGEROUS, perhaps in its possessiveness.
Although there is no rhyme in the poem, there are some places where repeated structures mean that words are repeated, ECHOING each other. This represents both their ongoing love and the layers of the onion.
Unsettling TONE created by the violent imagery
Facts about Carol Ann Duffy
- Carol Ann Duffy (born 1955) is a Scottish poet, and is currently the UK’s first female (and first Scottish) Poet Laureate.
- Her poetry has been the subject of controversy. She follows in the poetic tradition of, for example, Robert Browning, in writing MONOLOGUES from the point of view of disturbed characters.
Coventry Patmore, Angel in the House quote
‘She leans and weeps against his breast, And seems to think the sin was hers’
John Donne ‘The Flea’ facts about form
Form
This poem alternates metrically between lines in IAMBIC TETRAMETER and lines in IAMBIC PENTAMETER, a 4-5 stress pattern ending with two pentameter lines at the end of each stanza. Thus, the stress pattern in each of the nine-line stanzas is 454545455. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is similarly regular, in couplets, with the final line rhyming with the final couplet: AABBCCDDD.
John Donne’s ‘The Flea’ facts
- -This poem is the cleverest of a long line of sixteenth-century love poems using the flea as an erotic image, a genre derived from an older poem of Ovid.
- -an example of metaphysical poetry
- -each stanza a new argument, triangulated
Facts about metaphysical poetry
prompts: C R I P
W
I
Q
Conceits/ Religion/ Irony/ Paradoxes
Wit/ Imagery/ Questions
- It’s extremely intelligent and witty. It is deeply religious but is also sure to be ironic and cynical.
- The poems classified in this group do share common characteristics: they are all highly intellectualized, use rather strange imagery, use frequent paradox and extremely complicated thought
- The word ‘meta’ means ‘after,’ so the literal translation of ‘metaphysical’ is ‘after the physical.’ Basically, metaphysics deals with questions that can’t be explained by science. It questions the nature of reality in a philosophical way.
- they liked to compare strange things, such as lovers to a compass or the soul to a drop of dew. These weird comparisons were called conceits.
John Donne facts
- he lived from 1572-1631
- He is considered the founder of metaphysical poetry and master of the metaphysical conceit.
- Donne was not only a poet but a lawyer, priest and satirist.
- Donne was born and raised a Roman Catholic when it was illegal to be Catholic in England. He lost many relatives to martyrdom - they were either exiled or executed.
John Donne ‘The Flea’ quotes
–It sucked….
–Oh stay,….
‘It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;’
‘Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;’
‘Annus Mirabilis’ by Philip Larkin facts
- -Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase that means wonderful year, “year of wonders” or “year of miracles”. This term was originally used to refer to the year 1666 (see below), and today is used to refer to several years during which events of major importance are remembered.
- -shows the full intensity of Larkin’s regret for not leading a fuller life and joining the sexual revolution too late.
- -picks on 1963 as the year when sex was invented in Britain.
‘Annus Mirabilis’ by Philip Larkin quote
'Up to then there'd only been A sort of bargaining, A wrangle for the ring, A shame that started a sixteen And spread to everything'
- -marriage used to be a negotiation
- -sex was dirty and could taint your reputation
‘Narcissus’ by Henrietta F. Valle quote
‘He….’
‘He viewed reflected in the glassy stream,
His own fair image on its surface play,
And fancied t’was the idol of his dream,
That oft in youth had led his thoughts astray?
‘This Be the Verse’ by Philip Larkin quote
‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do
(family love)
‘This Be the Verse’ by Philip Larkin info
- -ABAB rhyme scheme
- -each line 8 syllables, resounding iambs, mostly iambic tetrameter?
