Hour Flashcards
What are the main themes of ‘Hour’?
Love vs Time
Traditional vs natural love
Romantic relationships
What kind of imagery does Duffy use to present the couple’s time together?
Imagery of wealth.
E.g. ‘bright as a dropped coin’
What statement does Duffy make in the ending couplet?
No matter what, love will find a way: ‘love spins gold, gold, gold from straw’.
What does ‘love spins gold, gold, gold from straw’ link to?
It is fairytale imagery, linking to the story of Rumplestiltskin. This emphasises that love is special and ‘magical’.
What technique does Duffy use to make time seem powerful?
Personification.
E.g. ‘Love’s Time’s beggar’.
What is unusual about Duffy’s use of the Shakespearean sonnet?
Duffy doesn’t use iambic pentameter.
The structure of the poem goes against tradition, just as the couple go against traditional love.
What structural technique is used in the following, and what is the effect?
‘are millionaires, backhanding the night
so nothing dark will end our shining hour’
Enjambment.
Duffy splits the sentence and causes a pause, just as the couple are attempting to delay nighttime from coming.
What structural technique is used in the following line, and what is the effect?
‘than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor’
Caesuras.
The caesuras cause the reader to stop and pause, just as the couple are trying to pause time. The use of the short sentence, ‘now’, reflects the shortness of the couple’s time together, and the fact that they are only focussing on the present.
What does Duffy juxtapose to show the contrast between traditional and romantic love?
Imagery of richness contrasted with nature imagery.
E.g. ‘no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit’
What type of poem is ‘Hour’?
A Shakespearean sonnet.
14 lines, with a rhyming couplet at the end.
