Lammas Hireling

Question 1

what was Lammas

Answer 1

• referring to Lammastide
• harvest season/festival
• intended time of celebration but goes wrong for this farmer

Question 2

Lammas Hireling structure

Answer 2

• Dramatic monologue
• intimacy of this form shows the farmer has guilt as he is confiding in a Priest
• revealed at the end

Question 3

Lammas Hireling setting

Answer 3

• revealed at the end
• spend ‘my days here’
• in the Catholic Church
• emphasises guilt

Question 4

circularity

Answer 4

• at the end he begins to confess again
• implying he will start the poem/story again
• emphasising the weight of his guilt

Question 5

dream

Answer 5

• dreaming of dead wife; sinister act, foreshadowing the fear of the mystical
• last stanza he can’t dream anymore ‘I don’t dream’
• emphasising guilt/sin

Question 6

Gothic/light

Answer 6

• begins with ‘light heart’
• then turns to ‘night’, moon comes out
• going to find the boy, he carries a ‘dark lantern’ while the moon gives ‘its yellow witness’
• alludes to Gothic element of the moon being witness to bad deeds
• becoming darker implies he is doing something wrong/he is guilty