LIT2 - Poetry - The Emigrée Flashcards
Who wrote Emigrée? Give some context about the poem:
-Carol Rumens
-usually writes about foreign cultures
-a universal poem that describes an emigrant who was displaced from an unnamed country, and recounts her memories of it
Give 5 quotes from The Emigrée:
-my memory of it is sunlight-clear for it seems I never saw it in that November
-my original view, the bright, filled paperweight
-time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us
-It may by now be a lie, banned by the state but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight
-My city hides behind me. They mutter death, and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.
my memory of it is sunlight-clear for it seems I never saw it in that November
-lexical field of light is repeated throughout poem, showing how her romanticised memories of her city overpower the opposing negativity
-she had never seen it in “November”, a month that lacks in light, associating with negativity - portrays her as naive since she blocks the implied darkness of her city
my original view, the bright, filled paperweight
-metaphor to describe her innocent view of the city that blocks out the gloominess that surrounds it by being contained in a paperweight
-lexical field of light, showing how she is almost blinded by her original view of the city, and is unwilling to move or change, akin to the metaphor of the paperweight
time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us
-semantic field of war conveys the idea that time is seen as the enemy of the speaker - as she ages, time challenges her childish views of the city
-noun “frontiers” used to metaphorically separate her adult self from her naive views of her city
-plosive t’s used to create a sinister tone, showing how her views are so different to the reality
It may by now be a lie, banned by the state but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight
-uncertain “it may” reinforces the innocent state of mind, as she is still not ready to admit the negative aspects of her city
-conflicting opinions are shown here with conjunction “but”, between her mature and naive views
-sensory language of taste combined with lexical field of light used to blend all the positive aspects of it all in an extremely vivid manner
My city hides behind me. They mutter death, and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.
-darkness of the current city contrasts with the previous “white streets” of her old city
-final sentence gives a utopian impression of her city, as she concludes by reinforcing the idea that her previous city was a good place
-speaker is portrayed as powerful, ending the poem on a positive note despite the conflict between her and the current city
Explain the use of structure in The Emigrée:
-enjambment and caesura reinforces the chaos in her former city, but tries to impose order through regular stanzas
-present tense used to describe current situation and past tense for her childhood experience, but occasionally uses present tense to show how her views still live on in memory (eg “my memory of it is sunlight-clear…it tastes of sunlight”)
-“sunlight” emphatically positioned at the end of each stanza, repeatedly referencing her previous memories
