Love Poetry: Summaries

Question 1

What are the Key ideas about love in Who so List to Hount?

Answer 1

Love is an external force. Unrequited love. Exhaustion, frustration as a result of love. Frustrated masculine lust, rules in conflict with desire, the chase, pursuit, power. Irresistible force of love, duality of love, unattainable love.

Question 2

What poems do you find synecdoche in?

Answer 2

She Walks in Beauty - heart
The Scrutiny - hair

Question 3

What is synecdoche?

Answer 3

Using one part of the body to represent the whole person.

Question 4

What poems are seduction poems?

Answer 4

The Flea, To His Coy Mistress

Question 5

What is the significance of the title of Nom Sun…?

Answer 5

References the face of queen Cynara by Horace - links to being changed through the affect of an external agent, symbolises an attachment to a former lover.

Question 6

What is a lyric poem? What are some examples from the anthology?

Answer 6

A short musical verse that conveys powerful emotions.

She walks in beauty.

Question 7

What does the Latin in Who So List to Hount translate to?

Answer 7

‘Touch me not’ - reference to Mary Magdalene, cultural significance, link between human beings and Jesus’ person must no longer be physical, but a bond of heart to heart.

Question 8

If a poem was written in 1910 what literary movement would you expect it to reflect?

Answer 8

Modernist movement.

Question 9

What images are dominant in At an Inn?

Answer 9

The fly
Warmth/Cold
Light
Distance/Pain

Question 10

How many lines are there in a Sonnet?

Answer 10

14

Question 11

Define Romanticism

Answer 11

Literary movement focused on the individual and beauty. Features - heightened emotion, strong natural imagery, influenced by politics of French Revolution.

Question 12

Features of a ballad:

Answer 12

Quatrain form
Narrative poetry
Refrain/ choroid verses

Question 13

Who wrote the poem which directly influenced Whoso List to Hount?

Answer 13

Petrarch - Sonnet 190

Question 14

Which big events in the 17th Century contributed forwards the Metaphysical poets’ tendency to question social hierarchy/religion?

Answer 14

Exploration - Colonialism
The English Civil war

Question 15

Name features of Cavalier poetry:

Answer 15

War, sexuality, debauchery, selfishness, male entitlement.

Question 16

Which literary movement did Dowson belong to? Name the key features of this movement.

Answer 16

Decadents - Indulgence, amorality, provocation, ennui, French poetic form,

Question 17

What is the difference between a Petrarchan sonnet and a Shakespearean sonnet?

Answer 17

Shakespearean sonnet send in a rhyming couplet, and Volta shifts. Quartrain form.

Petrarchan sonnet has Volta between 8/9 line. Includes Octet and Sestet.

Question 18

What is a blazon?

Answer 18

A list of physical attributes, typical of courtly love.

Question 19

What features of the Pre-Raphaelite movement can be seen in Remember?

Answer 19

Natural imagery, simplicity, devotion to detail, altered states of consciousness, personal messages rather than social ones.

Question 20

Which techniques in Nom Sum best demonstrate the poems Decadent context?

Answer 20

Latin title - connection with Classical Literature, Alexandrian verse form.

Question 21

Which text is the latest chronologically of the poems written for a male courtly audience?

Answer 21

Absent from thee

Question 22

Which poems are written for a male courtly audience?

Answer 22

Whoso List to Hount
Absent from thee
The scrutiny

Question 23

What are the features of Victorian realism?

Answer 23

Bleak, voices and dialects, reflecting real life, mundane imagery, double standards, typical gender roles.

Question 24

Which text in the anthology is most influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution?

Answer 24

Garden of love - Romantic text

Question 25

What is a conceit?

Answer 25

An extended metaphor, idea, or image.

Question 26

Which poems in the anthology are thespian in their nature?

Answer 26

The flea, To His Coy Mistress - typical of the metaphysical context.

Question 27

What is Sonnet 116 about?

Answer 27

Pure, confident expression of the power of love. Description of true love. Abstract poem. Rejection of the fickle mindset of the courtly lover.

Question 28

What are the main techniques in Sonnet 116?

Answer 28

Celestial imagery - just as the galaxies are unquantifiable so too is love.
Repetition, constancy of Lang, Rhyming couplets - sense of balance and equality.
Images increase physically, grandiose scale- Reflects cumulative argument.

Question 29

What does blood represent in The Flea?

Answer 29

Obvious metonymic symbol of life, before circulatory system was understood the soul/spirit was believed to move blood around the body, thus blood contains the spirit of its owner.

Question 30

What is The flea symbolic of in Donne‘s poem?

Answer 30

It’s small insignificance contrasts with the taboo status of sex in society. Point made that sex shouldn’t be this. Also a tool for the humorous exploration of Ovid‘s Carpe Diem argument.

Question 31

What did The Flea attempt to challenge?

Answer 31

Courtly Love and the idea that Love and sex are the same.

Question 32

What number is repeated in the Flea?

Answer 32

Three - 3 stanzas, 9 lines.
Triad = number of the whole, contains beginning, middle, and end. 3 represents the speaker, the flea, and the lover.

Question 33

What are the key images in To His Coy Mistress?

Answer 33

Natural images coupled with scientific images - Iconoclastic, metaphysical tropes.

Question 34

What is the significance of the final couplet in To His Coy Mistress?

Answer 34

Represents an orgasmic ending, power lies within them winning an ongoing battle with time, use of plural adjectives shows speakers success, he has argued her into position.