On This Day I Complete My 36th Year Flashcards
What is the context for this poem
-about 36th birthday + written 1824 3 months before died
-allusion to immanent death — can feel death is near
-wants die honourable death on battlefield of Greek war independence from ottoman empire 1821-32
-reflections on life + mortality
-reflecting on absence love in life + how yearns for it now
What is the metre + rhyme scheme of this poem
-ABAB rhyme scheme with slant/half rhymes every stanza — slow decay Byron as anticipates death + cyclical/repetitive B always feel this way
-has elegiac tone as if preempting own funeral
-iambic tetrameter first 3 lines every stanza — has sounds of heartbeat
-followed by one line iambic dimeter — shift in meter suggests end of heartbeat alluding to Byron’s imminent death
‘My days are in the yellow leaf’
-natural imagery — feels he is aging + turning into a withering tree
-metaphor — of his middle age being in autumnal months which symbolises aging, decay + death
-was born in January coldest month of year which adds morbid feeling to poem
-anaphoric repetition ‘f’ feels cold + chilling further hinting at Byron’s imminent death
‘The worm — the canker, and the grief’
-worm — links to ground where he will be buried
-canker — dark images of death + diseases that might kill him
-grief — sadness he feels on birthday due to his age + nearing death
-getting older + time to fall in love has passed — decay + pain all that’s left for him now but realises he still has life left to love + wants to die an honourable death
-realises what remembered by is notorious affairs + hedonistic life so wants to render this
What is the tone of stanza 3
-melancholic + sorrowful
-extended metaphor of heat + fire
-metaphor connotes hell, sin + death insinuating his past full of sin + future a path to his death
-spark of life is slowing dwindling inside him
-a funeral pile — where dead bodies put to burn + hints that in some ways he is ready to die
‘The hope, the fear, the jealous care,// the exalted portion of the pain’
-asyndetic listing — of complexities of love
-equal parts pain + pleasure in love — love brings jealousy, hope + fear
-in iambic tetrameter - like heartbeat — heat beating fast out of fear + excitement to be in love but shift iambic dimeter last line highlights how this gone + nearing death where heartbeat stops
‘But wear the chain’
-iambic dimeter — abrupt, catalectic end like life itself but ironically his life didn’t have abrupt end as slowly died from a fever
-used to relish in beauties + wonderfulness of love + life
-but this gone with age — now hangs around his neck like a chain weighing him down
-he wants this to end
‘The sword, the banner, and the field’
-asyndetic list + semantic field of war
-imagery of battlefield + warriors
-more positive stanza acts as Volta as knows he has more life to live but unsure how to live it
-moving towards new idea heroism + glory — away from morbidity of last stanza
-an allusion to on Spartan ritual — wounded warrior in battle honourably carried off battlefield + speaker saying want this death of honour to be remembered aside from hedonistic life
‘Glory and Greece around us see!’
-alliteration — his excitement + feeling of honour to be asked to fight in this battles
-emph by exclamative
-the Greek war of independence against Ottoman Empire for freedom
-Br’s involvement beneficial to Greece as Byron fame brought attention to it + sympathy for fighters
-Byron invested large amounts own fortunes to fund maintenance of Greek warships + launched own fighting unit
‘The Spartan borne upon his shield’
-imagery of war, patriotism + enthusiasm
-giving himself self importance
‘Awake (nit Greece — she is awake!)// Awake my spirit !’
-anaphoric repetition — realisation of world he lives in + the places he is
-persona shows his desire to awaken his spirit to its native land — his ‘parent lake’
-poem closely connected to Byron’s time in Greek war — perhaps desire to return to England away from the war
-but in England reputation discredited + soured by scandal + disgrace — trying to reason with himself to stay in Greece + die death of honour in war
-Greece personified with feminine qualities — highlights beauty + gentle nature that should be protected + independent instead of stuck in cycle of oppression
‘Tread those reviving passions down // Unworthy Manhood’
-links to extended metaphor of fire — using fire to replace lost passions with age
-could be inability to love intimately — aging affects this ability + so sees no reason to love as he cant lead this hedonistic, Byronic hero lifestyle with no notorious affairs + flings
-willing move towards new maturity + give up past life
-realisation of getting older + loss of what it was to be young
‘If thou regret’st thy youth, why live?’
-rhetorical question — speaker struggling either life as gets older
-perhaps alluding to fact he regrets his youth + hedonistic lifestyle he lived being ‘mad, bad + dangerous to know’
-italics — draw attention to fact he doesn’t want to live anymore
-caesura — pausing think about how wants be remembered + coming terms with fact death imminent + so wants to change how he will die
-wants die honourable death in battle + not shameful death of drug overdose etc.
-sense want die honourable emph ‘the land of honourable death’
Effect of anaphoric caesura ‘—‘ in 10th + 11th stanza
-link to stanza 9
-take moment collect himself + look back on chaotic + extreme life
-creates calm tone of reflection + reminiscence
-retrospective feel — creating Byronic hero of himself by being self-critical + introspective
