Piano - D H Lawrence Flashcards
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About: emotive poem explores the power + importance in which memories and nostalgia can exert throughout one’s life,
Purpose: pleasure of comfort of childhood and the painful acknowledgement that it can no longer be returned to
Tone: tender + nostalgic –> melancholic + regretful
Themes
- power of music
- power of memories
- passing of Time
- Cherishing familial relationships
‘Piano / Softly, ….’
- ‘Softly’ - 1st word of the poem translates ‘piano’ in Italian –> conveys the gentle nature of the poem, *calming memory of the past
‘Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me’
establishes initialTender, Comforting Tone:
- Sibilance of ‘s’ = gentle, caressing atmosphere
- ‘dusk’: marks a liminal moment between day + night / transitions = symbolises the pivotal moment of the speaker between the past + present
- Pathetic Fallacy - emphasises this serene transition –> ‘dusk’ = natural light dims = creates intimate + soothing setting
‘A child sitting under the piano,’
Preposition of ‘under’:
- protection provided to him by piano + music + benevolent love
- indicates his age, he is small enough to fit within space —> accentuates his innocence, youth, naivety as he needs protection from a maternal love –> emphasised by womb - like image of piano + music comforting + completely enclosing
‘a child, .. a mother’
Indefinite article :
- 3rd person - create sense of distance between him + memory
- intensifies feeling of longing
‘in the boom of the tingling strings’
Onomatopoeia + Juxtaposition:
- ‘boom’ = plosive sound, forceful – represents the vividness power of memories - ‘tingling’ = **playful quality **= lightness of touch, enjoyable quality of the memory + affection and caress from the mother
‘And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smile as she sings’
- ‘pressing the small, poised feet’ –> physical touch shows close emotional connection with mother
-
Beautiful + Reminiscent Imagery - ‘smile as she sings’:
- accentuated by Sibilant Alliteration –> soothing Tone + graceful, elegant, maternal quality
‘spite…, insidious … Betrays … weeps’
Lexical pattern of trickery:
- alters tone –> pessimistic + painful - connotation
- memory is too painful - too pleasant of a time that he is grieving that he is unable to return
Enjambment:
- emphasises his powerlessness when trying to resist entering this past world of childhood innocence where he longs to return
‘till the heart of me weeps to belong’
Personification:
- Symbolically used :
- ‘heart’ = spirit, soul, connection to the world + where emotions originate –> heart is weeping = deep suffering + torment that he cannot return
’ the tinkling piano our guide’
Aural Imagery:
- ‘tinkling’ - affectionate + playful tone
- ‘our guide’ - send of purpose + aim:
- music gives his meaning + purpose + connects him with his mother
- music guided him on his emotional journey through life
‘the glamour / of childish days is upon me’
- ‘glamour’: connotations of enchantment + magical memories
- enchanting quality of childhood days
‘my manhood is cast / Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past’
-
Emotive Metaphor:
- memory has overpowered his manliness + stoicism
- forgets he is an adult, reverts to childhood innocence –> memory has overcome him with unstoppable force
- metaphorical image ‘flood’ - suggests memory is devastatingly overwhelming = power of music + memory
’ I weep like a child for the past’
Simile:
- overwhelming emotion - so pained–> longs to return
- highlights how emasculating + infantilising the experience of remembering is
- directly contrasts to soft, caressing tone at beginning
Form use in this poem + effect:
Enjambment :
- mirrors flow + fluidity of music
- flow of memories, how they cannot be constrained by the lines
