Poetry Anthology - Loss

Question 1

As Imperceptibly as Grief Context and Form

By Emily Dickinson

Answer 1

Written by Emily Dickinson, an eccentric woman who lived much of her life in isolation due to all of her close family dying. She had few visitors, who had a large impact on her poetry. She had one close relationship with her sister in law.

Poem is a ballad with no stanzas to show how grief does not stop. Rhythm is regular.

Question 2

Afternoons Context and Form

By Philip Larkin

Answer 2

Written by Philip Larkin, who wrote this poem whilst living in a top-floor apartment in Hull overlooking a park and playground.

Three unrhymed stanzas of eight lines each. Regular, repetitive structure shows how time passes, but everything repeats.

Question 3

Ozymandias Context and Form

By Percy Shelley

Answer 3

Written by Percy Shelley, a romantic poet who had very strong ideas about religion. He wrote about the statue of Ramses II.

It is a sonnet written in iambic pentameter to help reinforce the world of antiquity the poem references.

Question 4

As Imperceptibly as Grief Key Quotations

By Emily Dickinson

Answer 4

1. ‘The summer lapsed away.’
2. ‘Sequestered afternoon.’
3. ‘Our summer made her light escape into the beautiful.’
4. ‘To seem like Perfidy.’
5. ‘A courteous, yet harrowing Grace.’

Question 5

Afternoons Key Quotations

By Philip Larkin

Answer 5

1. ‘Summer is fading.’
2. ‘Behind them, at intervals.’
3. ‘That are still courting-places.’
4. ‘To the side of their own lives.’
5. ‘Finding more unripe acorns.’

Question 6

Ozymandias Key Quotations

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

Answer 6

1. ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone.’
2. ‘Half sunk, a shattered visage lies.’
3. ‘Sneer of cold command.’
4. ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.’
5. ‘Colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.’