Sheers - The farrier

Question 1

Metaphor

Answer 1

Checking for dust on a lintel - care, sense of skilled profession

A romantic lead dropping to the lips of his lover

A seamstress pinning the address of the bride - the farrier is emasculate by the end of the poem

Question 2

Personification

Answer 2

Wind twisting his sideburns in its fingers

The sound of his steel, biting at her heels

Question 3

Sounds of words

Assonance/alliteration/sibilance/onomatopoeia

Answer 3

Sibilance - smoke slow turning
Plosives - cutting, excavating, clippings
Onomatopoeia - slap

Question 4

Figurative/symbolic language

Answer 4

Simile - Like a man putting his shoulder to a knackered car

Question 5

Types of imagery

4

Answer 5

Colour imagery - leather black, tan
Olfactory imagery - smoke slow turning, she smells him
Tactile imagery - runs his hand along the length of her neck
Marital imagery - dress of a bride

Question 6

Word connotations

Answer 6

Blessing (first word) - biblical allusion
Rain-beaten bay - connotations of nature. His clothing has a similar rurality to the landscape suggesting he is part of it.

Question 7

Etymology

Answer 7

X

Question 8

Word play, patterns, clusters

Answer 8

X

Question 9

Juxtaposition, contrast, oxymorons

Answer 9

Antithesis of intimacy versus profession

Question 10

Paradox

Answer 10

X

Question 11

Themes present

Answer 11

Balance
Romance/intimacy
Man VS nature
Nature
Identity

Question 12

Heaney poems to compare

Answer 12

Elegy

Casualty

Question 13

Gist

Answer 13

Story of a farrier attaching new shoes to a female horse

Extended metaphor portraying the complexities of the relationship between males and females

Question 14

Context

Answer 14

Farrier - popular Welsh occupation reflects Sheers’ Welsh heritage

The Farrier seems almost part of the landscape similar to Sheers’ close connection with Welsh landscape

Question 15

Lit crit

Answer 15

X

Question 16

Reader response

Answer 16

X

Question 17

Poem open and close

Answer 17

Opening:
Blessing himself with his apron
Biblical allusion suggesting importance
Connotations of apron and roll-up - working class

Close:
the sound of his stew biting at her heels.
Personification
Comment on man’s alteration to nature as well as their effect on women’s lives.

Question 18

Perspectives

Answer 18

Feminist perspective - anger?

Question 19

Tone

Answer 19

C

Question 20

Type of stanza

Answer 20

X

Question 21

Line lengths and their contrasts

Answer 21

X

Question 22

Caesura/enjambement

Answer 22

X

Question 23

Rhyme

Where it breaks down

Answer 23

No rhyming couplets -

Question 24

Stressed/unstressed syllables

Answer 24

X

Question 25

Masculine and feminine rhyme

Answer 25

X

Question 26

Form

Structure

Answer 26

Free verse, vignette poem

8 tercets - slows pace of poem
Last line has more emphasis placed on it as this form breaks down.