shelley Flashcards
context
dejection near naples
on holiday in naples w/ wife
daughter was sick but he insisted they go - later dies and he blames himself, guilt
wife becomes withdrawn, therefore he is alone in poem
form
dejection near naples
sonnet - opposite meaning to show absence of love/joy, abandoned romantic desire
lyrical - introspective, first person
structure
dejection near naples
altered spenserian stanzas (tetrameter not pentameter, mirrors heartbeat - mortality)
intricate spenserian rhyme scheme (ABABBCDCDD) allows for complex themes/emotion
final line alexandrine (6 syallable hemistichs + caesura/syntactic break) - complex emotions
contrasting imagery
dejection near naples
concrete nouns (“earth, moutains, waves”) - grounded in reality
vs abstract ideas (“transparent might, light dissolved, lightning”) corrupt dreamscape of nature - no longer feels in harmony w/ beauty of nature, dissociative
feelings of loss/despair
dejection near naples
negation (“nor hope nor health, nor peace, nor calm…”)
polysyndeton - labourois to read as it is for him to live
polysyndetic listing - each conjunction equally emphasised, each equally felt
conditional tense
dejection near naples
“till death like sleep might steal on me”
“and i might feel in the warm air”
suicidal ideation, fantasising how he could die at any moment
“and hear the sea/breathe o’er my dying brain in its last monotony”
dejection near naples
sarcastic/bitter tone
beauty his romantic contemporaries would see in nature/tide replaced for him with “monotony”, lack of belief in romantic ideals, beauty turned dull
first stanza establishes romantic landscape but rest of poem rejects it through his depression
oxymoronic similie
dejection near naples
“i could lie down like a tired child”
contradicts w/ romantic ideals of childhood as pure, weariness + childhood is oxymoronic
further reflects stray from romantic ideals
context
cold earth slept
percy left pregnant wife harriet for 16ish-year old mary - left harriet in compromising single mother position + she committed suicide
mary published his poems posthumourously but may have changed date for cold earth to avoid association with harriet
gothic themes - death, superstition, supernatural
form
cold earth slept
septet versatile for expressing emotions
structure
cold earth slept
first 2 lines = iambic trimeter, except final verse (tetrameter - slowed, mimicking lover’s death)
mess of rhythm/rhyme creates impression of reader witnessing speaker’s thoughts
consistency appears when something is revealed (emphasis of “beloved”)
internal rhymes (“around… sound”, “rest… breast”) - creates sense of burial, claustrophobic
omnipresent role of death
cold earth slept
semantic patterns - “chilling, death, black, bare”
once death touches us, we begin to see it everywhere
even nature is not immune - “wintry hedge was black” - would expect to transcend human fraility but can also collapse in the face of death
world enters symbolic sleep “like death”
moon symbolism
cold earth slept
symbol of womanhood, fertility (diana)
“the moon made thy lips pale, beloved” - harriet’s suicide - drained by pregnancy (alleviates blame off shelley), signifies loss of unborn child
epithet
cold earth slept
“beloved”
only example of tenderness/romance
detatched/observing voice/tone - easier to focus on nature than death, but even there it follows him
addressing harriet directly, moment of closeness before she is gone forever
“moon is sinking”
cold earth slept
loss of only source of life = imminent darkness
“sinking” - climax of insanity/depression, harriet’s suicide, links to lunacy, deflects responsibility
semantic field of water “sinking, flow” - harriet drowned
links to rural superstition
cold earth slept
“fen-fire’s”
said to send travellers away from correct paths, shelley removes responsibility from himself
monosyllables, assonance
cold earth slept
thudding pace
“the birds did rest on the bare thorn’s breast”
“sluggish stream”
context
the question
all 3 children died and wife in moruning - lonely
romantic idea of sublime embedded throughout
flowers mournful/celebratory - shelley equal share in both, maybe more mournful?
shelley journal entry
the question
“my dearest mary, wherefore hast thou gone, and left me in this drear world alone?”
structure, form, tone
the question
5 stanzas, octaves
ABABABCC
iambic pentameter - establishes constant pace
meditative + peaceful tone
cyclical structure - rhetorical final line, empty/unfinished tone, circles back to title
personification
the question
nature = tentative, implies restorative feeling (“waters murmuring” (onomatapoeic verb), “fling its green arms”, “kissed it and then fled”)
“river’s trembling edge” - sublime, even nature itself is in awe/fear of power + beauty of dream
symbolism
the question
“white cups, whose wine”, wine as romantic symbol of life (byron)
“nosegay” symbol of romance, lack thereof in his life
flowers - ambiguous, personify human experienes shelley lost - love “kissed it and fled”, children “like a child” (similie, romantic childhood purity)
final line
the question
ambiguous, rhetorical question
caesura - searching for answers/unknown, reveals meaning of the title
“oh! to whom?” - the question, “whom” = lover/past promiscuity, reflective of his lonely reality, no one to share beauty/poetry/art with (mary in mourning, journal entry)
imagery
the question
“imprisoned children of the hours” - dark, mythological imagery, contrasts w/ positive dreamlike imagery, commentary on sensationalisation of romance? hyperbolic?
synaesthesic - intense sensory description - “water lillies, broad and bright”, “watery light”
nature - winter into spring (hope + rebirth), “acturi” (northern hemisphere star, guiding + bright), “pearled” (valuable), “tender bluebells” (vulnerable to human destruction, link to industrial revolution)
setting
the question
within nature, promoting beauty + supremacy of nature - shelley rejects 19th century industrial society
metaphor
the question
nature as metaphor for ideal society
“were mingled or opposed” - flowers of different seasons, metaphor for power of imagination in dream
“imprisoned children of the hours” - transcience of time, fear of death
