Skirrid Hill

Question 1

Mametz wood methods (4)

Answer 1

• Half- rhyme, links death with orders
• Earth personified
• image of dance- expresses comradeship and youth
• Tercets, traditional Welsh form

Question 2

Mametz wood context

Answer 2

1916 conflict in Mametz; British v Germans. Welsh division of the British army

Question 3

Inheritance (4)

Answer 3

• Autobiographical, grateful and affectionate tone
• ‘st’ creates gentle stuttering effect (blend of sibilance and plosives)
• Welsh literary inheritance
• Dialectical structure with synthesis

Question 4

Marking Time (3)

Answer 4

• Unconventional sonnet, loose verse
• Personifies love
• memories transient but love’s influences us and changes us forever

Question 5

Winter Swans (5)

Answer 5

• Pathetic fallacy
• Monosyllabic
• Onomatopoeia- metaphor for couple struggling for air
• Tercets, imbalances but ends on a couplet
• Swans provide turning point

Question 6

Keyways (5)

Answer 6

• Brisk, matter-of-fact tone
• Uses conceit of the keys
• Imagery of closeness and connection BUT interdependence and frailty
• jarring shift in tone
• 5 line stanzas, divided in 3 parts (allows for thoughts and feelings to develop)

Question 7

Border Country (5)

Answer 7

• Introduction both expository and proleptic
• naïve sense of morality and idyllic childhood
• Volta and monosyllabic (violent and sudden transition)
• shift in perspective to the recent past
• explores awkward border of adolescence and adulthood

Question 8

Border country context

Answer 8

• Suicide can be attributed to farmer’s difficulty of BSE epidemic

Question 9

Farther (4)

Answer 9

• conversational rhythm and narrative poem
• imagery of generational differences
• Sense of closeness, unity and bond
• Only rhyme links to landscape- father and son united by shared Welsh heritage

Question 10

Hedge School (4)

Answer 10

• Sensory imagery, allusions to luxury
• Confessional tone
• Monosyllabic
• Explores innate human capabilities for aggression

Question 11

Hedge School context

Answer 11

Pardoners Prologue; story about greed and representative of the dark nature and potential for violence in everyone

Question 12

Joseph Jones (4)

Answer 12

• Reminiscent and colloquial - notorious figure
• Monosyllabic- dominating aura
• Crude, primitive and primal description
• Concrete poetry- fragmented memory

Question 13

Y Gaer (3)

Answer 13

• Welsh words and Landscape
• elegy
• Cathartic but feelings of helplessness and agony

Question 14

The Hill Fort (4)

Answer 14

• Habitual past tense- evokes memories of good times
• location has a protective power
• Impact of others
• Tercets

Question 15

Flag (4)

Answer 15

• Shift in tone when describing the Flag
• Collective pronoun
• Ubiquitous and integrated everywhere
• idiom; lacks self awareness

Question 16

Flag context (2)

Answer 16

• Logue poem is satirical on the importance placed on nationalism
• Written after devolution referendum

Question 17

The Steelworks (3)

Answer 17

• Bathos
• Lexical field of factory work
• Defeatist attitude- plosive sounds

Question 18

Drinking with Hitler (5)

Answer 18

• Vignette
• Characterised as distasteful and predatory
• heavy and uncomfortable atmosphere
• intrusive male domination
• quatrains allow narration

Question 19

4 movements in the Scale of 2 (5)

Answer 19

• Written in style of TS Elliot
• Images of symmetry and union
• need for connection and influence of love
• unsettling imagery- fragility
• unexpected and abrupt nature

Question 20

Liable to floods (4)

Answer 20

• Personification/feminisation of the river
• weather described through military terms
• Parallel- weather reflects experience of war
• Anaphora, rhythmic feel, disorientation of the soldiers

Question 21

Liable to Floods context

Answer 21

Moelwynion Mountain range

Question 22

History (3)

Answer 22

• addresses reader directly
• descriptive imagery, immersion
• 2 line stanza of slate/book; renders the moment transformational

Question 23

Amazon (5)

Answer 23

• composite figure, sensitive to female issue
• Phonetics reflects experience
• temporal shift
• mind fragmented
• anaphora
• missing breast, symbol of strength, empowering

Question 24

LA Evening (5)

Answer 24

• Vignette; Jean Simmons
• Mood nostalgic; ennui
• Juxtaposition of the movement v stillness
• 3rd person- detached and disconnected
• Reminiscent tone

Question 25

Skirrid Fawr (4)

Answer 25

• 2 Line stanzas, balance and duality
• Personifies/ Feminises the mountain
• Links to epigraph/ evokes collection title
• Metaphor of symmetry

Question 26

Drinking with Hitler context

Answer 26

Chenjerai “Hitler” Hunzvi served as Chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association