Songs of Ourselves Flashcards
Winter Song - key ideas
Couplets - coupled love, also ties in to doubled imagery that is juxtaposing or complementary
Definitive sacrifice of love - willing to sacrifice everything even exile
they complement each other, in how she is willing to bear his arms for him, alongside the double entendre of being in his arms - aware of her role
moon is representative of romance - when the harsh, selfish and violent sun withdraws, our love stands
oxymoron of rural feast implies she would do anything to make his life comfortable
softness and quietness to contrast words like savage, envy and danger
large block of text represents an outpouring of love
In the Park
rehearses - pretends to conform to societal norms of motherhood being glorified when her identity has been stolen
monotony - The children “whine and bicker,” or draw “aimless patterns in the dirt.” The light in the park “flicker[s]” ominously, and the mother “stare[s] at her feet” blankly while she nurses her baby.
Her clothes are now “out of date.” In the fourth line, “Someone she loved once passe[s] by,” and they strike up a conversation—but only by happenstance, suggesting that the woman’s social circle has shrunk since becoming a mother. However, the poem also implies (“too late / to feign indifference”) that she would rather not have had her ex-lover see her in this new role and identity.
The half-quoted proverb, “but for the grace of God,” suggests that despite his former affection for her, the man now views this woman as nothing more than a dreary housewife and mother - This social pressure both erases and compounds motherhood’s hardships, the poem implies, perpetuating a rosy, false narrative that naturally leads to disappointment when women encounter the reality of what motherhood is actually like.
the man’s use of clichés (in phrases like “Time holds great surprises” and “but for the grace of God”) indicates a clear lack of desire to go deeper or truly understand this woman’s new life as a mother. The poem sharply juxtaposes verbs such as “feign” and “rehearse” with the mother’s statement that “[i]t’s so sweet / to hear their chatter, watch them grow,” illuminating the gap between what she believes society expects her to say about her role and how she actually feels. - she did not want to engage in this conversation, sees how his disdain is evident
perpetuates the toxic glorifying narrative of motherhood that she herself was almost certainly brought up with
radical work - altar of motherhood, sacrificing nature of women
Society’s idealized view of motherhood has kept her from confiding in someone about the reality, someone who could potentially offer support. - can only confess to the wind
enjambment - lost thoughts, escaping her
consistency of form and meter establishes how she is trapped within the monotony of her maternal duties
Stabat Mater
The title “Stabat Mater” is Latin for “the mother stood,” and it alludes to an old Christian hymn about Mary’s suffering while witnessing Jesus’s crucifixion. Before the poem has even begun, then, it nods to the noble suffering of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The title tells readers that the speaker sees a similarity between Mary’s sacrifice and that of his own mother.
The meter of this opening line is iambic pentameter: five metrical feet that follow an unstressed-stressed syllabic pattern. This feels a little stiff for a contemporary poem, conveying the formality of this relationship: This line and the next also feature alliteration and consonance of the delicate /f/ sound: “father,” “first few,” “life.” This sound is gentle and even a little feeble, perhaps evoking the mother’s lack of confidence in those early years of her marriage.
“Stabat Mater” is a Shakespearean sonnet, its 14 lines divided into three quatrains and a closing couplet. Sonnets are traditionally love poems, making this a fitting form for a poem that will honor a mother’s love for her family.
The speaker’s mother used to call his father “Mr. Hunt”—an almost ridiculously stiff, formal form address for her own husband. The issue was that he was older than her own father, making it “hard” to “call him any other name.” His age made her feel “so small,” suggesting that there was a kind of parent-child dynamic between them.
This might mean that once he “stand[s] up straight,” or accepts the reality of adulthood, he will need to learn to bear his own suffering with strength. More specifically, this line might mean that he’ll need to learn to deal with the pain of watching those he loves inevitably grow old, knowing that “there’s no return” to the way things once were.
Again, this might suggest the way she tries to make light of a difficult situation and suffers without ever appealing for pity. Acting like the whole thing is a “game” might also be her way of shielding the speaker from both her own sorrow and the pain of watching his father deteriorate.
Whereas she once was too timid to call him anything other than the formal “Mr. Hunt,” she embraces her new role as the authority figure in the family, “guiding” her husband as he “roams” the difficult terrain of “old age.”
On that note, the poem’s ending might represent the mother’s call to her son to live his life rather than stay behind and worry about his aging parents. That he “too must learn / to walk away” is perhaps a reminder that loving a child means letting them go and encouraging them to become independent and live their lives while they can, even if it leaves you, the parent, more alone in your suffering. Read this way, the poem bears witness to the speaker’s mother’s strength and to her sorrow.
Australia 1970
contextualised by wildfire protests @ the time
sibilance emphasises the danger of wild animals - ssssnaking, or general sense of unease
asyndetic listing reestablishes the snappy tone of the poem
The speaker wishes all this because the people who have tried to dominate and tame Australia are just hurting themselves in the process, even more than a scorpion or snake would; they’re killing themselves with the same poison they use to kill the landscape.
When European settlers first arrived in Australia in the late 1700s, they tried to conquer its rugged landscapes and transform them into a version of their own homeland. Since then, what was once an incredibly biodiverse and awe-inspiring environment, long stewarded by Aboriginal peoples, has been systematically eroded by industrialization, urbanization, and intentional de-wilding.
The speaker wants Australia’s wild places to free themselves from human domination, or, if they can’t, to make their anger felt on their way out. She thus roots for Australia to “stay obstinate” and “blind” to humanity’s “corrupt[ion]”: to remain stubborn and steadfast in the face of people’s attempts to bend nature to their own ends.
“Australia 1970” contains 24 lines broken up into six quatrains (four-line stanzas). The poem’s language is impassioned and its imagery intense, but the poem’s form is relatively controlled and measured. This make’s the speaker’s rage feel all the more pointed: the poem’s boiling anger doesn’t feel chaotic but rather razor-sharp and laser-focused.
The speaker of “Australia 1970” begins the poem by addressing the “wild country” of Australia directly. This apostrophe turns Australia into a living, breathing character in the poem—one that the speaker desperately wants to fight back against its human oppressors.
Finally, while the poem’s meter is ultimately inconsistent, there are lots of trochees (stressed-unstressed) throughout. Here, each line begins with a stressed beat: “Die,” “dangerous,” “clawing,” “cursing.” These pounding beats make the poem feel forceful and grant it a passionate, propulsive energy.
Description of Spring
rhyme scheme - abab until volta where there is a couplet - also in iambic pentameter and a trochee at the end of the first stanza, which lends a steady propulsive music to the poem - trochee maybe demands a different form of attention from the reader, to announce the oncoming season
turns at the end to form a volta with a rhyming couplet
personification - nightingale sings, turtle told her tale
imagery - green season and description of society - happy and glorious sonnet that describes nature that juxtaposes the speaker’s sorrow
alliteration - soote season, hart hath, fishes flete etc. - use of plosive Bs describe the bursting of nature in the spring, and the flitting and lilting t sounds recreate a bright and joyful sound, and the gentle sibilance empowers the soothing sweetness of the words
anaphora - repetition of ‘the’
Overwhelming sorrow that overrides the beauty of nature - epigraph at the top of the poem imposes a gloomy undertone despite the speaker’s sorrow having yet to be explicitly mentioned
The Spring
A lamentation that the changing seasons is unable to avail an unrequited love’s icy heart
Juxtaposition of the warmth and hope of spring with the chilly disinterest of the speaker’s love - the woman he longs for remains as frigid as January itself, even as feeling is seeping back into the world - ‘the long’d for May’ has finally arrived but his love continues to ‘lour’
Amyntas and Chloris - mythological love
Nature is bound to predictable and comforting rhythms, in its beautiful and delightful way, and there’s comfort in knowing what to look forward to - winter always contains within it the promise of spring
- vivid imagery - unique loveliness of winter that is lonely and quiet that makes way for spring, a time of new life, awakening and ‘tender’ - personification of the Earth taking off her snow-white robes
- the ‘valleys, hills and woods’ are resplendent with new life, and spring is a time of love and delight for everyone except the speaker
Crisp alliteration like candies, casts, cream and crystal alongside consonance of lake, lost, frost, casts, crystal stream add to the feeling of a sharp, fragile world covered in glittering ice and snow, which is expanded by the use of sibilance that evokes winter’s stillness and quiet
Enjambment flows from line to line smoothly and pulls the reader into a quickly thawing world
Heroic couples of rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter - not always perfect, because sometimes there are trochees, but regardless the overall rhythm is a steady and bouncy beat
The Darkling Thrush
Hope in the wake of a desolate world - contextualised by the end of the 19th century and the state of Western civilisation - its decay, and the thrush as a symbol for its possible rebirth through religious faith
Extended metaphor of the desolation of Western culture - damaged and dead without the possibility of rebirth or resurrection, making it both an elegy for and a rejection of that culture
‘Strings of broken lyres’ is a significant symbol - it represents poetry and the cultural accomplishment of Western civilisation - without maintaining it or pruning it, it falls into disrepair
Series of metaphors in the second stanza - ‘the century’s corpse’ is a reference to the end of the 19th century, which is dead because its literally over but also dead in a broader sense - culture in some way has failed
‘Coppice gate’ - a coppice is a managed forest, but with the ‘bine-stems’ growing into the sky, it implies that humans have shirked their duty to care for the land they use, ans since the landscape is a metaphor for Western culture, Western culture itself has not been taken care of
Imagery also references industrialisation, which damaged the English landscape and depopulated rural parts of England
Thrush - presents renewed religious faith as a solution for the cultural crisis - described in great detail, especially the phrase ‘a full-hearted evensong’, which is a ritual in the Anglican Church, and thus describes the bird’s song as embodying a religious ritual, alongside the word ‘blessed’
‘Hope’ could be symbolic of the Christian hope for resurrection - yet the speaker is ‘unaware’ of this ‘blessed Hope’, which perhaps means the bird is singing in vain and that Christianity is as doomed as the rest of civilisation, like how the sun (son, Jesus Christ) is disappearing, or perhaps that religious faith is the one thing that will survive the turn of the century
Self-fulfilling nature of negativity - everything in the natural world reflects the speaker’s own state of mind - a vicious cycle where his emotions shape the landscape, which reinforces his emotions - the thrush forces the speaker to realise the existence of emotions outside despair, which further implies that hope is present in even the most desolate of circumstances
Formal pattern written in alternating lines between iambic tetrameter and trimeter, with an ABAB rhyme scheme - regular pattern of enjambment where every other line is end stopped, which makes this a ballad which is reflective of religious seriousness like hymns - also an intimate connection to English poetry, which is useful for a Poem critiquing contemporary English culture
Fire suggests a symbol of destruction, especially with the rhyme to lyres
Simple rhymes suggest a deeper questioning
Density in the poem reflects its context i.e. thickness of bone stems, sharpness of sharp features, intensity and fullness of the speaker’s joy that over flows the boundaries of metrical propriety when the thrush appears
Eel Tail
Fascination with nature yet grotesque description mixes modernity with Romantic poetry
Free verse describes the unfathomability of nature, how it can’t be confined - alongside three stanzas of different lengths, enjambed lines, and a lack of capitalisation and punctuation - enjambment mirrors the swift and fluid movement of the eels themselves
Mystique surrounding these eels, given its described as mud fish and later underlurkers, and given an almost mythical description given how they are preliminary, pre world creatures, cousins of the moon -
sonic devices of sibilance gives the poem an eerie hush - sibilance later on evokes the squelching and hiss of the metaphorical plumbing system, and the disco-even of sucking and sucking mirrors looking and looking which evokes restlessness, lead length of eels describe liquid sounds that are similar to fluid motions which is strengthened by the bends of some huge plumbing system, resemble pipes and machinery rather than animals, but also has assonance and internal rhymes in lead length which gives it a rhythmic and hypnotic presence - limbless and hairless later on evokes the smoothness of their bodies
Human language slips away - untranslatable / unspeakable - sibilance of untranslatable hissed interruptions adds a snakelike hiss to the sentence - could also describe their broad cracked mouths, but unspeakable could be literally an explanation of how humans can’t understand them or how the eels are too grotesque and alien to describe
Cycle of persona almost finding then losing sight of the eels - easy to mistake the eels for something else like ‘the wind again cursing the water’ - element of personification that makes the natural world vividly alive and hostile - uncontrollable little eddies, defining them by their skittish behaviour and the signs they leave behind
Direct address - immerses the reader into the natural world that the persona describes
Repetition later is slightly gentler, wick meaning absorbing a liquid and backlashes mean moving backward, showing in structure the way the eels move forward and back in these ways
Sea-veins - crucial to the ocean
Metaphors that are incredibly abstract but describe something just out of reach - little cables of shadow (echoes of the human world yet can’t get a grip and shadow is something you can’t grasp), vanishing dream lines (memories of dreams slipping away after waking up), and penumbra which is where light meets the shadow
- eels are in the periphery of the persona, to be sensed and fascinated but not seen - now the wind pushing on your ears describes how the wind is closer to the persona and now he is on the cusp of connecting with the natural world
In the third stanza, described as whip-thin/tail of the waning moon
- evoking the physical appearance of the eels but also how they are waning, which describes how they are slipping away
- burrowing back into blackness uses plosives, describing the forceful motion of the eels as they tunnel into the dark
- variations on the refrain that has appeared throughout - replaces them with her, making the creature slightly less anonymous
- doesn’t jump from and then as you see her to the expected gone, instead builds suspense with another ‘and then’ - makes u seem ever closer to grasping the eel before it slips away again
- ‘say so’ appears for the first time, so it goes away before you can note its presence, but also how its impossible to capture its essence in poetry or language before inevitably its ‘gone’
The Buck in the Snow
Imagist movement, which prefers concrete images over abstractions of Romantic and Victorian writing
Presents the reader the reality of death through presenting to the reader a shocking image of an animal dying
Poem overall has little structure, which may represent the suddenness, unpredictability and disorganised nature of death - singular line splitting the two large stanzas could represent how human intervention is short and sudden yet leaves drastic impacts on nature
The colour white serves as a backdrop to the Buck, implying an overarching and ever present theme of death - added to the idea of Winter being a symbol of death as much of life comes to a pause in this time - a feather of snow emphasises that though snow is delicate and fragile, it will soon bury and consume the dead bodies that lie upon it, which declares death as an unstoppable force that is not reliant on strength
The buck is a symbol of life, especially because the antler is used to represent the buck at the prime of his life, powerful and virile - the scalding blood that it once had that represented life is now tamed and silenced, representing death as an all powerful entity that conquers all life
Symbolically, a hemlock bowed with snow sagging under the weight of snow implies the supremacy of death which rules over nature - sharp contrast immediately at the start of the poem
Beginning of evening is foreboding, as the evening is a period where the day transitions into night, which is similar to how she later speaks of death in how the light falls and the darkness rises - the mention of the buck and the doe contrasts with this trepidation, since the antlered buck is in its sexual maturity which represents vitality and potential for life - they are also searching for food for survival
The persona reasserts the presence of the animals to herself, as seen in their repetition of the words “I saw them”, as if she needs that confirmation to truly believe that they are there, adding a sense of doubt. The sibilance employed further adds to the apprehensive feeling, as the ‘S’ sounds evoke whispering, a hushed noise, which is reflected in the poem’s setting, a quiet winter forest. The silence itself can be seen as ominous, with the lack of noise possibly leading to a loss of life.
Her role as a witness is further emphasised when the buck and the doe “suddenly go”, likely due to noticing her presence as she noticed this, and the way they are described once again highlights themes of liveliness and physical vigour as they jump “over the stone-wall”. The consonance of ‘L’ sounds used in “long leaps lovely” creates an introspective and romantic tone, showing how the persona appreciates their beauty and grace.
The last line of the 1st stanza repeats 1st line regarding the mention of “hemlocks”, but expands the setting to the “woods”, the entire forest, instead of just individual trees, and since the background of this poem has been closely linked to themes of death, this expansion could be seen as enlarging death’s scope as well.
Her emotions about the unexpected appearance of death are also reflected through the single-line stanza, as well as the use of sibilance in “scalding the snow”, which gives off a sense of danger and doom that the persona herself likely feels as she realises that just like the buck, death can come for her at any moment. The sibilance could also be used to mimic the hissing of steam as the heat of the buck’s blood, a symbol of its life, makes contact with the coldness of the snow, a recurring symbol for death.
volta between second and third stanza about harsh death vs contemplation of it
“bringing to his antlers”, as to bring a buck to its antlers not only lowers its body, but means that its head is on the floor. The full line shows how death has won the overall battle and the buck has submitted to it. The enjambment of “the buck in the snow” highlights the buck’s defeat by isolating the phrase, as it is surrounded by snow, and symbolically, by death.
There is a repeat of the phrase “how strange a thing” (anaphora), that once again highlights the almighty power of death.
This shift in her thought process is underscored by the sudden break in the sentence (caesura). She talks about how “a mile away by now, it may be”, again showing uncertainty again, which serves as a contrast to the confidence of the 1st stanza. This change in stance is caused by the persona’s realisation that life is fragile and unpredictable, causing her to speak/think more tentatively.
Emotional and physical heaviness is further developed in the next line, where the snow on the hemlocks is described as “loads” and therefore burdens. However, this is then quickly contrasted when it is later imagined as a light “feather”. The juxtapositioned images stress the unfathomability of snow, and thus, the strangeness of death. It also insinuates death’s indifference to life, in that snow will continue to fall and will eventually cover up the buck’s corpse, as if it was never there to begin with.
‘Life’ hides behind, seeking shelter in “the eyes of the doe”. This act implies that, from the persona’s perspective at least, life is aware of its own vulnerability and that it cannot win the battle against death → Omnipotence of death + Fragility of life
The final words of the last two lines of the poem rhyme (“snow” & “doe”). This peculiar return of the earlier rhyme scheme of the 1st stanza could be used to convey how, despite how death disrupts life time and time again, life still continues on regardless.
The Storm-Wind
storm outside vs the security of the house
storm personified and uses assonance and sibilance to convery turbulence
rhyming couplet at the end of each stanza gives a sense of coming home, even as the pervasive and persistent storms rattle at the window
alliteration of H gives a breathy sound and adds to the sense of struggle
enjambment adds to how the storm is unceasing and doesn’t give you a moment to pause
the use of ‘my’ is a very possessive term, indicating a level of security and safety
juxtaposition of the inside of the house to the outside of the storm which reemphasises the safety home gives someone
auditory imagery – as the audience can actually hear the baby’s sigh, inferring how tranquil it is in the house.
The Sea and the Hills
For one thing, a steady rhyme scheme divides each septet into two couplets that sandwich a tercet. The length of the poem’s rhyming sections subtly ebbs and flows, perhaps calling to mind the movement of the tides. Likewise, the poem’s long, sweeping lines evoke the vast reaches of the sea.
The poem is also intensely repetitive in terms of both its language and imagery. Most obviously, each stanza opens and closes with the same refrain- These refrains create familiarity, and the poem becomes a rousing call to arms for all sea lovers by its end.
The meter is rough and ready, evoking the choppy rhythms of the sea as well as the lurch of sailing on the ocean’s waves.
The clear, full rhymes add to the poem’s exciting music. They’re like the wind in the poem’s sails, driving the language forward.
Subtly, the rhymes also mimic the motion of the sea: the rhyme scheme expands and contracts over and over again, much as waves roll in and out.
the visible length of the poem also mimics the movement of the waves - similarly has a lot of listing which incites a speed that the reader should read at, a pace that rages
a lot of sibilance to encapsulate the rage of the storm
This opening question becomes a refrain, heading up all four stanzas almost like a call to arms to any who love the ocean. The speaker follows the question with vivid imagery that conveys the sea’s enormity and its capacity for violence. Right away, readers sense that the sea is a force much more powerful than any human being.
These two opening lines form a long, sprawling couplet. They stretch across the page like waves about to break, creating a sense of building tension that’s released by the rhyme of “unbounded”/”wind-hounded.”
alliteration – the huffing of ‘H’ emphasises the power needed to create such sight
the poem uses sibilance to create the watery, windy, stormy atmosphere: “sleek,” “swell,” “storm,” “foamless, enormous.” The growling alliteration of “grey” and “growing” and the round, moaning assonance of “foamless” and “growing” add to the scene’s intensity as well.
In just one line, then, the reader sees the contradictory, ever-changing character of the sea.
In each septet (seven-line stanza), the fifth line states a philosophical paradox about the sea. These use the device antimetabole, in which the words in the first half of the sentence get repackaged in a different order in the second:
“His sea,” not “the sea.” This suggests a sense of ownership and belonging—that is, this hypothetical “him,” the person who loves to sail on the sea, feels such deep kinship with the sea that it is, in a sense, a part of him—and he a part of it.
but some ppl prefer the hills
also cyclical, implying that the sea is ever lasting and lasts far longer than humankind, giving it a deep, inhuman power
In the final stanza, the speaker juxtaposes life asea with life on land. Some people prefer the sea’s “excellent loneliness”—the kind of total solitude found on the open ocean, far from the cares of daily life—over life at the royal court; they’d take the furthest reaches of the sea over “the streets where men gather / Inland.”
The sea “fulfils” some people’s “being.” In other words, it makes them who they are; it gives them purpose and makes life worth living. As the reader knows by now, these people have a mirror in the “hillmen [who] desire their Hills.” Some human beings long for the sea’s danger and volatility, and they wish to sail the seas to satisfy their spirit of adventure. Others, however, prefer the stability offered by the land.
The Stars Go Over the Lonely Ocean
Represents the general anxiety the common people had during the time of the war. Although not directly involved, fear and dread were common for civilians.
Written at the start of World War II, the poem takes solace only in the insignificance of humankind: it gives voice to a “wild boar” who contrasts human foolishness with the vast universe beyond earth (the “stars go[ing] over the lonely ocean”). In short, the poem displays a clear sense of disillusionment with humanity and suggests that people would do well to extricate themselves from politics altogether.
In short, humankind has chained itself in false dogma—the illusory promises of politicians on either side of the political divide.
Finland initially tried to stay neutral in WWII; when it joined in the conflict, it, too, lost its “freedom” (by picking a side and, thereby, an ideology). In the face of all this violence and folly, the boar thinks it would be better to remove oneself from humanity altogether.
But the poem never shakes off its atmosphere of tension and danger, because the speaker, of course, can’t hide in the mountains. He must walk back down from the ridge and return to humanity
Though it doesn’t suggest that nature can save humanity, it does present nature as a setting that’s free from shortsighted “ideologies”—and so endures forever rather than destroying itself. In other words, it holds up the natural world as an ideal superior to those humanity constructs for itself.
The boar “believe[s] in [his] tusks”: the earthy, natural reality that’s right before his eyes. It’s implied that, by contrast, humankind has lost sight of its place in the world. The boar also shows the speaker “sweet roots, / Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.” These remind the speaker—and the reader—that humankind is not the only life on earth, nor the center of the universe. Life will continue to thrive, with or without humankind.
Meanwhile, the stars, ocean, and mountain operate on a timescale that makes all human conflict look petty and temporary. Thus, they model a kind of enduring serenity that humans can aspire to, if only they take the long view. The loneliness of the ocean, in this context, isn’t necessarily a negative attribute. It’s a kind of freedom from the chaos of the human world.
At the same time, the speaker is likely projecting his own emotions onto the landscape (an example of pathetic fallacy). That is, the ocean’s loneliness reflects the speaker’s sense of isolation from the rest of humankind. The long, round assonance of “go over the lonely ocean” evokes a moan or cry of pain, reflecting the speaker’s downtrodden attitude.
The poem’s formal traits help to further convey the speaker’s state of mind. Though each stanza has a similar shape on the page, there’s no strict meter here; the poem never quite settles into a regular, predictable rhythm. Enjambment adds to the sense of restlessness, delaying the arrival of the stanza’s main verb (“saw”) until line 4
The poem, like the speaker, seems to “wander” down the page, searching for something without knowing what that something is.
alliteration with plosives and stuff extricate the Boar’s wild nature and thus adds to the earthy feeling
Note, too, that all stanzas have a pretty uniform shape on the page. The fourth line of each stanza is always shorter than the rest, as though the stanza is being squeezed in the middle. It’s subtle, but this creates a gentle wave-like pattern from long to short to long again, perhaps gently mimicking the movements of the ocean.
Who in One Lifetime
It’s closer to the Italian sonnet form than the English, since it’s divided into an octave (eight-line stanza) and a sestet (six-line stanza). But it’s really a mix of the two forms, because, like the English sonnet, its first eight lines rhyme ABABCDCD. This clash of traditions might subtly reflect the upheaval and dislocation of the era Rukeyser is describing.
Sonnets are traditionally associated with love, including romantic conflict. Here, Rukeyser both plays within and subverts that tradition. Her sonnet is about the death of love—”Love made monotonous fear”—in a violent world. At the same time, its heroine retains “belief in the world,” almost like a lover remaining faithful to someone who doesn’t love them back (a classic sonnet scenario).
In this poem, iambic pentameter might evoke the “Inexorable” trudge of an army’s footsteps; its steady forward momentum might also convey the woman’s determination to survive. However one scans it, the line has at least one extra stress. The longer line, with its two caesuras, builds both metrical and grammatical tension—which the final line releases, sounding a bit like a weary exhalation in the process.
Like the wobbly meter, the slightly off-kilter, unpredictable rhyming reflects the upheaval the poem describes.
Muriel Rukeyser’s “Who in One Lifetime” criticizes humanity and its lust for war. Written in 1941—after the First World War and during the Second—the poem laments the widespread trauma of violence, showing how one person can witness enough in a single lifetime to suffer a deep psychological “sickness.” The poem genders this person as a woman, perhaps hinting that Rukeyser borrows from her own experience.
“Who in One Lifetime” laments humanity’s insatiable lust for war, describing how it makes society and individuals sick, unfulfilled, and hopeless.
This woman, in just one lifetime, has seen whole “cities [fall] down,” “all causes” (hopes, dreams, and beliefs) collapse in defeat, and love turn to “monotonous fear.” Her trauma—which is really humanity’s trauma—makes her world nightmarish.
She has seen “several madnesses […] born” through war, and she perceives that the “integrated never fight[] well,” as their “flesh” is “too vulnerable.” This might suggest that, even in crisis, diverse groups have trouble rallying together; it might also suggest that violence doesn’t come naturally to most people. Fighting denies them their humanity, leaving their eyes “tear-torn.” In short, nothing spreads trauma and sorrow better than war.
The speaker of “Who in One Lifetime” suggests that war and destruction thwart her maternal instincts, turning her into a “childless goddess of fertility.” In other words, she’s been stripped of her power to love and be loved, and to foster and nurture the next generation. In this way, the woman might represent women or humanity in general.
The woman witnesses sites of violence turning into “chambers of imagery,” a biblical phrase meaning shrines for false idols. Perhaps, then, the world actually worships war and the destructive myths surrounding it.
The image of the woman “hid[ing] / Life in her own defeat” might be read as a macabre twist on pregnancy: rather than a child, she carries in herself only the thwarted desire to create life.
“Who in One Lifetime” opens with a long, complex, four-and-a-half-line sentence. At first, this sentence might look like a question, since it starts with “Who.” But it’s a declarative statement; in this context, “Who” means “Anyone who.”
She has seen whole “cities [go] down”—destroyed by war, perhaps, or economic collapse. (Rukeyser might be alluding here to the scale of destruction during the two world wars, but she might also be thinking of the Great Depression: the worldwide economic slump that plunged millions into poverty during the 1930s.)
The troops presumably look “sad-faced” out of fear and desire to be elsewhere. Violence prevents their humanity from fulfilling its potential. Notice how the enjambment here divides “sad-faced” from “inexorable,” as if underscoring how war makes soldiers individually vulnerable and frightened, yet collectively powerful and frightening.
Notice how /l/ sounds connect the words “lifetime” and “lost,” as if suggesting that, in the poet’s era, loss is inseparable from life. The /h/ consonants in “Herself” and “helpless” closely link the poem’s subject—a woman who may be a version of Rukeyser, as well as a symbol of womanhood or humanity in general—with feelings of vulnerability and despair. The /h/ consonants also sound breathy and weary, perhaps hinting at the woman’s exhaustion.
Line 3 reports that the woman has seen “Love made monotonous fear.” Those subdued, repetitive /m/ sounds (combined with /n/ consonance: “monotonous”) echo the description of what has happened to love. The woman also witnesses “the integrated never fighting well, / the flesh too vulnerable, the eyes tear-torn” (lines 7-8). The fricative /f/s and plosive /t/s in these lines have a harsh, spiky quality that helps evoke the violence of warfare. (Similarly, harsh /f/ sounds link the ominous words “fear,” “sad-faced,” and “falling” in lines 3-4.)
Despite all the suffering she’s seen, the woman “holds belief in the world, she stays and hides / Life in her own defeat, stands, though her whole world burn” (lines 12-13). That is, she somehow maintains her sanity and protects her own “Life,” or life more generally. The combination of breathy /h/ sounds and solid /st/ sounds—which, in English, often appear in words related to endurance (strong, sturdy, steady, stable, etc.)—subtly reflects her mix of weariness and perseverance.
The Hour is Come
the use of dactylic meter is unusual (doesn’t conform to traditional English poetic standards + doesn’t wanna adhere to the societal expectations, once again shows how the fight for feminism is rare, going against social conventions)?
Short sentence at the end: restrictions and convictions of women in society
‘How did she fight? How did she light?’ : anaphora creates an overwhelming effect to represent the many obstacles the woman, and Lawson, had to overcome in order to achieve their goals (fight against female suffrage)
‘God, who knows all, only can tell.’ The notion that only God can explain the woman’s collapse is hyperbolic and displays the willingness of those in power, particularly men, to avoid taking responsibility for the plight of women by suggesting it is beyond their power to intervene.
also the answers are super short, which shows how men disregard the opinions of women or their actions with supplementary agreements
‘What of her pain! Their’s is the gain.’ : Juxtaposition the woman’s suffering with the success she appears to have brought to the group she fought for (pain and gain). Perhaps ironically, the woman seems not to have enjoyed any of the success herself and the people she defended are unwilling to risk the successes she provided by helping her in her vulnerable state.
‘If there is death in her eyes’ metaphor in the second line helps emphasize the severity of the woman’s plight, thereby ensuring the idle observers are even more culpable.
‘Can you not see? She made them free.’ The third line features a hyperbolic claim which reinforces the connection with the author’s fight for suffrage as the right to vote is regarded as an integral part of freedom in many democratic nations.
‘In her good fight it is so’ The use of the oxymoronic “good fight” showcases the fact that some struggles are worth going through if it means they can break negative cycles of oppression like Lawson’s did.
‘On her head, in the dust, is a crown’ The metaphorical crown in the second line clearly associates her struggle with that of Christ as they were both let down and betrayed by those they sought to defend and whose rights they wished to uphold.
This biblical connection is strengthened by the reference to light as it suggests God is on her side due to the positive connotations of light in the Bible.
‘She’ll rise alone.’ The final line conflates her rising from the ground with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and suggests her ideas and principles will live on in perpetuity like his.
From Complaints of Poverty
heroic couples - pits the rich and the poor next to one another, but also describes the duality of the two despite their proximity
a lot of description of the misery that is afforded to a poor man, particularly when he falls ill
stingy church and stingy men
death here takes the form of all the misery afforded to this man - hunger, the smoke, the cold, the crying
A Long Journey
five years after Zimbabwe earned its independence
free verse and lack of rhyme make it seem like we are getting an insight into the persona’s true, unadulterated thoughts
long long journey describes the period of colonialism where his people had to suffered, and they’ve come out the other side of the river
motor car symbolizes new tech and industrialisation - culture is murdered for bicycles
people begin to look forward and yearn for better things and freedom
new people are thus haunted by the nightmares brought about by colonialism
left its past unwillingly - almighty hand of the past tries to pull them back
therefore we see how theres a lot of juxtaposition and feelings about colonialism, asking real qquestions about how to move on in a post-colonial society
Growing Old
The poem’s speaker warns readers that old age is everything they fear it will be and nothing they hope it will be. Even the praise we receive from others is insincere: it comes from people who like us better when we’re dying than they did when we were fully “living.”
While the body suffers “weary pain,” the “heart” freezes over—to the point where one can no longer remember youth, let alone miss it.
In short, the poem offers a sober warning; it encourages an attitude of stoic realism toward the aging process. Toward the end, the speaker echoes the “All the world’s a stage” speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which warns that old age destroys teeth, taste, eyesight, and “everything” else in life. Similarly, Arnold’s poem cautions readers not to expect any gains in return for all that old age takes away.
When we near the end of our lives, the speaker claims, “the world” starts to shower us with praise that we can’t truly enjoy. By the time we’re near death, we’re emotionally “frozen up,” so we can’t take real satisfaction from praise to begin with. Even if we could, the praise signals a suspicious change in attitude. To grow old, the speaker says, is “To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost / Which blamed the living man.” In other words, the same people who criticized us when we were at the height of our abilities turn around and applaud us when we’re shells of our former selves. Their sudden praise is impossible to savor because it’s impossible to take seriously.
The result is a highly logical structure that suits the poem’s didactic purpose. In other words, the poet/speaker is trying to teach the reader a lesson, so he makes the lesson easy to follow and hammers home his point.
He also uses other forms of repetition along the way, such as the diacope in lines 24-25: “month / To month with weary pain.” Here, the repeated word helps capture the repetitiveness of aging itself—the way old age brings a seemingly endless series of painful days.
Perhaps the staggered alternation between long and short lines is meant to convey short-windedness, as if the aging speaker lacks the energy for a whole poem’s worth of pentameter. The phrase “lose the glory of the form” (line 2) could also be a clue. Perhaps this weary speaker, rather than taking on any of the conventional forms of the English tradition, is making do with a less glorious substitute.
This has the effect of emphasizing “Yes,” which is the poem’s first confirmation that old age is no fun.
The absence of rhyme here makes the language sound stark and unadorned, as if the poet has little interest in appealing to the reader’s ear. In other words, it fits the poem’s mission: to tell blunt, harsh truths about aging.
From Fears in Solitude
In this stanza, the speaker accuses his own countrymen (Great Britain) of being “thankless for peace”. When the country was secure and safe from warfare, his people were not grateful. Instead, they were “passionate for war”. The new generation was not familiar with the agonies of past wars. They didn’t see the “ghastlier workings” of war, and so they were bloodthirsty and excited to fight. The speaker criticizes these people as ignorant of the realities of war. He claims that his people have made a sport out of war. He also claims that they are grasping at straws to find justified reasoning for the war they began.
He continues to accuse his countrymen of using God as an excuse for their wrongdoing. He criticizes his country for choosing their “mandates for death” by sending thousands of young people who “would groan to see a child pull off an insect’s wing” into a gruesome and terrible war. He implies that this is done for amusement when he says, “the best amusement for our morning meal”. This, of course, refers to reading the newspaper in the morning and finding entertainment out of the bloody news that comes with times of war. The speaker pities the young men who will go into war, ignorant and naive. He describes them almost as if they were victims of the country’s government calls the young man who goes into war a “poor wretch” who is hardly old enough to learn how to pray and yet gets sent away to war where he will become “a fluent phraseman” in what he refers to as “dainty terms for fratricide”. The use of the word “fratricide” further implies the speaker’s feelings toward this war. The term means to kill one’s sibling. Thus, the speaker views the enemies of his country as brothers and sisters and clearly believes that people should view all other human beings as such. He mourns the fact that brothers and sisters will be out there killing each other in the name of war, supporting causes they don’t even know how to justify, and using “dainty terms” to cover the brutal reality that killing in war is the murder of one’s own kind. The speaker clearly hates these terms. He says, “we trundle [the dainty terms] smoothly o’er our tongues”. The use of the second person “we” suggests that he still identifies with his country and feels a sense of camaraderie with his fellow countrymen. The wrongs he sees do not cause him to separate himself from his country.
He continues to use the second person, thus including himself in the wrongdoing he points out. He hates the way people talk about war, as if they are completely unfeeling, without compassion. The speaker knows that the soldiers on the field suffer, and he cannot stand that others talk about war with a lack of compassion and feeling, “As if the soldier died without a wound; As if the fibers of this godlike frame Were gored without a pang”. He believes that the people as a whole do not think about the soldiers who die as individual people. They refer to the death of a soldier “as though he had no wife to pine for him, No God to judge him!” With these words, the speaker emphatically calls upon his countrymen to remember the value of a single human life. He refers to his wife so that others might think about the fallen soldier as if he were their own family member, husband, brother, or son. When he says, “No God to judge him”. He reminds his hearers that each person has but one life to life. He refers to the belief that one will stand before the judgment of God upon passing from this life. This emphasizes the unmatched value of human life. The speaker’s goal here seems to be to bring the realities of war to the minds of the people of Great Britain. He wants them to think about war on a smaller scale and to consider what it would feel like to lose someone close. Then, perhaps, they could truly grasp the grotesque nature of war rather than being bloodthirsty and hungry for victory. The speaker then resumes his biblical tone of a prophet to his people when he says, “Therefore, evil days Are coming on us, O my countrymen,”. Much like a biblical prophet, this speaker then warns that they will not go unpunished for their deeds.
mimics natural speech, which stengthens its serious tone
anaphora, juxtaposition, direct address, imagery, biblical references
Renouncement
“Renouncement,” by Alice Meynell, is a Petrarchan sonnet that explores the agony of forbidden or unattainable love. The speaker spends all day fighting off thoughts of the person she loves, but as soon as she falls asleep, her desires rise to the surface in her dreams.
The poem’s final moments, when the dreaming speaker is “gathered” up by her beloved’s heart, feel all the more ecstatic coming after 12 lines of self-denial and buildup. Sometimes, the poem suggests, desire is more potent precisely because it’s forbidden.
But no matter how diligent she may be about turning her attention to other things during the day, the speaker isn’t able to control the unconscious thoughts that come to her in dreams. When “each difficult day” comes to a close, “night gives pause to the long watch [she] keep[s].” She’s worn out by this constant vigilance and sets aside her “will” like a garment one takes off in order to sleep. But as soon as she does so, her mind floods with the thoughts she tried so hard to push aside all day. “With the first dream” she finds herself running to this person, “gathered to [their] heart.” All the conscious discipline in the world, the poem illustrates, can’t change how she feels.
The poem’s title readers know what the poem will be about: renouncement refers to the act of giving up something one enjoys or desires.
The anaphora of lines 1 and 2 (“I must,” “I shun”) make the speaker sound more emphatic still. She actively, consciously rejects this “thought”—the “thought of thee,” despite the fact that it “lurks in all delight.”
In other words, this thought sneakily hides within everything that brings the speaker joy: “in the blue heaven’s height,” or up in the bright blue sky, and “in the sweetest passage of a song.” Basically, everything lovely or happy thing reminds the speaker of her beloved. The breathy alliteration of “heaven’s height” and the gentle sibilance of “sweetest passage of song” make these lines themselves sound lovely. It seems that the speaker enjoys thinking about this person, which makes her efforts to stop thinking about them all the more difficult.
This firm, propulsive meter reflects the speaker’s confidence and resolve. And yet, already, there’s a subtle irony in these lines that undermines that resolve. The speaker uses apostrophe here and throughout the poem, directly addressing the person she is trying to push from her mind. On the one hand, this apostrophe makes the poem sound more intimate and vulnerable; the speaker is quite love-sick, though trying very hard to take control of her feelings. At the same time, this apostrophe undercuts the speaker’s claim that she’s not going to this person; she’s talking to them directly, and has written a whole poem about them!
Frequent anaphora makes the language of “Renouncement” sound more emphatic and intense. In the opening lines, for instance, the repetition of the word “I” helps to convey the speaker’s passionate conviction
The thought of this person “lurks” both “in the blue heaven’s height […] And in the sweetest passage of a song.” Anaphora (and polysyndeton with that repetition of the word “and”) creates the sense that the speaker could go on and on; there are likely plenty more places where thoughts of her beloved hide.
Anaphora drags the transition from night to day out, building anticipation. That anticipation then gets released with the exuberant anaphora in the poem’s final line: “I run, I rum, I am gathered to thy heart.”
The volta here coincides with the speaker’s admission that she can’t control her thoughts at night and ultimately surrenders to the fantasies she spends all day trying to avoid.
Here, each spondee again follows two unaccented syllables in a row, so that “first dream” and “first sleep” ring out loud and clear. It isn’t just that the speaker dreams about this person; it’s that the moment her guard is down, these dreams come rushing in with great urgency—revealing just how hard it’s been for her to keep these thoughts at bay all day.
The poem’s octave, the ABBA ABBA part, describes the speaker’s waking hours, when she must resist thoughts of the person she wants to be with. The poem’s sestet then introduces new rhyme sounds (CDECDE) to coincide with a shift in content: now, the speaker describes what happens when night comes—and she is powerless to control her unconscious desires.
The poem’s rhymes are all perfect (i.e., “strong” and “song,” “delight” and “height”), ringing out clearly to the reader. This, along with the use of steady iambic meter, makes the speaker feel confident and self-assured throughout.
