The Cold Earth Slept Below - Shelley

Question 1

When was The Cold Earth Slept Below written?

Answer 1

December 1816

Question 2

What is the structure of The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 2

4 stanzas of septets

Mostly uses iambs but some lines incorporate anapests

Rhyme scheme: ABCCAAB

Question 3

What does Shelley express in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 3

Deep grief over Harriet Westbrook’s suicide

Question 4

What does Harriet’s letter addressed to Shelley show?

Answer 4

How bitter and deprived of love Harriet felt
- predominant motive for her suicide

Question 5

What is scene of The Cold Earth Slept Below similar to?

Answer 5

Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Question 6

How is The Cold Earth Slept Below similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet?

Answer 6

Ophelia is floating in a river, singing, just before she drowns

BUT the poem is a real life experience rather than fiction

Question 7

Themes in The Cold Earth Slept Below

Answer 7

Love and loss

Mortality/finitude of death

Nature/sense of place

Individual experience

Sublime

Question 8

Why is there an absence of celestial light in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 8

Shelley signifies there is no hope

• strange/dangerous

Question 9

What is significant of the wintry November scene being a devoid of green in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 9

Lack of visual image of life

Question 10

Significance of “tangled” in The Cold Earth Slept Below

Answer 10

Twisted

Connotations of violence

Human-like… drawn him off the path like fen-fire

Question 11

Quote for a metaphor in The Cold Earth Slept Below

Answer 11

“the night did shed on thy dear head”

Question 12

What do the roots seeking out new places to grow but are frozen by winter frost show in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 12

The speaker’s guilt

Question 13

What does the wind (being the only lively thing) maybe visiting her and giving her the appearance of life but will not move her show in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 13

Shelley’s acceptance that Harriet is dead

Question 14

What is the tone of The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 14

Style of gothic horror where death and fear are predominant themes

Question 15

How is an uncanny impression elicited in the reader in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 15

Pace and stressed words

Question 16

What does Shelley develop a reputation of?

Answer 16

Poet of extreme landscapes

Question 17

What is sublime?

Answer 17

Elicits from the observer of landscapes, or sometimes, situations, a state of awareness that incorporates fear, admiration, and awe

Question 18

Why is The Cold Earth Slept Below sublime?

Answer 18

Features of sublime (fear, admiration and awe) are prominent

Question 19

How does the first stanza describe extreme cold in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 19

“caves of ice” “fields of snow”
- darkness/malignant = danger and fear

“chilling sound”
- sounds that seem to echo out

“death”

“cold”
- repetition emphasises importance

“beneath the sinking moon”
- personification
- desolate landscape

Question 20

How does the second stanza expand the description of bleak landscape in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 20

“black”
- colour is associated with mourning
- absence of light = strange/dangerous

“bare thorn’s breast”
- devoid of life

“their folds o’er many a crack which the frost had made between”
- further imagery of life sinking into the ground
- links to the title of the poem

Question 21

What does the third stanza move on from describing the landscape to?

Answer 21

Directly addresses a creature but it is not revealed who or what

Question 22

Quote for metaphor in stanza 3 in The Cold Earth Slept Below?

Answer 22

“thine eyes glow’d in the glare of the moon’s dying light as a fen-fire’s beam”
- unclear who’s eyes
- holding more light than the rest of the world
- refers to lights seen at night appearing over wet areas (swamps) and are associated with negative experiences (sending travellers to death)

Question 23

What does the fourth stanza reveal?

Answer 23

Dead woman
- “lips pale” “bosom chill”

Not an impersonal description
- addresses the deceased as “beloved”