The school boy (Songs of experience) Flashcards
1
Q
Summary
A
- Dramatic monolgue, boy who feels suffocated in classroom, instead wants to play outside in the summer air.
- Poem, serious, tragic, miserable, pitiful
- School prevents child from reaching full potential, like a bird in a cage.
- Finishes with schoolboy with petition to parents. Cautioning that his boyhood/juvenility may be taken if he is not allowed to enjoy his childhood
2
Q
Theme of Education, Play and Freedom
A
- Poem interprets school in the summer as a form of brutal/inhuman confinement.
- School unnatural (‘sit in a cage’) (‘an anxious hour’)
- Critiscing the entire school system?
3
Q
Childhood potential vs Maturity
A
- Warns taking children’s joy, prevent them from maturing. (‘if buds are nipped’ …‘how shall the summer arise in joy) - metaphor.
- Caged bird, no choice but to (‘droop his tender wing’)
- Harshness wont strengthen them. Like (‘tender plants are stripped’ they would be more exposed/vulnerable in the ‘blasts of winter’). Children wont have the crucial spirits to confront lifes harshest games.
4
Q
Symbol of the Huntsman and Skylark
A
- Skylark: Freedom/joy. Famously morning birds, may be comparison of the boys early life.
- Huntsmen: Threats towards innocence. Adults taking away a childs freedom.
5
Q
Repetition
A
- Emphases/comparison/contrast, persistent, relentless tone.
- Anaphora: accentuate frustration. tone of begging
6
Q
Extended Metaphor
A
- First: Fourth stanza, over rhetorical Qs, child and bird similiar, loose childlike qualities.
- Second: Fifth and sixth. More vulnerable to hardships.
7
Q
Alliteration
A
- Adds to the songlike rhythm
- ## (‘spend the day, In sighing and dismay’): Contrast, dispirited tone, sad mood.
8
Q
Form
A
- Variant of a Ballad, First and third lines of each stanza have 4 stressed syllables.
9
Q
Meter
A
- Loose blend of unstressed-stressed rhythm. Freespirit, playfult, hope?
