When We Two Parted

Question 1

Summary

Answer 1

1) The narrator recalls the day he and his lover parted - she didn’t seem to have any affection for him anymore. He believes the sadness that he felt then foreshadowed the sadness he feels in the present.
2) Although time has passed, even hearing her name affects the narrator deeply.
He hears people talking about her affairs with other men, and he feels hurt by her actions.
3) He thinks that he’ll always feel hurt - if he meets her again he’ll act just the same as when they parted.

Question 2

Context

Answer 2

Byron may have been writing about Lady Frances Webster - it’s rumoured they had a relationship while she was married to a friend of Byron’s. She apparently went on to have an affair with the Duke of Wellington.

Question 3

quote about romantic love, longing / loss & death?

Answer 3

“pale grew thy cheek and cold.”

-The caesura at the end of the first of these lines denotes a rift in the relationship

-idea of a pale cheek and cold kiss has death-like connotations, implying that the speaker is mourning the death of the relationship.

-shows the physical impact of the character’s sadness. “Grew” suggests that a relationship is never concluded, only changes over time.

Question 4

quote about nature

Answer 4

“the dew of the morning”

-fresh natural connotations of morning dew are subverted here to denote the speaker’s sadness

-explicitly remarks upon the pathetic fallacy reflecting the speaker’s melancholic recollection of their past relationship.

-The “dew” that appears in the early hours of the morning acts as a ‘calm before the storm’, foreshadowing a later downpour - the growing intensity of the speaker’s despair

Question 5

Form

Answer 5

FORM - The poem consists of four 8-line stanzas, and has a strong ABAB rhyme scheme and regular rhythm.
The rhythm emphasises certain syllables (e.g. “Cold” and “kiss” in line 6), which highlights the speaker’s pain.

Question 6

structure

Answer 6

STRUCTURE -The poem moves through time - the narrator constantly shifts between past, present and future. The juxtaposition of the past and present emphasises that there’s no change in his feelings.

Question 7

language about death

Answer 7

LANGUAGE ABOUT DEATH - To the narrator, the end of the relationship is like death - this emphasises his former lover’s lack of feeling for him. Now, even hearing her name reminds him of a death “knell”

Question 8

Language about death

Answer 8

LANGUAGE OF THE SENSES
-Typical love poetry uses descriptions that are pleasing to the senses, but
in this poem, the narrator uses negative descriptions, such as the sight of his lover’s “Pale” cheek, the cold touch of “dew” and the funereal sound of a “knell”. This emphasises how he’s lost love and is hurt by it.

Question 9

language about silence and secrecy

Answer 9

LANGUAGE ABOUT SILENCE AND SECRECY -
Silence is used to reflect how the relationship was secret
- the narrator and his lover are silent when they part and the narrator is silent about their affair both in the past and in the present. This silence contrasts with the voices of his friends in the third stanza, which draws attention to the fact that the speaker is unable to express how he feels - he must stay silent about the affair.