Revision Schedule for English Literature FOUNDATION CANDIDATES Week Beginning 16th March 23rd March 30th March 5th April 12th April 19th April 26th April 3rd May 10th May ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 1 p.31 Clarke – ‘Cold Knap Lake’ p.29 Clarke – ‘A Difficult Birth’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 2 and 3 p.27 Clarke – ‘Catrin’* p.30 Clarke – ‘The Field Mouse’* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 4 Clarke – ‘Baby‐sitting’* p.28 Clarke – ‘Mali’ p.30 Clarke – ‘October’ p.31 Clarke – ‘On the Train’* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 5 and 6 Pre‐1914: p. 46 Ben Jonson ‘On my first Sonne’* p.46 WB Yeats ‘The Song of the Old Mother’* p.47 William Wordsworth ‘The Affliction of Margaret’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 7 Pre‐1914: p.49 Thomas Hardy: ‘The Man He Killed’ p.49 Walt Whitman ‘Patrolling Barnegat’ p.50 Shakespeare ‘Sonnet 130’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 8 Pre‐1914: p.51 Robert Browning ‘My Last Duchess’ p. 52 Robert Browning ‘The Laboratory’ p.57 Alfred Tennyson ‘The Eagle’* p.58 John Clare ‘Sonnet’ (‘I love to see the summer’)* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 9 p.19 Heaney: ‘Storm on the Island’ p.20 Heaney: ‘Perch’ p.20 Heaney: ‘Blackberry‐Picking’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 10 p.21 Heaney: ‘Death of a Naturalist’* p.22 Heaney: ‘Digging’* p.23 Heaney: ‘Mid‐Term Break’* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 11 p.24 Heaney: ‘Follower’* pp.25‐26 Heaney: ‘At a Potato Digging’ Revision Schedule for English Literature HIGHER CANDIDATES Week Beginning 16th March 23rd March 30th March 5th April 12th April 19th April 26th April 3rd May 10th May ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 1 p.31 Clarke – ‘Cold Knap Lake’* p.29 Clarke – ‘A Difficult Birth’* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 2 and 3 p.27 Clarke – ‘Catrin’* p.30 Clarke – ‘The Field Mouse’* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 4 P.27 Clarke – ‘Baby‐sitting’ p.28 Clarke – ‘Mali’ p.30 Clarke – ‘October’ p.31 Clarke – ‘On the Train’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 5 and 6 Pre‐1914: p. 46 Ben Jonson ‘On my first Sonne’* p.46 WB Yeats ‘The Song of the Old Mother’ p.47 William Wordsworth ‘The Affliction of Margaret’* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 7 Pre‐1914: p.49 Thomas Hardy: ‘The Man He Killed’ p.49 Walt Whitman ‘Patrolling Barnegat’* p.50 Shakespeare ‘Sonnet 130’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 8 Pre‐1914: p.51 Robert Browning ‘My Last Duchess’ p. 52 Robert Browning ‘The Laboratory’ p.57 Alfred Tennyson ‘The Eagle’ p.58 John Clare ‘Sonnet’ (‘I love to see the summer’)* ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 9 p.19 Heaney: ‘Storm on the Island’* p.20 Heaney: ‘Perch’ p.20 Heaney: ‘Blackberry‐Picking’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 10 p.21 Heaney: ‘Death of a Naturalist’* p.22 Heaney: ‘Digging’* p.23 Heaney: ‘Mid‐Term Break’ ‘Lord of the Flies’ – Chapter 11 p.24 Heaney: ‘Follower’ pp.25‐26 Heaney: ‘At a Potato Digging’* Revision Materials for English Literature : Gillian Clarke & Seamus Heaney A Difficult Birth, Easter 1998
What happens in the poem: Two events: a) on the world stage, the Good Friday Agreement between the IRA and the British Government is about to be signed, bringing peace to Northern Ireland; b) on Gillian Clarke’s farm, an old ewe has a difficult birth – the poet delivers the lambs. What’s interesting about how the poem is written: • four stanzas each of six lines – though the last line of the poem is deliberately short which adds impact to the connection with Easter. • Descriptions of the ewe: she’d ‘given the ram the slip’; ‘barren’ – but they’d under‐estimated the fertile possibilities within her. • The ewe is in pain, thirsty, suffering (perhaps alluding to the suffering of Christ on the cross) • The situation is desperate and someone goes to get help • The poet rolls up her sleeves and struggles to free the stuck lamb so it can be delivered – the description suggests the danger: ‘ We strain together, harder than we dared’. • The birth of the first lamb is connected to the idea of the stone being rolled away which sealed up Jesus’ tomb – the second lamb is born. Interpretation and Response
• There are 3 ideas inter‐connected in the poet’s imagination: the difficult birth of lambs on the farm; the difficult and unexpected agreement with the IRA in the Good Friday Agreement; the Christian story of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. • The poet sees the struggle of the ewe and the birth of the lambs as being like the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus • She hints that the Good Friday Agreement is like this. Ireland had been suffering for years. No‐one thought a deal was possible. But miraculously it came. And just this week it has led to the unthinkable – power sharing between Catholics and Protestants in the governing of Northern Ireland. The Field-Mouse
What happens in the poem: •
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It’s hay‐making time A mouse is injured and the child who tries to rescue it watches it die. This leads the poet to think about the news: civil war in Bosnia She has nightmares about the pain and suffering if ever war came to her neighbourhood. What’s interesting about how the poem is written: • 3 stanzas of nine lines: the lines vary in length as the ideas move jerkily from one event or thought to another. • The horrors of the Bosnian war are caught: ‘ the radio’s terrible news’ – perhaps of massacres. She describes ‘Summer in Europe, the fields hurt’ and in her nightmare ‘the air / stammering with gunfire’ • Her neighbour’s actions bring benefit: the lime drifts on to her field bringing ‘a chance gift of sweetness’. But in her dreams she imagines relations turning sour: ‘my neighbour turned / stranger, wounding my land with stones.’ • The field‐mouse suffers ‘in agony big as itself’ – the description of its death is very moving: ‘the star goes out in its eye’. If the death of so small a thing is moving – how much more the suffering of children, men and women in Bosnia? • The garden becomes a rescue centre for ‘the saved’ animals from the field • It contrasts with ‘The wrong’ which ‘won’t heal’. Interpretation and Response
• This is a powerful and moving poem. • The poet is strongly affected by the suffering she hears about on the news and communicates this to the reader. • The focus is on the small, the children: in her nightmare she describes the children as having ‘bones brittle as mouse‐ribs’. • The poem is a powerful picture of the distress of war – even for those far removed from the conflict. Cold Knap Lake
What happens in the poem? • When the poet was a child she witnessed a girl’s drowning • Clarke’s mother gave the child mouth to mouth resuscitation and brought the child back to life. • Clarke’s father took the child home and saw her parents beat her for getting into danger. • As Clarke thinks back she questions her memory – whether she was really there What is interesting about the way it is written? • It’s a narrative poem – it tells a dramatic story of a dead child brought back to life • The description of the child ‘Blue‐lipped and dressed in water’s long green silk’ is extremely vivid with the colours of the water • She does not tell us immediately that the person who saves the child is her mother – she is ‘a heroine’ with ‘red head bowed’. • The four elements are all here: water, earth, air (the mother’s breath) and fire (her mother’s red hair and the fact that she restores the child’s spirit by saving her life). • The description of the crowd uses consonance to bring out the awe and wonder of the situation: ‘drawn by the dread of it’ • The poet, her parents and the reader are all upset by the ‘thrashing’ the child receives ‘for almost drowning’. • The lake becomes a metaphor for the way our memories are unreliable and deep waters close over our forgetting. • She compares our forgetfulness with the image of the swans ‘webs’ as they beat their wings stir up the silt beneath the water and cloud the water so things can’t be seen beneath the surface. • She seems to feel a sense of loss about these lost memories: ‘All lost things lie under closing water / in that lake.’ Personal response
• This is a poem about life and death but also about memory. As the waters of memory close and we forget things, they die and are lost for ever. There is no breath of a stranger to bring them back. Easter 1916
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Irish Republicans rebelled against British rule in Dublin – 116 soldiers were
killed in the insurrection; 318 Republicans died.
15 Republican leaders were sentenced to death by firing squad.
Good Friday/ Easter Sunday
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Good Friday is the religious holiday which commemorates the crucifixion and
death of Jesus who was put to death by Roman soldiers on Good Friday.
The bible records that when Mary Magdalene went to the grave on the first
day of the week (ie Sunday) the stone had been rolled away from the grave.
Mary saw and spoke with the risen Jesus.
Easter Sunday celebrates Jesus’ resurrection.
The Good Friday Agreement 1998
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Tony Blair (the British Prime Minister) and Bertie O’Hearn (the Irish ‘Taosech’
or Prime Minister) succeeded in convincing Loyalist and Republican leaders
to sign an agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland. President
Clinton’s representative – Senator Mitchell – was a key figure in managing the
peace process.
This led to a permanent ceasefire between paramilitary organisations on both
sides and the decommissioning of weapons.
The Northern Ireland Assembly was set up and powers were shared between
all parties.
‘Mali’ – Gillian Clarke
What happens in the poem? • Recollection of the premature birth of the granddaughter in late summer • Memory of the next day, with the baby on the beach, and the poet is ‘hooked again’ • Now it’s the child’s third birthday – a celebration with cakes, balloons and streamers What is interesting about the way it is written? • 4 stanzas of lyrical writing which seem to echo the ebb and flow of the sea • ‘that unmistakable brim and tug of the tide’ – seems to describe both the ocean and the feelings the poet experiences • She connects with the granddaughter as she did with her own child – she is ‘life‐sentenced’ • The birthday party has the traditional trappings but the poem ends by connecting with water and blood. • All through the poem the sea is a connecting idea which relates to the wash of emotions the poet feels • The three drops of ‘probably, last blood’ is intriguing. Blood and water connects with the fluids of birth. ‘Last blood’ might refer to the menopause of the poet – and her feelings about that now that she is a grandmother. Response
• Another poem about a woman’s relationship with children – this time a grand‐child. • The poem celebrates new life • It sees child‐birth in relation to the wider creation – symbolised by the sea. • The ‘last blood’ recognises that the life cycle leads to ends as well as beginnings. October
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A mysterious and chilling poem The time of year is significant – Autumn and anticipating winter. A friend has died and the funeral and burial affects the poet Now she is writing furiously to try to achieve as much as possible before death overtakes her. What is interesting about how it is written? • Autumn is described with phrases that suggest the approach of death e.g. ‘ a broken branch / a dead arm in the bright trees’; the lobelia ( a summer flower) is now ‘more brown than blue‐eyed’ as it dies back. • The second stanza provides short snatches of description of the funeral. The corpse is ‘lighter than hare‐bones on men’s shoulders’. The mourners faces are ‘stony’. The grave ‘deep as a well takes the earth’s thud’. • The third stanza is about the poet’s response – to seize life while she has it. There is an urgency here: ‘the pen / runs faster than wind’s white steps over grass.’ Her awareness of life is so sharp that ‘health feels like pain’. She feels ‘panic’ and experiences nature in a very sharp way ‘holding that robin’s eye in the laurel’ – she wants to hold on to every sensation. Most important of all is her writing – so much work to do and so little time to do it: ‘I must write like the wind…winning ground.’ Response
The combination of the natural world and the cycle of death that Autumn announces with the death of a friend is very vivid and dramatic. Clarke captures that feeling people have that our time on earth is short when there is so much life to be experienced. On The Train
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This poem is like a love‐letter She is on a train returning home to her lover She is eager to make contact with him and tries to ring on her mobile She admits that people using mobiles on trains can be irritating to other passengers • But her feelings are so urgent that she is even prepared to use the cliché: ‘Darling, I’m on the train.’ Points of explanation / to note: • ‘I’m thinking of you waking in our bed’. The word ‘our’ emphasises the shared nature of this relationship. • Notice the alliteration which gives a sense of movement : ‘….footprints track the frost / and trains slide out of stations in the dawn / dreaming….’ • The ‘blazing bone‐ship’ is a strange and disturbing metaphor – Clarke explains that the poem was written about a train journey she made when the Paddington rail disaster occurred in 1999. ‘The blazing bone‐
ship’ therefore evokes the wreckage of the train in which a number of passengers died. • This further explains the poet’s need to speak to her lover to reassure him that she is alright and ‘Tonight I’ll be home safe.’ At a Potato Digging
What happens in the poem? • It’s in four sections: 1 is about labourers recovering potatoes loosened by a mechanical digger; 2 is about the potatoes and the ground they grow in; 3 takes us back to the Irish Potato Famine of 1845; 4 brings us back to the present and the labourers’ break for lunch. What is interesting about how it’s written? • In section 1 Heaney uses harsh descriptions of the mechanical digger and the labourers who are ‘Like crows attacking crow‐black fields’. • Later in this section, the labourers are described with more religious language: ‘Heads bow…Processional stooping…humbled knees.’ • The earth is ‘the black mother’ and the workers ‘Make a seasonal altar of the sod.’ • The potato harvest is given religious connotations • In Section 2 Heaney uses harsh sounds to describe the potatoes: ‘flint‐
white…inflated pebbles’. ‘the halved seed shot and clotted / these knobbed and slit‐eyed tubers.’ • He pays homage to the soil: ‘Good smells exude from crumbled earth / The rough bark of humus erupts / knots of potatoes (a clean birth). • The earth is the fertile mother giving birth to our food. • The last description in section 2 is of the potatoes: ‘live skulls, blind‐
eyed’. But at the start of section 3 he repeats the same phrase to describe the starving Irish poor during the Irish Potato Famine of 1845. • The soil is now described as ‘the bitch earth’ where the Irish ‘were grafted with a great sorrow’. • In section 4, the workers are allowed to rest. They are ‘Dead‐beat’ and ‘flop / Down in the ditch’. • We move from the starvation of their ancestors to their lunch of bread and tea. • Religious language is used to describe the scraps falling on ‘the faithless ground’ where they spill ‘Libations of cold tea’. It is as if the workers are praying to the Earth Mother for good harvests and no more famine. Personal Response
• Heaney describes the back‐breaking and exhausting work of farm labourers harvesting potatoes • He captures the horror of the Irish Potato Famine and links it with the present day • The earth is described at the end as ‘faithless ground’. Despite the fact that harvests have succeeded year after year, the memory of the terrible famine of 1845 leaves a lasting memory. Its bitterness is planted in the Irish to the present day. ‘Digging’
What happens in the poem? • Poet is sitting in an upstairs room, thinking and writing; he hears his father digging; he admires his skill and remembers collecting the potatoes he dug as a child • This memory leads to another of his grandfather digging peat; the sounds, sights and smells come back vividly to him; • He admires them but can’t follow them; he has different skills – with words; his pen will allow him to ‘dig’ in a different way What is interesting about the way it is written? • He uses free verse – 9 uneven stanzas to follow his thoughts; • The pen is ‘squat’ but the simile ‘snug as a gun’ shows the balance of the tool in his hand; • Strong rhymes in second stanza – emphasises the poet connecting with the sound of his father digging; • His father’s ‘straining rump…comes up twenty years away’shows the way memory connects the present picture with that of his father when Heaney was a child • Details in the 4th stanza: the boot ‘nestled’, the shaft ‘was levered firmly’ shows the skill of the ‘digger’ : ‘By God, the old man could handle a spade’ • This leads to another memory, now of his grandfather who ‘cut more turf in a day / Than any other man on Toner’s bog.’ Heaney carried milk to him and remembers how he drank it ‘then fell to right away / Nicking and slicing neatly’. The enjambment separates the sixth and seventh stanzas to emphasise the precision and expertise his grandfather used to go ‘down and down / For the good turf’. • Notice the sense imagery in the eighth stanza: the smell and sound of the digging ‘awaken in my head’ – the memories are powerfully present for the poet. • The poem ends with a moment of self‐doubt: ‘ But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.’ He admires his ancestors but can’t follow directly in their footsteps. The final stanza provides his answer: he can hold up his head and say he, too, is a digger: He returns to the opening lines describing his pen in his hand. As a poet he has, not a spade, but a pen: ‘I’ll dig with it.’ Personal Response • An inspiring poem; shows Heaney’s roots in his rural, labouring community; his poetry will provide his own tribute to his people; his pen will ‘dig’ for the words to express his poetic vision. • It makes the reader admire the skill of ordinary workmen as well as the clever poet. It reminds us that we all have gifts which should be used to better ourselves and others. Follower
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He remembers following his father – an expert ploughman. As a child he used to love stumbling behind him and sometimes riding on his back as he ploughed He used to dream of growing up to be just like his dad. He realises what a nuisance he must have been – just like his dad is, now that he’s elderly. What’s interesting about how it’s written? •
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We ‘re taken back to the days of horse‐drawn ploughs Heaney’s father’s power and expertise are lovingly drawn: ‘His shoulders globed like a full sail strung’ – an image from sailing which is picked up when the boy Heaney ‘stumbled in his hob –nailed wake’ His expertise is shown by his handling of the horses which ‘strained at his clicking tongue’. ‘His eye / Narrowed and angled at the ground, / Mapping the furrow exactly’. He is ‘ an expert’ •
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Heaney paints the picture lovingly: ‘Sometimes he rode me on his back / Dipping and rising to his plod.’ His father was a big man who he wanted to be like: ‘All I ever did was follow / In his broad shadow’ He describes himself as ‘ a nuisance, tripping, falling / Yapping always’ The last two lines are self‐critical: he realises how impatient he feels about his elderly father now and compares that with the endless patience his father showed him when he was a boy. Personal Response
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I love the picture he presents of his father in his prime Here (like in Digging) there is admiration for the land‐skills his father and grandfather had He brings vividly to life the horse‐drawn ploughing of previous generations We are shocked by his attitude to his father at the end who ‘will not go away’ but so, I think, is Heaney. He realises he is being ungrateful. Mid-Term Break
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The poet is away at school, but is called home. A wake is in progress, strangers pass on their condolences, his mother and father are grieving. He visits the bedroom where his brother’s body is laid out. He was hit by a car. He was only four years old. What is interesting about the way it is written? •
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There are six three‐line stanzas which tell the story. The final stanza is one line long to add impact: the coffin is only four feet long ‘a foot for every year’. The school bells ‘knelling classes to a close’ sound like funeral bells. Heaney describes the events back at the house in a detached, unemotional way – emphasising the sense of shock at the bereavement. He describes his mother’s grief with precise details which make it so real: she ‘coughed out angry tearless sighs’ as she holds his hand. The colours in the room create a dramatic effect: snowdrops and white candles ‘soothed the bedside’; his brother’s face is ‘paler now’ and the bruise from the impact of the car is ‘poppy’ –coloured. The short final line suggests the restrained anger that the family feels at this sudden, unexpected death. Personal Response
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Heaney is very restrained in the way he tells the story He doesn’t rant and rave in his grief This makes the poem all the more affecting as we see the impact of the tragedy on the family The last line is a brilliant condensation of all the agony and the anger that the family feels. Revision Materials – English Literature: Poems Pre‐1914 My Last Duchess Robert Browning 1) What happens in the poem? • The Duke of Ferrara is speaking to a visitor who has come to negotiate the marriage of his master’s daughter to the Duke. • The Duke shows him a painting of his last Duchess • There is a strong hint that the Duke had her murdered. 2) What’s interesting about the way it is written? • The poem is a dramatic monologue – the only voice we hear is that of the Duke. • It is written in heroic couplets which capture the normal rhythms of speech. There is repeated use of enjambement to preserve this natural rhythm of a person speaking. (note how almost every quotation cited in these notes runs over the end of a line – as shown by the / mark) • There is a tremendous sense of drama in the poem: the curtain is drawn to reveal the portrait where ‘she stands / As if alive’. The visitor is invited to sit and hear the Duke’s list of grievances he had against his wife. • There is something creepy about the Duke almost from the start – the way the portrait is hidden: ‘none puts by /The curtain I have drawn for you, but I’ • The last duchess was clearly attractive – ‘ that pictured countenance / The depth and passion of its earnest glance’. The painter has captured the fleshly tones beautifully – a blush: ‘that spot / Of joy’ and ‘the faint /Half‐flush that dies along her throat’. These lines convey an element of the erotic which lead to the deadly jealousy which the Duke came to feel. • His main grievance is that the Duchess would blush, smile and express delight to anyone or anything: her husband’s corsage, a sun‐set, a gift of cherries from a stranger, a ride on her mule. • He considers this ingratitude: ‘as if she ranked / My gift of a nine‐
hundred‐years‐old name / With anybody’s gift’ • He says he could not bring himself to reprimand her about it. He doubted whether he had sufficient ‘skill / In speech’ to explain to her what ‘disgusts’ him. He was unsure whether she would ‘let / Herself be lessoned so’. Most important of all – to raise the matter would require ‘some stooping; and I choose / Never to stoop’. His aristocratic pride prevented him from broaching the matter. • The sinister climax of the poem comes with the lines: ‘ I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.’ The visitor is left in little doubt that these ‘commands’ led to the Duchess’ death! • The poem ends with a number of details which add to the horror of the situation: This is where we come to realise that the visitor is negotiating a dowry between his master, ‘The Count’, and the Duke for his next Duchess. The Duke makes clear that he will demand a very high dowry – the Count, he says, is well known for his ‘munificence’ (ie generosity). ‘no just pretence / Of mine for dowry will be disallowed’ – the Duke will be requiring a sizeable sum. • The poem ends with the two characters descending a stair‐case which enables the Duke to show off ‘Neptune…/ Taming a sea‐horse’ – a bronze sculpture cast by Claus of Innsbruck. He seems to care more about his art collection than human life! 3) Effectiveness of the poem? • The poem is a chilling, macabre, dramatic moment in verse form. • The character of the Duke is gradually revealed as arrogant, jealous, vengeful and murderous. He is a tyrant with the power of life and death over his household. • We are left with the horrifying thought – what might become of the future Duchess of Ferrara? • Browning creates a horror miniature with amazing economy and skill. The graceful measure of the heroic couplets capture the Duke’s arrogance and superiority brilliantly. On my first Sonne This poem is a
eulogy, dedicated
to Jonson’s son
who died of plague at seven
years old. Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; The verb ‘lent’
implies that
Jonson’s son was
never truly his, he
was a gift
borrowed from
God.
My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy, Seven yeeres tho’wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O, could I loose all father, now. For why Jonson feels
guilty for grieving
as his son is now
in heaven, a place
all people at that
time aspired to
be.
Will man lament the state he should envie? To have so soone scap’d worlds, and fleshes rage, And, if no other miserie, yet age? Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lye Ben. Jonson his best piece of poetrie. For whose sake, hence‐forth, all his vowes be such, As what he loves may never like too much. It was believed at this time that no one should love
anything more than God, and Jonson believes that
perhaps God had punished him for loving his son
too much.
The ‘poetrie’ is a
metaphor for
Jonson’s son, the
best work of art
he created.
On My First Sonne 4) What happens in the poem? • Ben Jonson mourns the death of his oldest son, aged 7 • He tries to console himself by remembering that the boy is now in heaven and will be spared all the troubles of life and pains of old age – but cannot overcome his grief. • He vows to protect himself in future by not loving so deeply in future. 5) What’s interesting about the way it is written? •
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The poem is addressed to his dead son – he bids him ‘farewell’. It is written in twelve lines of iambic pentameter, in rhyming couplets. Calling him ‘child of my right hand’ stresses his importance as first son. He accuses himself of the sin of loving the boy too much – a sin he vows to put right from now on (at the end of the poem) by not loving too much in future. He uses the language of debt and repayment to describe the loss of his son: the boy was ‘lent’; the father now has to ‘pay’ on the ‘just day’ – a phrase meaning day of judgement or payment. Johnson knows all the religious arguments why he should not be grieving: the boy is in heaven and has escaped all the trials and tribulations of life (‘worlds, and fleshes, rage’) – but you sense that Johnson is getting no comfort from any of this religious wisdom. The ending sounds like an epitaph on a gravestone: ‘ here doth lye..’ It is particularly telling that, as a poet himself, he describes his dead son as his ‘best piece of poetrie’. The boy was a better creation than any poems or plays he could write. 6) Effectiveness of the poem? • The poem is intensely moving and we are drawn into sharing something of the terrible grief Johnson is feeling. • In one of the most moving lines he wishes he could ‘loose all father now’. The pain he feels is because of his relationship as a father with his son. He wishes he could release himself from that relationship because then he would not feel so much pain. • Johnson has managed to put into words the inexpressible pain of bereavement in a way which wrings the hearts of his readers. Sonnet 130 ‐ William Shakespeare What happens in the poem? • Shakespeare is speaking about the woman he loves • He appears to be describing her in less than flattering terms • He ends by saying that he doesn’t need to use false comparisons to tell everyone how special his love is. What is interesting about the way it is written? • The sonnet (from the Italian meaning little song) was a popular verse form, imported from Italy, in Shakespeare’s century. • It was commonly used for love poetry and here Shakespeare uses the form to compliment his lover. • He lists the typical poetic clichés of the time used by poets to claim that their lover’s were the most beautiful: e.g. eyes ‘like the sun’; lips red as coral etc. • He seems to be dismissing her as not being anything special by saying that her voice lacks music and that her breath ‘reeks’! • Conventional beauty of Shakespeare’s time would have expected a white, untanned complexion and fine blonde hair. Shakespeare describes his lover’s breasts as ‘dun’ (ie dark) and her hair as ‘black wires’. • Shakespeare is not only challenging the conventional view of what beauty is but also ridiculing poets who write describing their lovers with absurd comparisons. • In the conceit at the end of the sonnet he reverses the apparently unromantic direction of the poem by describing his love ‘as rare / As any she belied with false compare’. • He is accusing poets of having deceived (‘belied’) their lovers with false comparisons. He, by contrast, writes truthfully which makes his claim that his love is ‘as rare / as any’ more credible. Personal Response • Shakespeare’s wit and the implied criticism of other poets who lie and use ridiculous similes shines through the poem. • One suspects that his lover might initially feel disappointed by the unflattering description he gives of her until the end when Shakespeare reveals his intention in the conceit. The Song of the Old Mother W.B. Yeats 7) What happens in the poem? • A mother of teenage daughters complains about the way she slaves with housework while the daughters sleep late and live their lives in idleness. 8) What’s interesting about the way it is written? • The poem is written in the first person as if the mother is speaking directly to us, describing her life. • She literally works from dawn until dusk when ‘the stars are beginning to blink and peep.’ • The list of her chores is a reminder of the hardships a housewife had to bear in earlier centuries: maintaining the fire for warmth and cooking; ‘to scrub and bake and sweep’ all day long. • She contrasts her labour with her daughters’ idleness who lie in bed dreaming about ribbons and whose sole cause for complaint is when a breeze disturbs their hair‐style. • Her first task is to breathe on the grate ‘Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow’. The metaphor of the embers as the ‘seed’ of the fire gains even greater importance at the end of the poem when she uses the same image to describe how her own inner fire – her energy, her zest for life, ‘gets feeble and cold’. 9) Effectiveness of the poem? • The poem has a tone of complaint as the causes for the old mother’s resentment are laid out for us. • We share her irritation with her daughters whose only preoccupation is the way they look – worrying about the colour of ribbons and the state of their hair. • There is a sense of pathos at the end when she describes her own inner fire ( a metaphor for her youthful fertility and energy) which now grows ‘feeble and cold’ because she is old. There is an unspoken anticipation that the next event in her life is death. The Laboratory – Robert Browning What happens in the poem? • The phrase ‘Ancien Regime’ suggests that Browning has in mind a story which might have occurred amongst the French aristocracy before the Revolution of 1789. • A jealous woman seeks poison from an apothecary1 in his laboratory • She intends to poison her rival who has stolen her husband/lover from her. What is interesting about the way it is written? • It is a dramatic monologue in which we hear the woman’s excited instructions, questions and explanations which she gives to the apothecary. • This sense of excitement in the speaker gives her an almost ‘unhinged’ sound which is emphasised by the dactylic2 rhythms of the lines. • The atmosphere of the apothecary’s laboratory is sinisterly drawn – she calls it ‘this devil’s‐smithy’. She is fascinated by the wonders she sees: ‘faint smokes curling whitely’, ‘gold oozings’ and ‘yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue’ – she is like a child in a sweet‐shop! • This contrasts dramatically with the world she has come from – that of the Court where the King holds dances and the courtiers engage in affairs and crimes of passion. • She is excited by all the possibilities for hiding the poison – ‘an earring, a casket / A signet, a fan mount, a filigree basket!’ • The speaker has one victim in mind – but refers to two women by name that she would like to see dead – Pauline and Elise. It suggests her husband or lover has been unfaithful many times. 1
An apothecary was a kind of chemist (before chemistry was known about!) - a person who concocted
medicines, potions and poisons from plants etc.
2
A dactyl is the name for a unit of rhythm which has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables ie
Da-di-di.
• Her thirst for revenge goes further than merely wanting her rival dead – she wants her to suffer: ‘Brand, burn up, bite into its grace ‐ / He is sure to remember her dying face!’ • Her madness and her decadence are conveyed by the way she showers the apothecary with her wealth: ‘take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill’ ‐ she even invites him to kiss her on the mouth – it is as if she is sexually excited by the prospect of the murder she is about to commit. Personal Response • What is so impressive here is Browning’s economy in creating a strong sense of situation, setting and character in so few lines. • The deranged speaker flits from observations about the poison‐making process to recollections of the murderous stare she had given her rival the previous night: ‘I thought….she would fall / Shrivelled’. She chatters excitedly, ten to the dozen, encouraging the poison‐maker, dreaming of ways of carrying the poison and where she will do it: ‘next moment I dance at the King’s!’ • Browning seems to combine horror with a kind of grotesque humour as this ‘minion’ plans her more buxom rival’s death.