poetry time and place.

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thea

Cards (60)

  • London - William Blake (1794)
    Context
    Early romantic poet
    A radical thinker - interested in social justice; poem is a protest against poverty and hardship; influenced by the French revolution
  • London - William Blake (1794)
    Form and Structure
    Regular stanza form
    Rigid, regular quatrains
    Regular AB rhyme scheme structure
    Repetition - anaphora
    Regular march-like beat
  • London - William Blake (1794)
    Key themes
    Negative picture of London
    Poet on a journey through the streets
    Oppression ad constraint of the people
    Corruption of the innocent and youthful
  • London - William Blake (1794)
    Key Language features
    Vivid imagery to convey his strong emotions - oppression
    Marks/charter'd/weakness/woe
    Colour - black/blood
    Senses - sight/sound
    Contrasts - black'ning church/marriage hearse
  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 - William Wordsworth
    Context
    Early Romantic poet; also inspired by social revolution in France.
    Love of nature (Romantics drew inspiration from it); strong emphasis in expression of powerful emotions.
  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 - William Wordsworth
    Form and Structure
    A sonnet (14 lines iambic pentameter; 8+6 lines - octet + sestet).
    Regular rhyme scheme ABBA.
  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 - William Wordsworth
    Key themes
    Beauty of city in early morning, untouched by pollution an activity of the day; a celebration; expresses powerful feelings of admiration; is affected personally by the vision.
    Idealisation v Blake's realism.
    London compared to first day of God's creation - religious overtones.
  • Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 - William Wordsworth
    Key language features
    Exclamations and emphatic placement of words - powerful expression of personal feeling.
    Metaphors to express beauty (clothes/heart); personification.
    Vocabulary choices express poet's wonder: majesty; beauty; bright; glittering; calm; glideth.
  • To Autumn - John Keats 1820
    Context
    Later Romantic poet - inspired by beauty of nature but also recognised the transience of beauty - time passes; all must die.
    A tragic figure - died from TB aged 25 after witnessing deaths of many in family. Interested in emotion, the imagination (not 18th century reason).
  • To Autumn - John Keats 1820
    Form and Structure
    An ode - 3 stanzas of 11 lines; iambic pentameter; regular ABAB rhyme scheme - but uses much enjambment.
    Poet focuses on different aspect of Autumn in each stanza.
  • To Autumn - John Keats 1820
    Key themes
    Beauty of the Autumn season.
    Abundance of Autumn.
    Autumn as part of the natural cycle of the seasons (life-death-life)
    Bitter-sweet tone - created by subtle acknowledgement of death in vocabulary and imagery (soft-dying day; wailful choir; mourn; sinking/dies; gathering swallows)
  • To Autumn - John Keats 1820
    Key language features
    Appeal to all the senses (clammy cells; hair soft-lifted etc.)
    Sound elements - alliteration, assonance etc. - create tone.
    Emphatic placement of words at start of line.
    Rhetorical questions - he is directly addressing Autumn.
    Personification of Autumn.
  • Home Thoughts from Abroad - Robert Browning 1845
    Context
    Not a Romantic poet (Victorian) - but inspired by the Romantics; love of nature; expression of strong personal feelings; writes poem while in Italy and expresses feelings of homesickness and appreciation for the beauty of the English countryside in Spring
  • Home Thoughts from Abroad - Robert Browning 1845
    Form and structure
    A lyric poem (focus on strong personal emotions).
    Two sections - separate April and May - chronology - passing of time.
    Uses a rhyme scheme (ABABCCDD in first section - changes in second)
    Exclamations and dashes - convey strong feelings.
  • Home Thoughts from Abroad - Robert Browning 1845
    Key themes
    Contrast of 'home' and 'abroad';
    Memory of beauty of England at time of freshness and new life;
    Idealisation as result of poet being in Italy and missing England - offers a particular personal, biased perspective on place.
  • Home Thoughts from Abroad - Robert Browning 1845
    Key language features
    Uses the senses - especially sight and sound;
    Small details of rural English scene - expresses poet's knowledge and nostalgia.
    Use of the present tense, exclamations and fragmented lines - create a sense of energy and excitement.
    Abrupt change of focus at end.
  • I started Early - Took my Dog - Emily Dickinson 1862
    Context
    American poet; unusual lifestyle - spent much (not all) her life in seclusion; noted for her ideas about male-female relationships and early feminist thinking.
  • I started Early - Took my Dog - Emily Dickinson 1862
    Form and Structure
    Quatrains; some rhyme but not regular.
    Striking use of random capitalisation and line breaks (dashes) - create an odd, unsettling rhythm and feel to the poem.
    Structured as a journey (sea to town) and some narrative elements.
  • I started Early - Took my Dog - Emily Dickinson 1862
    Key themes
    The sea - mysterious, magical - mermaids. Dream-like.
    Nature - sea, mouse, dandelion; contrasted with 'the solid town'.
    Possibly allegorical (one story told to tell another); here - story of visiting the sea and the tide threatening to overwhelm her could be telling story of male dominance and oppression.
  • I started Early - Took my Dog - Emily Dickinson 1862
    Key language features
    Personification - the sea.
    Vocabulary choices: sea is like a building (upper floor etc.); natural details; clothing details.
    Imagery - metaphor and simile.
  • Where the Picnic Was - Thomas Hardy 1914
    Context
    Victorian poet and novelist; loved the countryside and was opposed to the effects of industrialisation; poem is in response to death of his wife Emma Gifford. The picnic referred to had taken place in 1912, shortly before Emma's death. The poet revisits the place in his imagination and is haunted by his wife's death.
  • Where the Picnic Was - Thomas Hardy 1914
    Form and Structure
    Three stanzas - last stanza is longer (perhaps reflecting Hardy coming to terms with Emma's death?)
    Quite regular rhyme scheme.
    Poem structured around contrast of past and present ('Yes, I am here...')
  • Where the Picnic Was - Thomas Hardy 1914
    Key themes
    Nature continues, while human life and emotions change.
    Contrast of rural landscapes with 'urban roar'.
    Grief, loss and sadness.
    Change and time.
  • Where the Picnic Was - Thomas Hardy 1914
    Key language features
    Symbols and motifs - fire, circle, weather - all help poet explore his feelings of loss and grief.
    Use of the natural landscape to explore human emotions (the pathetic fallacy).
    Use of the senses.
  • Adlestrop - Edward Thomas 1917
    Context
    Thomas loved nature and disliked urbanisation; fought and died in the 1st WW; was influenced by the Romantics (but not a Romantic poet himself) - expressed powerful personal emotions; inspired by the beauty of nature. Poem recollects a time just after war declared but before fighting had impacted England.
  • Adlestrop - Edward Thomas 1917
    Form and structure
    Three regular quatrains.
    Some rhyme - loosely based on ABCA scheme; but regularity disappears as poem continues.
    A lyric poem - powerful expression of personal emotions (like 'Home Thoughts').
  • Adlestrop - Edward Thomas 1917
    Key themes
    Memory.
    Calm and beauty of the English scene.
    Time and change.
    Contrast - sound v silence; movement v stillness; birds v steam train.
    A brief moment - caught and remembered; poignant because chaos and slaughter are around the corner.
  • Adlestrop - Edward Thomas 1917
    Key language features
    The senses - ('The steam hissed')
    Close observation of natural details.
    Simplicity of vocabulary choices - convey powerful emotions.
    No hyperbole (in contrast with earlier Romantic poets).
  • In Romney Marsh - John Davidson 1920
    Context
    Post- 1st WW - set in Kent countryside; Davidson celebrates its natural beauty, possibly before the encroachment of modernisation and commercialisation.
  • In Romney Marsh - John Davidson 1920
    Form and structure
    Regular stanza form - seven regular quatrains; regular ABAB rhyme scheme throughout.
    Elements of a ballad - repetition of lines/words; narrative elements.
    Structured around time (daybreak to nightfall) and journey poet takes (went down/came up)
  • In Romney Marsh - John Davidson 1920
    Key themes
    Beauty of a landscape and seascape - celebration of a particular place at a particular time (like 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge').
    Sense of history - Norman churches etc.
  • In Romney Marsh - John Davidson 1920
    Key language features
    Strong first person narrative - 'I' - compare with other poems; a strongly personal poem.
    Use of the senses - especially sight and sound.
    Colour.
    Use of specific place names - is a very particular landscape.
    Religious references.
    Strong sense of movement - created by regular rhythm and rhyme and also use of active verbs.
  • Absence - Elizabeth Jennings 1958
    Context
    An eminent poet of the 20th century; part of group known as The Movement; reacted against pretensions of earlier poetry - wanted direct and simple communication of emotions.
  • Absence - Elizabeth Jennings 1958
    Form and structure
    Regular stanza form - 3 five-line stanzas.
    Some rhyme but not regular - also uses half-rhyme to express powerful and disturbing emotions.
    Poem is a lyric; organised around contrast of then/now.
  • Absence - Elizabeth Jennings 1958
    Key themes
    Loss and grief.
    Change - here the place has stayed the same, but it serves to emphasise how much her feelings have changed because of loss. Link to 'Where the Picnic Was'.
    Time.
    Nature.
  • Absence - Elizabeth Jennings 1958
    Key language features
    First person voice - it's about powerfully felt personal emotions.
    Imagery of steady, static, unchanging landscape and nature v images of upheaval, change, distress.
    Final stanza - imagery of grief: savage force; earthquake tremor. She imagines the natural world around her is affected by her emotions.
  • Stewart Island - Fleur Adcock 1971
    Context
    New Zealand poet - but spent much of her life in England; is well known for her mixed feelings about native NZ. A sense of conflicted identity (like 'Presents from My Aunts' - countries look different, dependent on where you are viewing them from).
  • Stewart Island - Fleur Adcock 1971
    Form and Structure
    Free verse.
    No regular stanza form, rhyme or rhythm.
    Structured around contrasting perspectives on one place.
  • Stewart Island - Fleur Adcock 1971
    Key themes

    Place and perspective - explores key idea that your own sense of self, and your circumstances and emotions colour your feelings about place.
    What is here beautiful to the hotel manager's wife, is unpleasant and hostile to the speaker - because she had 'already decided to leave the country'.
  • Stewart Island - Fleur Adcock 1971
    Key language features
    Tone is matter of fact - no hyperbole; few deliberate poetic techniques; sounds conversational; uses words of another speaker - heteroglossia (also in 'First Flight'). Poets do this to plunge us into their experience - we hear what others say in the moment they are describing.
    Some humour and irony ('she ran off with one that autumn')
    Vocabulary of natural beauty v vocabulary of nature's cruelty and hostility.