Love and Relationships

• Before You where mine:

  Summary

  • Written by Carol Ann Duffy
  • Addresses the speakers mother
  • Looking at photograph of mother and blending her own childhood memories of her with the life she imagines her mother had before she was born
  • Tone of regret as the poet reflects on sacrifices her mother must have made
• When we two parted:

  Summary

  • Written by Lord Byron
  • Expressing sorrow of a lost relationship
  • Implies relationship was a secret and therefore he must grieve in secret
  • Many belive it is about his affair with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster
• Love's Philosophy:

  Summary

  • Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • Speaker putting forwards an argument to a lover
  • To persuade them to kiss him by personifying natural world and comparing it to himself
• Porphyria's lover:

  Summary

  • Dramatic monologue of a man who is unable to cope with his undying love toward his lover leading him to strangle her
  • Spends all night with her corpse and appears more in love with her dead self then her alive being
• Sonnet 29 - 'I think of thee!':

  summary

  • Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • About the speaker's borderline obsessive thoughts about there lover
  • An extended metaphor throughout, vines encircling a tree, is used to represent the speakers growing love
  • Eventually coming to the conclusion that it is better to be physically present rather than just thinking about him
• Neutral Tones:

  Summary

  • Written by Thomas Hardy
  • Recounting meeting a former lover by a pond
  • It was winter during this meeting therefore the atmosphere is cold and deathlike representing the absence of love for each other
• Letters from Yorkshire:

  Summary

  • Written by Maura Dooley
  • Thought to be about the relationship between Dooley and her father
  • The poem describes two people one who works in news and one in agriculture
  • Despite these differences it is clear that they acquire joy from their correspondence by letter
• The farmer's Bride:

  Summary

  • Written by Charlotte Mew
  • A farmer marries a young girl who attempts to run away
  • She is chased by people around the area and brought back
  • She does not engage with her husband and clearly emits misery
• Walking Away:

  Summary

  • Written by Cecil Day-Lewis
  • Father reflects on his son's childhood now that he has left home
  • Discussing how it effected there father son dynamic
  • Suggests physical seperation due to his son attending school
• Eden Rock:

  Summary

  • Written by Charles Causley
  • Ambiguous poem
  • Alluding to joining his parents in the afterlife
  • Retelling a childhood memory
  • Poem presents Causley seperated from parents by a stream
  • Setting up a picnic blanket and tea away from him
  • Focuses on loving familiar relationship between himself and his parents
• Follower:

  Summary

  • Written by Seamus Heaney
  • Recalls Heaney's memories of a farm he grew up on
  • Admiring and watching his farther hard at work
  • Reflects on heritage and identity as he decides to take different path than his father contrasting the title of 'Follower'
  • By the end there is a reverse in rolls
  • Demonstrates flexibility of father son relationships as they develope
• Mother any distance:

  Summary

  • Written by Simon Armitage
  • Speaker reflects on their relationship with there mother
  • From the perspective of a child growing up
  • Portrayed against the backdrop of the older version of speaker asking his mother to measure his new house
  • Contrast reliance in first stanza to exploring independence in the second
  • Considering success or failure in final stanza
• Winter Swans:

  Summary

  • Written by Owen Sheers
  • A couple are walking along together in a brief gap of good weather to come across two swans
  • Suggested that the couple had an argument or disagreement which has seperated there connection
  • However by the end there is a reunion of this connection and love
• Singh Song:

  Summary

  • Written by Daljit Nagra
  • Focuses on the love a shopkeeper has for his wife
  • How he abandons his duties to make love to her when no one notices
  • Uses comedy to enhance relationship
  • Secondary relationship between speaker and parents
• Climbing My Grandfather:

  Summary

  • Written by Andrew Waterhouse
  • Semi-Autobiographical
  • Recounting childhood memories playing with their grandfather and learning about him
  • Extended metaphor of Mountaineering which reflects Waterhouse's keen interest in environmentalism
• When We two Parted:

  Context

  • Lord Byron
  • Autobiographical account of Byron's many affairs
  • Claimed to have written in 1816 but wasn't published unto; 1816 to protect identify of the married woman he had an affair with
  • Love affair may be one sided and an unfair portrayal of the woman
  • Reflects his bitterness and pain
• Love's Philosophy:

  Context

  • Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • Romantic poet
  • Romanticism was a huge movement is 18th and 19th century lit
  • First published in 1819
  • Shelley's use of religion as a persuasive technique in the poem is ironic as he was an atheist
  • controversial viewpoint in 19th century
• Porphyria's lover:

  Context

  • Robert Browning
  • Porphyria is a disease that results in insanity
  • Comparing being in love with insanity and delusional view of reality
  • Porphyria is portrayed as sexual and seductive
  • attracted critisism
  • Untrustworthy speaker
  • attempting to justify murder
  • First published 1836
  • draws on romantic era
  • imagery of nature
  • strong emotions
• Mother, any distance:

  Context

  • Simon Armitage
  • published 1993
  • Part of collection called 'Book of Matches'
  • poems in book short enough to be read within time it takes a match to burn
  • Aims to convey powerful parent-child relationship in short time frame
• Sonnet 29 - 'I think of thee!' :

  Context

  • Elizabeth Barret Browning
  • Rote poem in 1845 - 46 about her then lover now husband, Robert Browning
  • Deeply personal
  • Private but he encouraged her to publish it
  • Published in a collection called ' Sonnets from the Portuguese'
  • pretending to have translated poems from portugues
  • nobody believed
  • Joyous religious tone within poem
  • palm trees which represent faith in Christianity
• Before You where mine:

  Context

  • Carol Ann Duffy
  • born in 1955 in Glasgow
  • Published in 1993
  • Autobiographical poem referencing streets in Glasgow
  • Conveying nostalgia of her home city
  • Duffy made poet Laureate in 2009
• Winter Swans:

  Context

  • Owen Sheers
  • Grew up in South Wales
  • Part of 2005 collection of poems entitled 'Skirrid Hill' a title which originates from the Welsh name 'Ysgirid Fawr' roughly translates as 'Shattered mountains'
  • Collection deals with seperation as exemplified by this raw poem about a man and women in the grip of relationship problems
• Walking Away:

  Context

  • Cecil Day Lewis
  • Irish poet
  • Published 1962
  • About first son Sean
  • Poet Laureate for five years until death
  • Attended boarding school so could appreciate both sides of this relationship
  • Experienced the pain and anxiety from both sides
• Singh Song!

  Context

  • Daljit Nagra
  • British poet of Indian descent
  • Born in Bradford in 1956
  • Much of his poetry charts the experience of first-generation Indian immigrants and their families
  • Creates a rich blend of cultural contrast
  • Generational differences
• Climbing My Grandfather

  Context

  • Andrew Waterhouse
  • A lecturer at an agricultural college
  • First book of poetry published in 2000
  • Died in 2001
  • Autobiographical
  • poet reminiscing childhood
  • Everything was bigger including his Grandfather
• Eden Rock:

  Context

  • Charles Causley
  • From Cornwall
  • 1917-2003
  • Published in 1988
  • Autobiographical
  • talking of parents
  • Eden rock is a fantasy
  • dream like place
  • reflects idyllic life rather that actual
• Neutral Tones

  Context

  • Thomas Hardy
  • British
  • Known for pessimistic and dreary poems
  • Written in 1867
  • Pessimism links to his unhappy first marriage
  • Or his discontent with 19th Century industrialisation
• Letters from Yorkshire:

  Context

  • Laura Dooley
  • Born in Cornwall in 1957
  • Autobiographical
  • reflects her own life
  • Unclear relationship yet it is irrelevant
  • More important relationship between narrator and the rural lifestyle
• Follower

  Context

  • Seamus Heaney
  • 1939 - 2013
  • Autobiographical
  • grew up on father's farm in Northern Ireland
  • Published 1956 with a collection of themes of childhood, identity and rural life
  • Praised concept of hard work and a rural lifestyle
• Farmer's Bride

  Context

  • Charlotte Mew
  • Published 1912
  • Thought to be homosexual which at the time was deemed unaccepted by society
  • Explains poems themes
  • unconventional relationship
  • frustrated desire for Women
• When We two parted:

  Themes

  • Loss
  • Heartbreak
  • Longing
• Eden Rock:

  Themes

  • Memories
  • Family / Parents
  • Bonds
• Neutral Tones

  Themes

  • Loss
  • Longing
  • Heartbreak
• Letters from Yorkshire

  Themes

  • Longing
  • Reminiscing
  • Connections
• Follower

  Themes

  • Memories
  • Family / Parents
  • Admiration
• Famers Bride

  Themes

  • Longing
  • Control
  • Fear
  • Possession
• Mother, Any Distance

  Themes

  • Bonds
  • Parental Love
  • Connections
  • Anxiety
• Love's Philosophy:

  Themes

  • Longing
  • Unrequited Love
  • Nature
• Porphyria's Lover:

  Themes

  • Possession
  • Passivity
  • Insanity
• Winter Swans:

  Themes

  • Nature
  • Separation
  • Loss
  • Reconciliation