Cards (17)

    • Gynaecologist William Acton wrote that the "majority of women… are not… troubled by any sexual feeling of any kind"
    • I took my heart in my hand
      • past tense - narrative distance /diacope + alliteration + verb - personal control / metaphor - lack of control regarding the passion of love 
    • (O my love, O my love),
      • Greek chorus - societal norms / brackets - something enclosed private and to be dismissed - juxtaposition to God / ‘o’ a sign of deep pain or passion - reversed throughout / amphimacer
    • Yet a woman's words are weak;
      • alliterative ‘w’ - sense of woe / endstop - constriction of women by society  
      • similar to From the Antique
    • You should speak, not I.
      • endstop + personal pronouns - defiance of the norm - endstop - she still possess the last word 
    • “You took my heart in your hand / With a friendly smile”
      • Flips to male perspective, similar to No, TY, John
      • juxtaposing pronouns - societal roles 
    • “With a critical eye you scanned / Then set it down,”
      • He only values her beauty, objectifying her. Speaker prefers a relationship with God instead. Women as commodities - Goblin Market
      • eyes - symbol of temptation - he is looking through a lens of lust
    • “It is still unripe, Better wait awhile;...Till the corn goes brown”
      • Can be seen as a Euphemism of the speakers innocence and virginity, she is young and should not be ‘spoiled’ so quickly 
      • Skylark is a symbol of the joyous spirit of the divine. This can be inferred as her waiting for God’s allowance on her having sex
      • Corn - Wait for the time of harvest which is in autumn which is the season of death and decay.
      • Cornflower - Men wore it so show their celibacy
    • “As you set it down it broke-/Broke, but I did not wince;”
      • Hyphen visually symbolises the break. Echoes the title “Twice” - a broken heart split into two, reflected by the two words ‘broke’
    • "Nor cared for cornflowers wild, "
      • symbolic of beauty, purity, fertility / relation  - if they fade too quickly their love is unrequited 
        "Nor sung with the singing bird."
      • ‘I shall not hear the mocking bird’ / rejecting masculine advances 
    • “I smiled at the speech you spoke / At your judgement that I heard”
      • Sibilance adds to feelings of sombre - misses the love of her beloved 
      • Could also represent temptation and betrayal. The spoke is harsh sounding to emphasise the cruelty of her beloved
    • "I take my heart in my hand, "
      • shift of tense - her present and never ending journey with christ - 
    • “(O my love, O my love)”, “O my God, O my God”
      • The emphatic ‘O’ emphasis the love she has
      • Human love  is seen as lesser and dismissable - this is seen with the use of parentheses as it is in a way limiting
      • Use of anaphora makes the phrase sound like a hymn - shows she is seeking redemption.
      • The speaker offers her heart as a confession of love. She has control over her heart and therefore her decisions - sense of vulnerability, she is taking a risk by exposing herself to the potential of rejection.
    • "My broken heart in my hand: "
      • Psalms 147 ‘he healeth the broken in heart, And bindery their wounds’/ broken heart - split into two - 
    • "Thou hast seen, judge Thou. "
      • ‘I am the way the truth the life no-one can come to the father except through me / juxtaposing ‘critical eye’ - control of God 
    • "My hope was written on sand, "
      • Matthew 7 - foolish man who built his hand on the sand 
      • Ingenuine promise because words written on sand will fade away. Human love is volatile. Allusion to folklore - The Sandman. Sands are a symbolism of dreams and sleep. Shows her hope was nothing more than a dream.
      • Perhaps an hourglass - Her hope ran out or love was lost over time.
    • "Refine with fire its gold,"
      • ‘my fruit is better than the finest gold’
      • God’s love is above all.