poetry

• La Belle Dame Sans Merci Context

  - John Keats,

  - Dies in early 20's of Tuberculosis

  - He meets the woman of his dreams but cannot be with her because he will maker her ill
• La Belle Dame Sans Merci Form/Structure

  - 12 stanzas suggest 12 months

  - Ballad

  - cyclic narrative representing him being lost or cycle of life and death
• A Child to his Sick Grandfather Context

  - Joanna Baillie

  - trying to show children have emotions and should be listened to
• A Child to his Sick Grandfather Form/Structure

  - dramatic monologue

  - form echoes a nursery rhyme

  - controlled stanzas because you cannot control life and death
• She Walks in Beauty Context

  - Lord Byron

  - Bad reputation among his friendship groups

  - Womaniser, had sex with lots of people
• She Walks in Beauty Form/Structure

  - controlled stanzas because he cannot control the woman
• A Complaint Context

  - William Wordsworth

  - obsessive and clingy

  - written to Samuel Coleridge who he had a 'relationship' with over a summer
• A Complaint Form/Structure

  - Alternate rhyme + couplets shows the pair's separation but couplets suggest they have a chance together

  - Controlled stanzas -> Wordsworth is not in control of Coleridge

  - Cyclic narrative -> circle of life/love
• Neutral Tones Context


  - Thomas Hardy

  - Was in an unhappy marriage but he had to stay with his wife because divorce was social suicide
• Neutral Tones Form/Structure

  - iambic tetrameter,

  - enclosed rhyme scheme (abba)

  - cyclic narrative
• Sonnet 43 Context

  - Elizabeth Barret Browning

  - She marries Robert Browning for love and her family disowns her for this. They are both activists.

  - She keeps her maiden name but has her husband's name too
• Sonnet 43 Form/Structure

  - (petrachan) Sonnets are about love. They also often contain natural and religious imagery.

  - Traditional and religious?
• My Last Duchess Context

  - Robert Browning

  - Ferrara is a wealthy Italian man and rumour said he killed two of his wives

  - Robert Browning ran away with Elizabeth Barret Browning to get married because her parents didn't approve of him. Poem is against arranged marriage
• My Last Duchess Form/Structure

  - no stanzas to overwhelm reader

  - cyclic narrative

  - dramatic monologue narrated by Duke
• 1st Date She & 1st Date He Context

  - Wendy Cope

  - criticism of modern dating

  - morals against lying
• 1st Date She & 1st Date He Form/Structure

  - Dramatic duologue or pair of monologues depending on how it is read
• Valentine Context


  - Carol Ann Duffy is divorced out of an unhappy marriage

  - She was a feminist

  -LESBIAN
• Valentine Form/Structure

  - Free Verse shows lack of control over love

  - Short sentences show she takes control of their relationship
• One Flesh Context

  - Elizabeth Jennings

  - Catholic all her life, questioning religious views about divorce
• One Flesh Form/Structure

  - 3 stanzas -> holy trinity?

  - comma in 'strangely apart, yet strangely together' splits them up
• i wanna be yours Context

  - John Cooper Clarke

  - recovered heroin addict

  - based on bad past relationships and rejection of archaic poetry expectations
• i wanna be yours Form/Structure

  - No punctuation or capitalisation shows how casual his relationships are and like a list

  - lots of repetition of 'you/your' and 'i wanna be yours
• Love's Dog Context

  - Jed Hadfield

  - serial dater, in and out of relationships a lot

  - modernist / honest / non-romantic
• Love's Dog Form/Structure

  - more loves than hates shows she will continue her cycle
• Nettles Context


  - Vernon Scannell

  - Father who survived WWII

  - PTSD from war
• Nettles Form/Structure

  - single stanza

  - personification of nettles

  - plosive alliteration 'blisters beaded
• The Manhunt Context

  - Simon Armitage

  -Laura and Eddie Beddoes

  - Husband survived war and has PTSD as a result. He is abusive towards his wife but she stays with him through everything.

  - narrated by wife
• The Manhunt Form/Structure

  - Dramatic monologue: more authentic

  - 2 line stanzas; fragmented like he is physically

  - Disappearing rhyming shows she is looking for his old self
• My Father Would Not Show Us Context

  - Ingrid de Kok

  - based of personal experience of losing parent

  - she is now an adult
• My Father Would Not Show Us Form/Structure

  - 'florist's flowers' is fricative, anger

  - 'he hid, he hid away' repetition shows anger
• (LBDSM) Alone and paley loitering'


  Contrasts typical depiction of a knight as chivalrous and brave - cyclical structure, Kight both begins and ends the poem in this state.
• (LBDSM) And no birds sang'


  Cyclical structure, bleak imagery.

  Inevitability - death will prevail (Keats' commentary)
• (LBDSM) I set her on my pacing steed'


  Could be euphemistic - perhaps SA from modern feminist lens. Seems to be demonstrating his dominance - hubris.
• (LBDSM) And sure in language strange she said'


  Knights myopia - cannot understand the faery's language.

  Further elused to SA - not consentual.
• (LBDSM) And there I shut her wild eyes with kisses four'


  Further implication of SA - the knights hubris, wants to control La Belle - blurring boundary of tragic hero / villain
• (child) "You lean so sad"


  -verb "lean" portrays no confidence and a sense of despair
• (child) "They say you're old and frail"


  -the speake reports on what he has been told showing that he hasn't accepted his gandfathers illeness
• (child) "You used to smile and stroke my head"


  -speaker switches between the present and past tense showing his longing to go back to the way things used to be

  -the past tense is used to depict happy and light imagery in contrast of the present tense which displays sad and depressing imagery
• (child) "Scant" "hollow" "crossed"


  -these adjectives create a semantic field of death and decay

  -highlights the innocence of the child
• (child) "You will not die and leave us then?"


  -tying to inspire him

  -needs reassurance

  -almost demanding it

  -can not accept his grandfathers fate