edexcel poetry anthology: grouping and comparing poems ... · edexcel poetry anthology: grouping...

Edexcel Poetry Anthology: Grouping and Comparing Poems

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POETS’ TREATMENT OF NATURE AS A THEME Poems Subject Matter Link TWO Quotes Link to Form & Lang. Link To Period On

Westminster Bridge

Beauty as a transforming power. Surprise and impressiveness of the city’s beauty in a captured moment of tranquillity. Natural and man made harmonised in the poem. Impulsive expression of powerful feeling to capture a moment.

Earth hath not anything to show more Fair…. Never did sun more beautifully steep ……valley, rock, or hill.

Petrarchan sonnet; concise and intense: The brevity apt for feeling; long enough to tdevelop ideas: Octet describes and shares scsestet evaluates and states value of the experience.

Romantic poem in the focus on intense feeling; nature as source of inspiration; transforming power of the imagination to make experience significant & memorable.

To a Skylark Natural creature which in the beauty of its song seems to TRANSCEND mortality and produce something immortal. Inspiration to the poet who seeks to transcend mortality by transforming nature into art which does not decay. Capturing the experience of the skylark is such a transformation of nature (a creature) into art of poetry So, poem about Art and mortality.

Ode To Autumn

Relationship between nature and humanity. Images of the fruitfulness and tranquillity of nature. Process of time & change rendered consoling. Ripeness rather than decay emphasised.

Dover Beach Victorian disillusion & Crisis Of Religious Faith: Material Progress but Spiritual anxiety. Loss of certainty.

God’s Grandeur

Conventional form of Petrarchan sonnet: octet describes toil and damage and energy;sestet affirms endurance of Nature & image of God as protector – God naturalisedin image of brooding dove.

Struggle of faith. Awareness of the triumph of materialism in industrialism: man’s power to to control & USE nature.

The Darkling Thrush



Poets' Use of the Sonnet Form Poems Subject Matter Link TWO Quotes Link to Form & Lang. Link To Period On WestminsterBridge

Petrarchan: sonnet; concise and intense: The brevity apt for feeling; long enough to tdevelop ideas: Octet describes and shares scsestet evaluates and states value of the experience. Whole encapsulates specific experience.

Romantic poem in the focus on intense feeling; nature as source of inspiration; transforming power of the imagination to make experience significant.

How Do I Love Thee

Love a traditional subject for the sonnet (Petrarch originally & then Shakespeare’s sonnet cycle). Ardent declaration. Intense feeling compressed & disciplined in itsexpression by the regular & demanding form of the sonnet Ardour expressed in repeated Q. which have the affirmative, declarative quality of rhetorical questions.

Petrarchan; Tone set by the Qs. Octet rhyme scheme is abba,. Then a change forsestet. Key idea is the ending with the word death. Love conquers even death is closing idea of poem

Remember Love poem, but also an affirmation of love as stronger than death. Conforms classically to the sonnet form in way idea of Remembrance after death is stated in octet. The development of a new idea in sestet which resolves poem by a paradox: better to forget than mourn. Love as self sacrifice. (pivotal word ‘yet’)

God’s Granduer

Poem about beauty and energy of Nature and about faith in God…………

Petrarchan sonnet in form & layout emphasises: Octet:.. Sestet:.. However, conventional form is at odds with radical use of language (vivid unexpected phrasing; sound effects within the lines – Eg internal rhyme, emphatic alliterations. Effect of contained energy. Power of Lang. Fighting the orderly sonnet form

Marged Shakespearean - with variations. Organised round 3 quatrains + couplet. Use of half rhyme. This downplays formality though and conveys idea of personal, almost colloquial reflection. The hybrid form picks up the merging idea suggested by the title pun.

Modern variation on sonnet form association with love and ardent expression. Unpretentious. Also‘ modern’: reflection on women’s life & changesForm adapted to subject.



Poets' Treatment of the Theme of Time and Mortality Poems Subject Matter Link TWO Quotes Link to Form & Lang. Link To Period To A Skylark

Ulysses

Do Not Go Gentle into that Goodnight

Arundel Tomb

Abbey Tomb

All the Things You are Not Yet

Marged



Poets’ Treatment of The Theme of Love Poems Subject Matter Link TWO Quotes Link to Form & Lang. Link To Period Red Red Rose

No More a Roving.

Solemn reflection on loss of faith, with the surprise turn to the loved one as the only source of peace and consolation in a troubled world, where all else seems uncertain. The affirmation of love comes in the sharing of the anxiety & the beauty of the scene & moment.

Victorian loss of religious certainty. Growth both of science & materialism challenging established values.

Dover Beach

The Love Song of … Prufrock

Modern sense of disillusion and uncertainty. Challenge not only to the validity of religion, but also art & Literature

Arundel Tomb

Observational & detached. Modern wariness about asserting belief & values strongly: sceptical, agnostic anti romantic. Despite this an affirmation: ‘almost true’

All The Things You are Not

Maternal love…



Poets’ Use of The Monologue Form

Poems Subject Matter Link TWO Quotes Link to Form & Lang. Link To Period My Last Duchess

Couplets, but with frequent use of enjambment to offset regularity of rhyme & metre and give sense of spoken voice: helps establish character. Dramatic immediacy of monologue. Onus on reader to react & respond to a character.

Ulysses

Blank verse:

Prufrock

Free verse; varying patterns & regularities, but also the colloquial rhythms of speech

Prayer Before Birth

Highly patterned language:

Abbey Tomb



POETS’ CHOICE OF DIFFERENT FORMS FOR MEANING & EFFXCT

Poems Subject Matter Link TWO Quotes Link to Form & Lang. Link To Period God’s Grandeur

SONNET: compression of form declares idea and faith. Concentration and brevity reinforces sense of energy and emotion. 8/6 division used: first the problem; then the faith in resilience of Nature and protection of God.

My Last Duchess

Calculating use of the single voice to establish scene, situation and especially character. Duke chilling for his vanity a& lack of concealment or remorse for murder Wife. Note how her character is also revealed and made attractive to reader. Ironic contrast between his personal ruthlessness and liking for Art. Final irony of the situation being his negotiation for a new wife

Couplets, but with frequent use of enjambment to offset regularity of rhyme & metre and give sense of spoken voice: helps establish character. Dramatic immediacy of monologue. Onus on reader to react & respond to a character.

Marged Adaptation of Shakespearean sonnet.

Oh What is That Sound..?

BALLAD FORM: use of question and answer dialogue; ballad metre and rhyme. of repetition and refrain. Cumulative Q. & answers build tension until the twist of desertion at the end: sinister betrayal. Idea of redcoat soldiers makes it archaic & encourages idea of fairy tale ending, but poem is warning &pessimistic.

Traditional form used to comment on and warn about contemporary fears in the 1930s. Impact of relevance while form and content adds a universal quality to the situation presented in poem.

Your choice?

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