Love and Relationships Summary GCSE English Lit Poetry
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
I summarised each poem of the aqa selection of love and relationships poem for english literature including context, main quotes, form, language analysis and themes. These notes helped me get a grade 9 in english lit!!!
When We Two Parted Lord Byron: ‘In silence and tears’ → ‘How should I greet Semantic field of death: death of his Circular structure: of ‘silence and tears’, poet - Secret love
- Romantic poet thee? -/With silence and tears.’ relationship/happiness/future. is stuck in his despair - Forbidden love
- NT - Involved in many scandalous relationships + debts ‘Half broken-hearted’ Foreshadowed end of relationship: poet is Regular stanzas: 8 lines in each stanza - Regret
- Labelled as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ ‘Sever for years’ bitter/angry/ which could signify infinity, he thought his - Pain
- Lady Webster (Byron had affair with 1813) was also ‘Pale grew thy cheek and cold/Colder thy kiss’ Juxtaposition: of knowledge and secrecy, ‘They relationship would be forever. A sense of - Loss
involved in affair with Duke of Wellington (1816) ‘The dew of the morning’ know not I knew thee’ in contrast to their affair. deep reflection. - Death
despite being married to James Webster ‘Thy vows are all broken’ Pathetic fallacy: foreshadowing Almost shakespearean sonnet - Anger
‘And share in its shame’ Rhetorical question: emotionally traumatised by Tone: regretful and bitter
‘A knell in mine ear’ affair
‘Long, long shall I rue thee’ Sibilance: secrecy
‘In secret we met -/In silence I grieve’ Repetition: emphasise how long he suffered
Sonnet 29 - ‘I think of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: ‘As wild vines’ Extended metaphor: nature/vines Petrarchan sonnet: love poems, highly - Secret love
thee!’ - In ill health for much of her life ‘Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to Enjambment: thoughts about his presence flood her controlled form to portray poet’s obsession - Desire
- Father refused her marriage + ruled family harshly see’ mind over him/poet’s excitement and impatience - Longing
- LP - Married another poet in secret (Robert Browning) ‘Straggling green which hides the wood.’ Imperatives: commands him contrasts the time Volta: earlier than normal in line 7, - Obsession
- Disowned by father ‘O my palm-tree’ period, obsessed emphasises her inability to control her - Nature
- Her growing opposition to slavery placed her in ‘Who art dearer, better!’ Plosive alliteration: intensity of emotion thoughts and desires - Joy
conflict with her father’s beliefs (slave owner) ‘Renew thy presence’ Euphemism Tone: intense passion - Passion
- Written during their love affair ‘Set thy trunk all bare’ Sexual innuendos
- Spent 5 years as a reclusive invalid ‘Insphere thee’ Repetition: of ‘Thee’ to show obsession and inability
‘Burst, shattered, everywhere!’ to think of anything else
‘Deep joy to see and hear thee/And breathe’
‘Within thy shadow’
‘I think of thee!’ → ‘I do not think of thee - I
am too near thee.’
Neutral Tones Thomas Hardy: ‘Neutral’ Colour imagery: began as white and grey into God- Quatrains: regular structure, suggesting a - Pain
- Much of his poetry is autobiographical, about his ‘Pond that winter day’ → ‘Pond edged with curst, whilst ending with greyish so more colour reflective controlled thought - Loss
- WS relationships greyish leaves.’ than at the start Rhyme scheme: ABBA, reflects circular - Death
- Neutral tones about a relationship that did not last ‘Sun was white’ + ‘God-curst sun’ Antithesis: oxymoron/juxtaposition of love and structure (reflection), ordinary/mundane - Bitterness
- Influenced by the Romantic poets ‘Starving sod’ coldness relationship, encloses/entraps - Anger
- Nature is the reflection of a divine order ‘Fallen from an ash and were grey’ Semantic field of death: grey, death of Metre: not consistent → breakdown of - Nature
- His work often exposes the inequalities and ‘Lost the more by our love’ relationship/mourning relationship
hypocrisy of Victorian society, and show how its ‘Tedious riddles of years ago’ Pathetic fallacy: winter is cold and a lack of Irregular rhythm: second to last stanza
constraints can lead to unhappiness ‘Smile on your mouth was the deadest thing’ warmth/lifeless combined with enjambment and caesura
- NT part of 1898 collection Wessex Poems and Other ‘Alive enough to have strength to die’ Foreshadowing: omen of bird shows that the poet is overwhelmed with
Verses, Wessex is a semi-fictional region he named ‘Grin of bitterness’ Liquid alliteration: emphasises the loss of his love anger
after mediaeval Anglo-Saxon kingdom before Norman ‘Ominous bird’ Tone: resentful and bitter
Conquest ‘Lessons that love deceives’ Circular structure: ending back at the pond
‘Wrings with wrong’ suggests his inability to move forwards as it
is too painful
Walking Away Cecil Day-Lewis: ‘It is eighteen years ago’ Temporal deixis: communicates distance from Lyric poem: 4 fairly regular stanzas, - Family bonds
- Mother died when he was very young + brought up ‘Leaves just turning’ current time + distance from current reality/facts + suggesting a reflective poem - Separation
- MAD by father ‘Touch-lines new-ruled’ familiarity Caesura: adds to the slow reflective pace - Childhood
- Poetry often romantic and uses nature to explore ‘Like a satellite/wrenched from its orbit’ Nature imagery: growing up is a natural process Enjambment: mimics movement of son away - Parental love
personal experiences ‘Go drifting away’ Repetition: of ‘I’ more focused on the poet’s feeling from his father
- About his own son, Sean Day-Lewis, his first day ‘Behind a scatter of boys’ of anxiety
‘Pathos of a half-fledged thing set free/Into a Semantic field of flight and freedom: movement and
wilderness’ distance
‘Hesitant figure, eddying away’ Pathetic fallacy: autumn, new changes/beginnings
‘Like a winged seed loosened from its parent Harsh verbs: painfulness for the father, raw pain
stem’
‘The small, the scorching/Ordeals which fire one’s
irresolute clay.’
‘Gnaws at my mind still.’
‘Love is proved in the letting go’
Eden Rock Charles Causley: ‘Eden’ Precise details+numerical imagery: juxtaposes the Quatrains: regular with a separation in final - Past
- Father died when he was 7, after returning from ‘Somewhere’ uncertain location of this illusion stanza - Memory
- BYWM WW1 with severe injuries ‘Same suit/Of Genuine Irish Tweed’ Religious motifs/symbols: Eden, three suns(trinity), Half-rhyme: underlying sense of discord, - Loss
- Served in navy in WW2 ‘Still two years old’ crossing the river where there is a sense of disharmony - Longing
- Believed that everything people needed to know ‘Sprigged dress’ Colour imagery of white: pure and innocent + Separation in stanza: symbolic of physical - Family
about him was in his poems ‘Ribbon in her straw hat’ simplicity gap between him and his family
- Eden Rock published after his mother had died and ‘Stiff white cloth’ Sibilance: perhaps deception behind this paradise Tone: simple and nostalgic
he was old ‘Thermos’+’Old H.P. sauce bottle’
- Strong spiritual + Christian references ‘Slowly sets out/The same three plates’
- Inspired by folklore of his native Cornwall ‘Painted blue’
, - Deeper meanings behind simplicity ‘Whitens as if lit by three suns’
- Garden of Eden: God put 1st humans (Adam+Eve) ‘Leisurely,/They beckon to me from the other
bank’
‘Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’
‘I had not thought that it would be like this.’
Follower Seamus Heaney: ‘Follower’ Simile: admiration of father at work, father = strong Circular structure: ‘My father’, over passage - Family bonds
- Brought up in a simple, rural family ‘Globed like a full sail strung’ and powerful of time, change of his father but still - Separation
- CMG - Eldest of 8 ‘At his clicking tongue’ Follower = religion, idolisation, devotion, loyalty respected - Childhood
- Strong Irish roots, described as a regional poet ‘An expert.’ Physical imagery: emphasises the physical work 6 regular stanzas: represents old memory - Parental love
- Turned down role of Poet Laureate ‘Bright steel-pointed sock’ and the strength of father that has been reflected on
- Father was a farmer + brought up on a farm in ‘Single pluck’ Father + horse = team in unison, father is intune Regular rhyme: strategic and regular flow of
Northern Ireland ‘His eye/Narrowed and angled/Mapping the furrow with nature the father’s work
- Modern Northern Ireland’s culture + language exactly.’ Enjambment: mirrors the turn in the field in
overrun by English rule, farms + cities in civil strife ‘I stumbled’ stanza 2-3
- Rooted his poetry in the personal + the local ‘Dipping and rising to his plod’ Contrast: initial image of strong father
(‘seesawing between the intimate and the outreach’ - ‘To close one eye, stiffen my arm’ contrasts the final image of a weak and old
tension between wider world (significant events, ‘Follow/In his broad shadow’ father
books, culture) and a local, personal world) ‘Tripping, falling,/Yapping always.’ Tone: admiration
‘It is my father who keeps stumbling/Behind me
and will not go away.’
Mother, Any Distance Simon Armitage: ‘Mother,...single span/requires a second pair of Extended metaphor: measuring tape, anchor and Sonnet form: close enough, used for love - Family bonds
- From a collection of poems (Book of Matches), each hands.’ kite poetry. - Separation
- WA poem read in the time to burn out a match ‘Acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors’ Hyperbole: excitement and still child-like response Half-rhyme: provides a disjointed sense due - Childhood
- Often about (modern life+) complex emotions using ‘You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape’ Pun: ‘Hatch’, egg hatching into a new world to irregular rhyme and irregular line length. - Parental love
everyday events, use of contemporary language + ‘Back to base’ Nature imagery: separation is part of the cycle of Irregularity = changing relationship
Northern dialect adds to the ‘down to earth’ feel ‘Leaving/Up the stairs’ nature Tone: gentle and positive
- Influenced by Yorkshire: sees himself as a ‘Line still feeding out’ Sibilance: soft and gentle relationship
craftsman + links writing to history of Yorkshire ‘Unreeling/years between us’ Juxtaposition: of anchor and kite
- Poems feature family, adolescence, growing up ‘Anchor. Kite’
- Doesn’t ‘own’ the way poems should be read ‘I space-walk through the empty bedrooms’
- ‘Style is everything to me, in writing.’ ‘Ladder to the loft’
‘Two floors below your fingertips still pinch the last
one-hundredth of an inch…’
‘A hatch that opens on an endless sky’
‘To fall or fly.’
Before You Were Mine Carol Ann Duffy: ‘I’m ten years away’ Temporal deixis: communicates distance from Blank verse: underlying sense of disharmony - Past
- An autobiographical poem of her mother’s youth ‘The corner you laugh on’ current time + distance from current reality/facts + between present and past and also reversal - Memory
- ER - Moves between the past and present ‘Your pals, Maggie McGeeney’ familiarity of possessiveness - Regret
- Raised in Scotland as a child and moved to England ‘Holding/each other’ Semantic field of icons: Marilyn, idolising her Mixtures of enjambment and caesura: - Familial love
- Her mother would invent fairy tales for her ‘Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. mother, fairytale youth, love and admiration for her fragmented memories
- Her writing often explores and manipulates feminine Marilyn.’ mother Regularity in stanzas: cycle of life from the
archetypes ‘I’m not here yet.’ Juxtaposition: of experiences of snow contrasted different generations
- Writes in everyday language, gives her poems an ‘Thousand eyes’ with growing old and responsibilities (Mass), sense Circular structure: back on the pavement but
outward accessibility that hides the intricate ‘The right walk home could bring.’ of sadness/guilt the ‘wrong’ one
technicalities + manipulation of language ‘My loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?’ Colloquial tone: intimacy and equality Tone: poignant and admiration
- Explores themes of gender, contemporary culture, ‘My hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics’ Synecdoche: people not eyes, emphasis of
alienation and social inequality ‘Now your ghost clatters toward me’ popularity
- Marilyn Monroe: sex symbol, famous Hollywood ‘Clear as scent’ Possessive pronoun: ‘My’
actress with a glamorous + carefree lifestyle ‘Cha cha cha!’ Synaesthesia: mixes up sight with scent suggests a
‘On the way home from Mass’ very vivid memory
‘Stamping stars from the wrong pavement.’
‘I wanted the bold girl winking’
‘You sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were
mine.’
Winter Swans Owen Sheers: ‘The clouds had given their all -’ Pathetic fallacy: turbulent scene symbolic of couple 6 irregular tercets and a final couplet + - Distance
- Welsh poet ‘Two days of rain’ Pronoun: ‘We’ symbolising unison uneven line lengths and no rhyme = - Nature
- NT - Winter Swans is a contemporary poem ‘Waterlogged earth/gulping for breath at our feet’ Personification: symbolic of relationship struggling disjointedness and disharmony of couple - Anger
- Often draws upon natural landscapes + people in ‘We skirted the lake, silent and apart’ Verb: skirt = avoid their problems Couplet: reconciliation - Bitterness
them ‘Swans came and stopped us with a show of Harsh sounds: tension in relationship Fifth stanza: ‘You’ → ‘I’ → ‘We’ - Reconciliation
- Explores history, identity, relationships, difficulties tipping in unison.’ Metaphor: porcelain, fragile and in need of
people face ‘Rolling weights’ protection but strong (couple)
- Taken from the collection Skirrid Hill (Shattered ‘Dark water’ Sibilance: soft, moving towards each other
mountain) ‘Icebergs of white feathers’ Simile: flight and freedom, reconciliation and
- Skirrid in Welsh = ‘divorce’/’separation’ ‘’They mate for life’ you said’ reunited, peace symbol
‘Like boats righting in rough weather’ Swans: love, royalty + regal, elegant + majestic,
‘Porcelain over the stilling water.’ mate for life + monogamous
‘Slow-stepping in the lake’s shingles and sand’
‘Swum the distance between us’
‘Like a pair of wings settling after flight.’
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