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English Edexcel GCSE Poetry Time and Place Notes
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Aleena IslamABSENCE – Elizabeth Jennings
Themes
Misery, pain, melancholy, rejection, abandonment, heartbreak,
anger
Contextual overview
In this poem, Jennings revisits a place which held emotional
significance to her and one of her former lovers. She addresses
this former lover throughout the poem and illustrates her
turmoil at being rejected and abandoned as their relationship
came to an end. The serene and calm atmosphere of the
place’s natural environment is a constant contrast to her inner
pain and melancholy.
Key features of language, form and structure
- The first stanza describes the garden that the poet
revisits; ‘nothing was changed.’ This contrast between
the still-beautiful and prospering garden and her inner
melancholy, highlights the poets mental anguish.
- The final line of the first stanza states ‘there was …
nothing to instruct me to forget.’ The fact that she wants
to forget all her memories of a once happy and flourishing
place indicates her constant sadness.
- In the second stanza, the poet depicts bird singing; ‘the
thoughtless birds … singing an ecstasy.’ The use of the
adjective ‘thoughtless’ highlights the fact that the birds
were not considerate towards the poet as they boast their
happiness all over the gardens. The poet condemns the
birds for feeling a sense of immense elation (evident by
the emphatic noun ‘ecstasy’) This anthropomorphising
of the birds serves to further highlight the poet’s fragility
of the prospect of other beings feeling content when she
only feels sorrowful.
- The poet further depicts the birds as ‘cunning.’ Again, by
anthropomorphising the birds as something which
apparently has an intention to cause harm, Jennings
stresses oppressed she feels at the birds’ happiness.
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