Language analysis on each of the peoms

1. Song (When I am dead, my dearest)


"Plant thou no roses at my head"

• About remembrance, death, mourning
• Attitudes to process of mourning - resignation, acceptance, forbearance
• Not accepting, not trying to change but being patient/ tolerant
• Accepts way things are but still sees it needs changing
• Working against convention
• Metrical variation - stress falls on imperative - adds confidence / inner strength / quiet strong voice
• Tetrameter

"... dreaming through the twilight"

• Euphemism for death - softens it - making it easier to accept

2. From The Antique

• Addresses sense of disappointment with how the world is
• Strength of narrator as deals with disappointment
• Acceptance with recognition that not right

"Still the world would wag on the same
Still the seasons come and go:"

• Tetrameter - reinforces strength and forbearance
• Repetition - disappointment and recognition that things are going to continue in the same way without her - acceptance of her own lack of importance
• "Wag on" - colloquial - softens whilst also presenting issues - drawing attention to it

"Not so much as a grain of dust"

• Insignificance of the individual
• Sense of selflessness - looking beyond ego

3. Remember


"Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad"

• Metrical variation  - iambic pentameter to interrupted, complex, unconventional

"Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:"

• Feminist angle - pronoun use, repetition
• Highlighting constraints
• Emphasises disaffection with gender relationships and patriarchal control
• Complex attitudes towards it

4. Echo

• Return of a dead lover

"Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet"

• Iambic pentameter
• Sense of progression of thoughts
• Realises that the sweetness is overwhelming and tinged with sadness
• Nostalgia - sadness associated
• Repetition, listing

"Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:"

• Tetrameter - reinforces the breathing and the life it has
• A living dream - a living memory

5. Shut out

• A poem of loss - feeling when unable to return to a lost state
• Garden is an analogy/symbol for a state of mind
• Ambiguous

"And good they are, but not the best;
And dear they are, but not so dear."

• Nostalgia - the past was wonderful when looking back
• Parallelism highlights it
• Tetrameter
• Sense of longing and acceptance
• Longing to change but recognises it's impossible
• Melancholy - sense of quiet, enduring sadness

"The spirit was silent; but he took
Mortar and stone to build a wall;"

• Personification - symbolic
• Symbolises restrictions that Victorian women faced

6. In The Round Tower at Jhansi

• Narrative poem
• Third person narrator
• Lots of dialogue

""Is the time come?" - "The time is come!"

• Resignation, strength, bravery
• Not panicked or emotional - attitude of stoicism - stoic
• Facing set-backs with calm and inner strength
• Rossetti praising them - moral lesson to us
• Seems to look to husband for reassurance
• Parallelism - support/together in speech - supporting each other

"'I wish I could bear the pang alone:"

• Selfless

7. A Birthday


"My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit"

• Simile - joy, celebration
• Emphasis on ripeness - readiness, opportunity - this is my moment
• Influence of Romantic poets - using natural imagery to illustrate human emotions

8. Maude Clare

• Narrative poem
• First person but an observer
• Lots of dialogue

"Here's my half of the golden chain
You wore about your neck,
That day we waded ankle-deep
For lilies in the beck:"

• Maude Clare - adventurous, unconventional
• Shouldn't be together without a chaperone
• Accepting and seeking sensuous experience
• Symbolic of their adventurous seeking of sensuous pleasures
• He is above her and male
• Against sense of constraint - says in front of whole congregation
• Strong

9. Up-hill

• Question and answer, question and answer
• Interrogative

"Does the road wind up hill all the way?"

• Analogy - Journey = life - common analogy
• Life as something to be endured

"Yes to the very end"

• Doesn't hide from the truth but offers hope and reassurance
• Rossetti found stoicism in belief - found ability to continue in a difficult life through religion
• Religion not trying to hide - it is a struggle

10. No, Thank You John


"Let us strike hands as hearty friends;"

• First person narrator
• Strong - trying to teach a man endurance and strength in the face of disappointment
• Seen through imperative
• Unconventional

Writing about poetry

Rhythm/metre

• Pentameter
• Tetrameter
• Trimeter
• Dimeter

Metrical variation

• Foot
• Iamb ( _ / ) (iambic)
• Trochee ( / _ ) (trochaic)
• Spondee ( / / ) (spondaic)
• Anapaest ( _ _ / ) (anapaestic)
• Dactyl ( / _ _ ) (dactylic)

Rhyme

• Regular
• Irregular
• Internal

Sound Patterns

• Alliteration
• Assonance
• Consonance

Write about effect

emphasises / places emphasis upon / reinforces / highlights / draws our attention to / supports / suggests / implies/

Writing About Metre Examples

Song (When I am dead, my dearest)

The tetrameter of two iambs and an amphibrach is broken away from in the line "Sing no sad songs for me". This metrical variation coupled with the assonance serves to emphasis this line and highlight the importance that Rossetti attaches to the addressee moving on.


Good Friday

The stresses of the iambic feet in the line "Am I a stone, and not a sheep," land on a few key words including "stone" and "stone" that have religious

Scene 3

Poker night (original title for the play)

• Strong, masculine, violent
• Steve tells a joke about sex (and priorities) - masculine joking

"Hello the little boys room is busy right now"

• Feminine flirting
• First meeting and the conversation is about physical needs (mitch needs a wee)

"Gallantry"

• Old world style of courtship
• Rough relationship between Stanley and Stella is something Blanche can't relate to
• Stanley is not gallant

Scene 2

The paperwork represents the past - the baby represents the future
Blanche is sexual but will not have children - she has no future to offer it




"...thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years effecting Belle Reve..."
- Since before the civil war
- A time of slavery and plantations




"epic fornications"
Resulted in two very different sisters
Stella presented as loyal and positive


When does the audience see blanche as a lost cause?
-When see passes cemeteries to Elysian fields - Alive but dead?
- She doesn't die
- She is always clutching at straws - latches onto the doctor - any hope of another chance


Property

• Stanley keeps going on about the Napoleonic code
• Eunice says "we own this place"
• Blanche doesn't own anything
• - Maybe why her body is so important to her
• - She bathes constanly

"I was flirting with your husband"

• Only thing Blanche knows how to do
• She believes that's what men want
• irresponsible - doesn't know how to be responsible

"Tragic nobility that redeems Blanche"

Scene 7 - Quotes

Quotes

STANLEY: (mimicking) 'soaking in a hot tub'? pg 69

STANLEY: And you run and get her cokes, I suppose? And serve 'em to her majesty in the tub" pg 69

STELLA: I've got things to do." pg 69

STANLEY: (mimicking) 'soaking in a hot tub'?

STELLA: Stanley, stop picking on Blanche. pg 69

STELLA: ... You've got to realise that Blanche and I grew up under very different circumstances than you did." pg 70

STANLEY: So I've been told. And told and told and told. You know she's been feeding us a pack of lies here?" pg 70

STANLEY: Some canary bird, huh! pg 70

STANLEY: But sister Blanche is no lily! Ha-ha! Some lily she is! pg 70

Stanley refers to Blanche as "Dame Blanche" a couple of time pg 71

STELLA: What - contemptible - lies!" pg 71

"Stella draws back"

STANLEY: For the last year or two she has been washed up like poison" pg 71

"Possess your soul in patience"

"Laughs harshly"

"In the first place Blanche won't go on a bus"

"The distant piano goes into a hectic breakdown"

Lights, sound and action in the play

• Blanche hates light - light represents truth, age
• Stanley grabs, bigger, stronger action
• Blanche's jewellery looks glamorous but is fake - Like Blanche symbolic of facade - not real or authentic
• Harsh light represents harsh truth - Mitch drags Blanche into the light
• Throws radio out the window
• Other poker players all masculine - contrast
• Stanley and Stella's sex life symbolised by "Coloured lights"
• Blanche's clothes mark her as an outsider
• Dim light at the birthday party - dark situation - trapped
• Stella makes it obvious that Stanley owns her
• Vasvouvian Polka - simplistic, light hearted, childish, innocent - pathos
• Blue piano goes into hectic breakdown - Blanche's breakdown of mentality

Can mention the film but it is a play!

Old South and New America

Elements of gothic literature - Tense, suspenseful, macabre events, supernatural elements, deranged and damaged characters

Macabre events - Blanche's Husband's suicide
Supernatural elements - Past events haunting
Deranged and damaged characters - Blanche

Belle Reve means beautiful dreams - it is ironic why?
- It is introduced as being lost
- It is never a reality in the play

Blanche -

• Not down to earth
• Lives in a dream
• Racist
• Talks in an archaic, out dated way
• Way she likes to be treated

Stanley

• He is straight talking
• Harsh
• Masculine
• Uses colloquial language

What they wear is important

Blanche - white clothes, neat, fine, vulnerable, easily destroyed

Stanley - Rough, hard wearing clothes

Blanche's loss of mentality reflects loss of the old America

Rape - death of culture

• Europeans colonised America in 1500-1600 - french name from this time - landowning
• Kowalski, polish - immigrant

Symbols - death of old America

• Blanche's "students no longer interested"
• Stanley throws radio playing classical music out of the window

Blanche's health

• Lost Belle Reve through excess
• Old family corrupt - gambling, slavery, exploitation 

Just after war in 1945 - civil war

No help from other classes to save belle reve

Past catching up with her

Family buried like rubbish

Elysian fields - joke to Blanche

Events are symbolic

Street car named desire goes to cemeteries - progression of the play

• Stanley lively, loud
• Multicultural, less reserved
• Blanche doesn't fit in
• Blanche escapes into imaginary world
• Stanley destroys it by calling it all lies
• Handing over of papers

Setting

Vibrant, multicultural, diverse, loud, rustic, liberal

- Port city "Vitality, fertility and variety"
- Chaotic environment - hurricanes

1940s - lawful racial segregation
Segregated facilities not considered unequal until 1954

Why New Orleans?

1938 - Tennessee lived there - went to seek acceptance as a gay guy

Lax, liberal

'It's as if New Orleans is a character in this play, one that holds the anxieties..."

Stanley represents - modern masculine world
Blanche - aristocratic and rural - old world

Racial variety of characters
The area is poor with "raffish charm"

In essay ALWAYS MENTION SETTING!

Soeur Louise De La Misericorde

It is a poem about giving something up

Tone

• Emotional conflict
• Struggling
• Used
• Despondent
• Conflicted
• Melancholy
• Obsession
• Bitter
• Struggling with the demands of religion
• Distressed
• Distraught

Fire used figuratively for desire

Vanity - desire is selfish - to desire someone is selfish - fulfilling own appetite

Repetition - obsession

Alliteration

Distraught distressed voice - Hyperbolic

Last stanza rhyme falls through - distraught losing control - used up by feelings

Beginning proud of it but on closer examination lead her places - distraught

Scene 1

Through a long hot summer
Not just a few characters it is a whole society
The stage directions communicate to all senses


"Two women, one white one black"
-Integration - multicultural

A Streetcar Named Desire - Overview

It is set less that 100 years after the civil war - America was no the same as today
The south was seen as a different country - world removed from the rest of America


Tragedy but no death at the end
Tragedy of deteriorating mind
Tragedy of gender
All about desires
Exclusivity of masculinity - Poker night

Essays - tips and problems

Introduction
- Contextualise (say what it's about)
- Contextualise the other poems
- For top grades get in broad context - e.g. when written in the victorian time a woman's role was different

Essay Structure

1. Topic Sentence
- Address question
- Attitudes of the narrator

2. Quotations and analysis
- Contextualise (What's happening?)
- Vary the analysis

3. Context

4. Comparison
- More than 1 sentence
- Marks for knowing lines form other poems

Rossetti's life - timeline

1830 (5th december)
- Born the daughter of Gabriele and Francis - Religion from mother art from dad
1940
- Although originally evangelical Rossetti turned towards Trachtarians
1845
- Mental and physical breakdown - various doctors consulted diagnosed as 'Angina Pectoris'
1848
- Engaged to James Collison - ended when he reverted to roman Catholicism
1853
- Professor Rossetti (dad) retires from poor health - Rossetti and mum try and make money by starting a dad school but they gave up within a year - after this Rossetti lead a retired life interrupted by recurring illness diagnosed as Angina and sometimes Tuberculosis
1860 (Early)
- In love with Charles Cayley - According to brother William she marry him because "She enquired into his creed and found he was not a christian"
1866
-Rejects Cayley
1870s
- work of the society for promoting christian knowledge - suffered from neuralgia
1872
- Emotionally troubled by Dante's breakdown
1882
- Dante dies - Rossetti's last 12 years of life were quiet
1894 (29 December)
- Rossetti dies of cancer

Gender roles in the Victorian era

Separation

Originally women would have helped their husband or parents with the family business but as the 19th century came men were more and more frequently travelling to work instead. Wives, sisters and daughters were left out home to oversee the domestic chores but this was becoming a job for servants. By the 1830s women wore crinoline skirts which made it virtually impossible to do any chores.

Men were considered stronger yet morally superior to men. It was therefor a woman's job to instil this quality in any children. It was this power that women had in the home that was used as an argument against women getting the vote.

Education

To suit this new role women, rather than being taught to clean and cook middle class women were instead taught to have "accomplishments". Although even if educated and bright women were expected to pass it off with femininity and gracefulness for fear of being called a "blue stocking". A Blue Stocking was the name given to any women who spent too much time following intellectual pursuits. This was believed to be unattractive as it was stupid for women to try when men were obviously superior. Doctors actually said that a women, if educated would become less feminine and their ovaries would be damaged.

Marriage and sexuality

Women were expected to want marriage only as a means to have children not to satisfy any emotional or sexual satisfaction. A doctor, William Acton wrote in his medical text, The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in 1857 ‘the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled by sexual feelings of any kind’