(Hardy/Eliot) Love & Desire

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  • Created by: NHow02
  • Created on: 07-04-19 14:35
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  • Love & Desire
    • A Game of Chess
      • 'Burnished throne'/ 'Philomel'
        • Allusion to Cleopatra's affair with Anthony (resulting in her suicide)
        • Philomel was ***** by a barbarous king and her tongue cut out (transformed into a nightingale by the Gods)
          • Eliot also uses the literary past to draw 'heat he could not derive from life'
        • Ancient stories of sexual destruction continued in modern society (sexual decay)
        • Begins and ends with destruction
        • 'HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME'
          • Repeated sparsely at first then lines culminate rapidly at the end (climax of society)
          • Bustling pub scene draws upper + lower classes together
          • Everyone is running out of time - 'good night' means its too late
            • Reference to Hamlet and drowning of Ophelia
              • 'Fear death by water' - slow death (disappearing into nothingness)
          • 'I said'/ 'he said' - words, no action
            • All words, no action
    • A Broken Appointment
      • 'Human deeds divine/high compassion/pure loving...'
        • Religious/ reverential words suggests he has hope for humanity
        • Alternatively the sarcastic use of religion creates a blasphemouseffect
          • Potentially mocking his first wife, Emma's religious devotion
        • Appreciates politeness (small things e.g. 'manners maketh man')
          • His poems are centered around the 'uncertainties and selfish nature of love and trust'
            • Positivism was instigated by Auguste Comte, which described the evolution of society
              • However, Hardy's knowledge of human nature did not match Comte's perfect society
      • 'love alone can lend you loyalty'
        • 'the hope hour stroked its sum'
          • 'h' alliteration is soft + emphasises quiet hope
          • Sibilance is languorous, creating a tortuous effect (hanging on every toll)
          • 'stroked' is comforting, suggesting only time can comfort his loss
            • Circular structure creates an endless effect
        • Lazy 'l' alliteration demonstrates negligent action of not showing
        • 'lend' creates a temporary effect (short imposition OR brief love)
        • Repetition of 'you' pronouns creates a blameful effect
    • Portrait of a Lady
      • 'Juliet's tomb'
        • Oxymoron creates a bereft effect (left a virgin)
          • Eliot uses Shakespeare's play to emphasise lack of communication leading to death
        • Title alludes to novel by Henry James, which challenges expectations of women in society
        • 'dying fall'
          • Relationships are always doomed to fail (lack of communication)
          • Opening speech of Twelfth Night is quoted at the end (beginnings/ ends)
            • Epigraph of Dante's Inferno used at the beginning of Prufrock (men & women)
              • 'love song' is personal/ intimate, but Eliot's persona suggests unrequited love
                • Eliot insists that poetry must be written with impersonal intent (not as himself)
          • Rhapsody
            • 'her hand twists a paper rose'
              • 'paper rose' creates an artificial effect (typical symbol love)
                • Challenging Romanticism
              • Thematic use of 'twists' creates an uneasy effect (squeezing life out of relationship)
    • The Phantom Horsewoman
      • 'draws reign and sings to the swing of the tide'
        • Punctuation pulls Hardy back and forth between fantasy and reality
          • e.g. 'bring -' & 'go...'
            • Emma grew up in Cornwall and loved the sea, but moved away once they were married
        • Rhythmic beat landing on words like 'sing','swing' & 'tide'
          • Grief has became a habit/routine (can't move on or forget)
            • Hynes: 'stoic regret of the irrevocable passage of time'
        • 'draws reign' stops the flow of the poem in the last line (only in death does she become his main focus)
          • First and last lines of every stanza could be a poem by itself (lost in his thoughts)
        • Romanticism (artistic/ literary movement which developed a deep love for nature & the supernatural)
          • Michael Cox believed that Victorians 'excelled' at Ghosts
        • 'gaily' and 'shaly'
          • Half rhyme suggests he is losing grip on reality (emphasises distance between them)
            • Emma died in 1912, after a tumultuous relationship
            • Emma Gifford: Hardy 'understands only the women he invents'
            • Indented lines 2-8 are more list-like due to the restricted number of words

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