The Long Queen

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  • The Long Queen
    • Techniques
      • Listing
        • "she'd looked at the second son of earl, the foreign prince, the heir of the duke, the lord, the bayonet, the court"
          • Suggest how she is looking down on men. Emphasised to how she took "Time for a husband"
      • References to time
        • "The Long Queen couldn't die."
          • Short sentence, emphasis on how she cant die, almost like she's not allowed to. Harsh consonants put emphasis on this also.
        • "All her possessions for a moment of time."
          • She gave all she had for us to know only about her in one point in history, She is no longer immortal like she was at the start of the poem.
      • Alliteration
        • "wet nurses, witches, widows, wives"
          • Listing
            • "she'd looked at the second son of earl, the foreign prince, the heir of the duke, the lord, the bayonet, the court"
              • Suggest how she is looking down on men. Emphasised to how she took "Time for a husband"
      • Rhetorical Question
        • "What were her laws?"
          • Suggests how no matter how different women's lives were, their roles in life didn't change.
      • Anaphora
        • "Some said"
          • Series of clauses started with the same thing. Can be found in stanza 3.
      • Allusion of Fairy Tales
        • "She ruled and reigned; some said in a castle, some said in a tower in the dark heart of the wood, some said out and about in rags, disguised."
          • Rapunzel in a tower.
    • Femininity
      • "Women, girls, spinsters and hags, matrons, wet nurses, witches, widows, wives, mothers of all these"
        • Queen to all these women. Presents the queen as maternal and it suggests that she is the mother of her country.
      • "Pain when a girl first bled to be insignificant"
        • Going into woman hood.
        • Suggest the importance of having children, due to a woman's cycle being presented as insignificant.
        • Showing your wedding sheets when you're married to prove you were a virgin.
      • "Salt pearls, bright jewels"
        • Women are treasures.
        • Pearl can also represent a baby- linking to a pearl being from a clam.
    • Burden of being a Queen
      • "She counted their sorrow"
      • "The Long Queen couldn't die."
      • "Young when she bowed her head for the cold weight of the crown."
    • Context
      • Elizabeth the 1st
        • People felt that they could connect with her
        • Also felt they could identify with her, why people followed her.
      • "Unseen" which you would typically expect from a Shakespearean  woman
        • Elizabeth the 1st
          • People felt that they could connect with her
          • Also felt they could identify with her, why people followed her.
      • She didn't have children because she either chose not to and there was research to say she was unable. Suggests why she stresses up the laws within. And why women are her children.
    • Laws spoken within the poem
      • Childhood- Keeping the innocence.
      • Blood- Going into motherhood.
      • Tears- The sorrow of what women go through.
      • Childbirth- Being a mother
      • Idea that it goes in a constant cycle- Childhood- Blood- Tears- Childbirth.

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