Birds & Beasts
Mindmap of poems from the 'Birds & Beasts' collection with an analysis of important quotations based on some themes in the poems.
- Created by: R_S_E
- Created on: 31-03-14 17:32
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- Birds & Beasts
- SONNET: 'I LOVE TO HEAR THE EVENING CROWS GO BY
- Superiority of the Animal World
- ‘And
see the starnels darken down the sky’
- hyperbolic imagery emphasising the power of the birds if something so insignificant and small can have an impact on something as large as the sky
- ‘The
stranger birds to distant places go’
- comparative adjective suggests a lack of understanding about the birds or mystery; they’re beyond human conception and in this way superior
- ‘And
see the starnels darken down the sky’
- Harmony
- "Nor fears the shout of passing boy"
- Bird is not scared and continues to sing - work in harmony
- Rhyming scheme suggests interconnectivity between the birds and the humans
- "Maiden sweeping out the crumbs"
- Robin comes at the exact right time = routine / connection
- "Nor fears the shout of passing boy"
- Admiration
- "As if a wary watching hawk was nigh"
- On guard even in the absence of danger - alliteration - creating admiration for their survival instincts
- "Bleaching stacks the bustling sparrow leaves / And plops..."
- Enjambment emphasises their activity
- Plosive sounds repeated throughout reflects the energy (as does the onomatopoeia)
- "As if a wary watching hawk was nigh"
- Superiority of the Animal World
- THE PETTICHAP'S NEST
- Lack of harmony between man and nature
- ‘That trample past them twenty times a day’
- Always seems to be on the cusp of being destroyed
- ‘close by
the rut-gulled wagon road’
- admiration for where the bird is living amongst such danger
- ‘That trample past them twenty times a day’
- Awe at Nature
- ‘Built
like an oven’ ‘snug entrance’ ‘lined with feathers warm’
- Simile suggests it strength yet it is described like a human house suggesting equality of skill = admiration
- ‘A
place less likely for a bird to form / Its nest’
- Enjambment suggests credulity (no time to pause and consider)
- ‘close by
the rut-gulled wagon road’
- admiration for where the bird is living amongst such danger
- Caesura to mark break between breathing and talking
- ‘Built
like an oven’ ‘snug entrance’ ‘lined with feathers warm’
- Vulnerability of nature and how it protects itself
- ‘Yet
like a miracle in safety’s lap’
- personification of safety suggests that there is a force/spiritual form of nature protecting the nest
- The fact that it could be destroyed at any moment: vulnerability juxtaposed with tactile imagery of force
- ‘When
green grasshopper’s jump might break the shells’
- Hyperbole exaggerates the delicate condition of the nest to emphasise its vulnerability
- ‘Yet
like a miracle in safety’s lap’
- Lack of harmony between man and nature
- THE WREN
- Nature reanimating the past
- “why is the cuckoo’s melody preferred/and nightingale’s rich song so
fondly praised”
- Praises even the birds not normally used in poetry - sees wren and robin as merry bringers that recall the past in their songs
- “crowds of happy memories brought”
- conjunction between “happy memories” and “brought” creates a tone of peace and satisfaction with the present rather than of a desire to return to the past
- “why is the cuckoo’s melody preferred/and nightingale’s rich song so
fondly praised”
- Connectivity with Nature
- “one’s heart to ecstasy and mirth”
- What the stories do - nature makes people elated and joyful
- “nature’s minstrelsy”
- Metaphor: depicting nature as a living and breathing entity which entertains us by ‘telling stories’ through its sounds and the habits of its creatures
- “Tenting my sheep and still they come to tell/The happy stories of the
past again”
- Harmonious scene between the landscape and the person
- “still”, “again” and “to tell” suggest nature’s eternity and its deliberate desire to inspire the speaker: as long as there are people working in the landscape, nature will reward them with its songs and ‘stories’
- “one’s heart to ecstasy and mirth”
- Love of nature / source of inspiration
- Joyful, nostalgic tone
- Sonnet form to both reflect Clare's love of nature and nature's love of man
- Nature reanimating the past
- SONNET: 'I FOUND A BALL OF GRASS AMONG THE HAY'
- Revealing Nature
- ‘With all her young ones hanging at her teats / She looked so odd and so grotesque to me’
- Clare is not romanticising his account, rather telling it what as it is suggesting nature is more primitive than a source of spiritual inspiration
- ‘With all her young ones hanging at her teats / She looked so odd and so grotesque to me’
- Mystery
- "I ran and wondered what a thing could be"
- doesn’t understand, wants knowledge
- "I ran and wondered what a thing could be"
- Admiration
- ‘The water o’er pebbles scarce could run / And borad old cesspools glittered in the son’
- Admiration for nature’s beauty
- ‘She found her nest again among the hay’
- Admiration for the way they rebuild despite human interference
- "bolted in the wheat"
- Admiration of survival instinct
- ‘The water o’er pebbles scarce could run / And borad old cesspools glittered in the son’
- Revealing Nature
- THE LANDRAIL
- Mystery of Nature
- “we
know”, “we hear”, men “wonder” and “guess”
- Repeated verbs of menatal activity suggest that the bird is beyond human power
- ‘And
now I hear it in the grass… And now ‘tis in the grain’
- Issues of Religious Faith
- ‘’Tis like a fancy everywhere, A sort of living doubt’
- symbolic of God, you can never see it but you must trust that it exists
- ‘’Tis like a fancy everywhere, A sort of living doubt’
- Aural imagery is juxtaposed with visual imagery of physical movement ‘peep / look’ which is used by Clare to describe the vain efforts of humans to find the bird
- Like God the Landrail is omnipresent
- Issues of Religious Faith
- “we
know”, “we hear”, men “wonder” and “guess”
- Harmony
- ‘When
knee deep waves the corn’
- physical closeness / plenty of nature providing for humans
- Reflected by the regular abab rhyme scheme which highlights the balance between them
- ‘When
knee deep waves the corn’
- Issues of Religious Faith
- ‘’Tis like a fancy everywhere, A sort of living doubt’
- symbolic of God, you can never see it but you must trust that it exists
- ‘’Tis like a fancy everywhere, A sort of living doubt’
- Mystery of Nature
- SONNET: THE HEDGEHOG
- Admiration
- "It rolls up like a ball, a shapeless hog"
- caesura to mark the action, survival instinct
- “hides
beneath the rotten hedge”
- mysterious, protects itself, shy, builds homes in difficult conditions
- "It rolls up like a ball, a shapeless hog"
- Conflict between nature and humanity
- Juxtaposing the hedgehog’s timidity ‘hides’ ‘creeps away’ with the violent actions of the gypsies ‘hunt the field’ ‘hunt them out’ stresses the conflict and vulnerability of the hedgehog
- “I’ve
seen it in their camps; they call it sweet,/Though black and bitter and
unsavoury meat”
- admonition or disbelief at the lengths humans can go in their exploitation of nature
- Social Protest
- ‘And eat what dogs refuse’
- Desperate position the gypsies are in which is emphasised the repetition of verbs like ‘hunt/savage’ which further suggest their poverty
- ‘Nibble their fleshy teats and make them dry’
- kind of hyperbole exaggerating the desperate situation the gypsies are in to show their extreme hunger and thirst
- ‘And eat what dogs refuse’
- Social Protest
- ‘And eat what dogs refuse’
- Desperate position the gypsies are in which is emphasised the repetition of verbs like ‘hunt/savage’ which further suggest their poverty
- ‘Nibble their fleshy teats and make them dry’
- kind of hyperbole exaggerating the desperate situation the gypsies are in to show their extreme hunger and thirst
- ‘And eat what dogs refuse’
- Admiration
- THE ANTS
- Mystery of Natre
- ‘Surely
they speak a language whisperingly’
- metaphor for how different / mysterious they are, for their organisation they must be like humans
- 'In
ignorance we muse’
- animal world is an inspiration and cannot be understood by humans
- ‘Surely
they speak a language whisperingly’
- Admiration for Nature
- The tone of the poem ‘what’s more wonderful’
- ‘their ways / prove they have kings and laws’
- metaphor for their order, they have a human like society which is to be admired
- Dragging
their loads of bent stalks slavishly’
- work hard ‘toil’ but do not complain
- Superiority of Nature
- ‘ A swarm flocks round to help their fellow men’
- ants are personifies do show that they have a superior society where all are equals and help, ‘swarm’ portraying their activity
- ‘Too fine for us to hear’
- superior to us, we cannot understand their system because it is so much better than ours it is beyond our grasp
- ‘ A swarm flocks round to help their fellow men’
- Mystery of Natre
- SONNET: 'I LOVE TO HEAR THE EVENING CROWS GO BY
- ‘Too fine for us to hear’
- superior to us, we cannot understand their system because it is so much better than ours it is beyond our grasp
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