Eduqas GCSE Poetry Anthology - Cosy Apologia

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About

Key Quotations

  • Waiting for a storm to hit, the speaker hunkers down, snug and safe in her study.
  • Though Hurricane Floyd disrupts the business of daily life, it also allows time for daydreams. So, with time on her hands, the speaker finds herself daydreaming about her partner.
  • Everything the speaker sees, from the rain outside to the ink on the page, reminds her of her partner. She pictures him as a knight in shining armour, protecting her.
  • He's a vivid contrast, she thinks, to the 'worthless' boys she used to date. She's embarrassed by how content their cosy, ordinary lives have made them.
  • Yet she draws comfort from filling the 'stolen time' resulting from the hurricane's approach with thoughts of Fred.
  • The word 'apologia' means 'a defence'. A paraphrase of the poem's title might be, 'A Defence of Cosiness'.
  • The poem is in first person and could be autobiographical – “I could pick anything and think of you”.
  • Uses a cliché ironically – “the chain mail glinting” and has a dreamy tone but is affectionate and humorous.
  • It is a love poem filled with day to day details such as “compact disks” and “faxes” which shows it is about the realities of relationships, not “the divine”.
  • The hurricane “Big Bad Floyd” has allowed her to daydream about the “worthless” boys of her past.
  • Final words – “I fill this stolen time with you” suggests their relationship is happy and appreciated and the tone is reflective and thoughtful.  Being content is better than great romance – it is consistent.

Structure

Context of poem

  • Made up of three 10-line stanzas.
  • In the first stanza, Dove uses the clichéd image of a knight in shining armour.
  • Stanza one has five rhyming couplets.
  • In the second stanza, Dove reminiscences on her childhood ‘crushes’.
  • This rhyme scheme starts to break down in stanza two, as if reflecting the disruption of the oncoming storm.
  • In the last stanza, Dove ends with how happy she is with her everyday ‘ordinary; life/relationship.
  • Rita Dove is married to fellow-writer Fred Viebahn and Cozy Apologia seems to be an affectionate tribute to him.
  • The poem notes details of a couple's domestic life as writers, 'Twin desks, computers, hardwood floors'.
  • It is set against the arrival of Hurricane Floyd, a powerful storm which hit the east coast of the USA in 1999.
  • This factual, real-life context supports the idea this is an autobiographical poem.

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