Comparing Relationships In Poems

Comparing Relationships In Poems

The Revision Cards - themes, ideas, language, structure and form.

Covers:

• Nettles by Vernon Scannell
  
• Sister Maude by Christina Rossetti
  
• Harmonium by Simon Armitage
  
• Praise Song For My Mother by Grace Nichols
  
• Born Yesterday by Philip Larkin
  

Themes/Ideas

You can try to protect the ones you love, but things will always come back to hurt you.

Military, pain, protection, relationships - father, son, anger, hurt, revenge, compensation, violence.

Language

Military imagery - makes the poem more meaningful, precise and powerful. Personification, metaphor, contrast, alliteration, internal rhyme.

Structure

One continuous stanza and first and last line symbolise an ongoing cycle - pain is inevitable. Alternate rhyme scheme - marching effect - military. Enjambement, - ends with a full stop (finality/emphasises fury). Iambic pentameter.

Themes/Ideas

Love, affection, hurt, anger, suffering, protection, religion, betrayal, hatred, death, relationship - family, regality.

Language

Triplets, emotive, juxtaposition, feigned injury, alliteration, rhetorical question, (personal) pronouns, simile.

Structure/Form

Ballad - concise and relies on imagery, alternate rhyme scheme, no constant beat but there is still one there - symbolises heartbeat, quatrain, iambic tetrameter/trimeter.

Themes/Ideas

Affection, hurt, suffering, protection, religion, death, loss, lack of acceptance, passing of time, comparison between the harmonium and father, relationship - father, son.

Language

Personification, alliteration, figures of speech, double meaning - humorous, puns, repetition.

Structure/Form

No constant rhyme scheme, alternate length stanzas (long, short, long, short), lines of similar length.

Themes/Ideas

Love, protection, relationship - mother, daughter, hope, nature, letting go, symbolically together, reminiscing.

Language

Metaphors, personification, repetition, triplets, pronouns, reminiscing, symbolism.

Structure/Form

Short stanzas - first three all of same length, descriptive, captures the essence of the mother, African culture, enjambement, hesistant on last line (",") - mother and daughter blending into one.

Themes/Ideas

Love, protection, contradiction, wishing, perfection, normality, innocence, purity.

Language

Connotations of perfection, connotation of normality (average), contrast, contradiction, pessimistic yet hopeful.

Structure/Form

Two long stanzas - negative and postive, similar number of syllables per line, enjambement continues until the end of each stanza.