GCSE English Lit: Key Poems

What it's about

• A father who is mourning the death of his 7 year old son and is saying goodbye to him.

Themes

• Death - Death of his son
• Parent/child relationships - Talks about his love and pride for his son "child of my right hand, and joy"
• Love - Loves his son - "lov'd boy"

Structure

• Rhyming couplets
• Says goodbye to his son
• He envies his son because he is in heaven
• His son is his best creation and he doesn't want to love anything too much because he will lose it.
• Controlled, one stanza poem - shows that he wants to control his emotions.
  

Language

• Pride and affection - "child of my right hand and joy", "rest in soft peace"
• Metaphors - "best peice of poetry", " seven yeeres tho'wert lent to me"
• Death - "thy fate" "here doth lye"

Attitudes and feelings

• Grief - is upset about the death of his son
• Uncertainty - Wonders whether it is better to be alive or dead

Links

• Death - 'Mid Term Break', 'October'
• Parent/child - 'Catrin', 'Affliction of Margaret'
• Love - 'Sonnet', 'Mali'

What it's about

• A mother who has lost her son for 7 years and is unsure whether he is dead of alive and is desperate to see him

Themes

• Parent/child - Describes her love and pride for her son and is miserable without him
• Strong emotions - her descperation and pain takes over her life and she can't be happy without knowing he is ok.

Structure

• Long poem - suggest the time she has been worrying about him
• Rhyming couplets
• She is pain for the loss of her son
• Talks about how good-looking he was - she was proud of him
• Children don't realise how much thier mothers worry about them
• She is so desperate that she 'looks for ghosts'
• No- one understands her grief
  

Language

• Obsessive - "an object beauteous to behold", "I look for Ghosts", "Of Him I wait for day and night", "My apprehensions come in crowds"
• Pain and Fear - "was ever darkness like this?","I suffered long", "tears like dew", "weeping for him when no one knew"
• Reflective - talks directly to his son - "where art thou", "seven years, alas!" - tries to understand - "wishes, vain as mine"
  

Attitudes and feelings

• Sympathy - the Poet makes the reader feel sorry for Margaret
• Anxiety - Is worried about her son, she wants to talk to him
• Despiration - It seems nothing matters to her except her son
  

Links

• Parent/child - 'Follower', 'Catrin', 'Mali'
  
• Strong emotions - 'The Laboratory', 'The Field-Mouse'
  

What it's about

• Describes a fierce storm at night on Barnegat, a bay in America
• People are patrolling the beach and they see a shipwreck in the distance

Themes

• Nature - the nature of the storm is powerful and 'wild'.
• Danger - the storm has power over the patrollers, causes a shipwreck - 'red signal flaring' - red shows danger

Structure

• One block stanza and one long sentence - shows the storm going on and on and also the strength of the storm
• Rhyming is used and each line ends with 'ing' words to create a sense of the storm happening right now

Language

• War-like language - references to war e.g. 'advancing', 'cutting swirl' (swords), 'confronting', 'warily watching' - the watchmen are fighting against the enemy i.e. the storm.
• Dramatic language - 'demoniac laughter', 'savagest trinity lashing' (trinity refering to the 'waves, air, midnight')
• Sounds of the storm - onomatopoeia - 'incessant undertone muttering', 'horse roar' - rough and powerful, 'slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting' - alliteration, sounds of the waves
  

Attitudes and feelings

• Wariness and caution toward the storm - it is dangerous
• The poet respects the power of nature
• The poet has admiration for the watchmen's bravery
  

Links

• Nature - 'Sonnet', 'Storm on the island'
  
• Danger - 'Cold knap lake', 'little boy lost',
  

Language

• Visual Imagery - 'summer beaming forth', 'white wool sack clouds' (purity, softness), 'gold' instead of yellow - idealistic view, 'bright beetles' -alliteration enforcing idea of brightness.
  
• Peacefulness - 'reed clumps rustle' - onomatopoeia, 'clear deep lake', 'flower head swings', 'happy wings'
  

Attitudes and feelings

• Love for nature, summer and its beauty
  
• Tranquility - relaxed and at peace
• Happiness to be in the countyside and seeing natures beauty
  

Links

• Nature - 'Blackberry picking', 'October'
• Love - 'Catrin', 'Mali'
• Imagery - 'Patrolling Barnegat', 'Inversnaid'

What it's about

• The poem moves between a modern day potato harvest and remembering the Potato Famine in 1845 when thousands of people died of hunger
  

Themes

• Death - The poet talks about the many deaths of people in Ireland who starved
  
• Politics - Shows the difficulties that occur in certain countries - the famine in Ireland
  

Structure

• Long poem shows the how long the potato famine went on for
• In sections I and IV
  

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What it's about

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