Contents

Acknowledgements ix Preface x

PART I APPROACHES TO POETRY

1 Introduction 2 Reading a poem. The approach of the book. The organisation of the book

2 What is poetry 4 A starting point. Activity 2.1 Your thoughts about poetry. What the writers say. Activity 2.2 Poets on poetry. Poetry versus prose. What makes a poem? Activity 2.3 ‘How Do I Love thee?’, Barrett Browning; ‘The Eagle’, Tennyson.

3 Distinctive features of poetry 13 End-stopped lines. Activity 3.1 ‘A Satirical Elegy on the Death of the Late Famous General’, Swift. Run-on lines. Activity 3.2 ‘Morning Work’, D.H. Lawrence. Metre: Stressed and unstressed syllables. Metrical feet. Caesura. Activity 3.3 ‘Binnorie’, Anon; ‘The Lost Leader’, Robert Browning.

4 Poetic form 23 End rhyme. Blank verse. Free verse. Activity 4.1 ‘Ulysses’, Tennyson; ‘A Man Said to the Universe’, Stephen Crane; ‘We’ll Go No More A-Roving’, Byron. Form: The sonnet. Activity 4.2 ‘Amoretti LXXIX’, Spenser; ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’, Keats. The villanelle. Activity 4.3 ‘One Art’, Elizabeth Bishop. Haiku. Elegy. Lyric. Ode. Pastoral. Narrative. Activity 4.4 ‘Spellbound’, Emily Brontë; ‘Break, Break, Break’, Tennyson; ‘The Twa Corbies’, Anon; ‘To Autumn’, Keats; ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’, Marlowe. 5 Style 48 Diction: Tone. Activity 5.1 ‘If I Shouldn’t Be Alive’, Emily Dickinson. The connotations of words. Word classes. Activity 5.2 ‘Song Making’, Sara Teasdale.Unusual words. Activity 5.3

Contents v An extract from ‘Ghostie Men’, Tom Leonard. Grammar: Phrases. Activity 5.4 ‘Country Life’, Elma Mitchell. Sentence types. Activity 5.5 ‘Work’, D.H. Lawrence; ‘It’s Coming’, Emily Dickinson. Word order. Activity 5.6 ‘A Kill’, Ted Hughes. 6 Literary and rhetorical devices 69 Sound patterning. Activity 6.1 ‘God’s Grandeur’, Gerard Manley Hopkins.Imagery: Literal images. Activity 6.2 An extract from ‘London Snow’, Robert Bridges.Figurative language. Activity 6.3 ‘A Red, Red Rose’, Robert Burns. Activity 6.4 ‘You Open Your Hands to Me’, Paula Meehan. Rhetorical devices: Repetition, tripling and parallelism. Activity 6.5 ‘Forgetfulness’, Hart Crane; ‘Epilogue’, Grace Nichols; ‘A Birthday’, Christina Rossetti. Listing, climax and anticlimax, antithesis. Activity 6.6 ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’, Wordsworth. 7 How to read a poem 88 A guide to analysis. Getting started.

PART II KEY POETS

Introduction: English poets and the English poetic tradition 94 8 The beginnings of the English poetic tradition 96 The literary context. Religious verse: Activity 8.1 Extracts from ‘The Vision of Piers Plowman’, William Langland. Old English heroic verse and medieval romance: Activity 8.2 Extracts from a modern verse translation of Beowulf. Activity 8.3 Extracts from Gawain and the Green Knight. The beginnings of the English poetic tradition. 9 Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343–1400) 113 Chaucer’s world. The literary context. Chaucer’s work. The Canterbury Tales: The General Prologue. Activity 9.1 The opening of ‘The General Prologue’. Activity 9.2 Extracts from ‘The General Prologue’: the Franklin and the Miller. The tales. Studying a tale. Activity 9.3 An extract from ‘The Miller’s Tale’. Chaucer and the English poetic tradition. 10 Poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 133 The literary context. Elizabethan verse: Edmund Spenser (c.1552–99). Activity 10.1 Extracts from The Faerie Queene. Shakespeare’s sonnets. The Metaphysical poets: John Donne (1572–1631). Activity 10.2 ‘Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward’. George Herbert (1593–1633) and Henry Vaughan (1621–95). The Metaphysicals and the English poetic tradition. John Milton (1608–74): Paradise Lost. Samson Agonistes. Milton and the English poetic tradition. Activity 10.3 An extract from Paradise Lost. Restoration poetry: John Dryden (1631–1700). The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the English poetic tradition. vi Contents 11 Poetry of the eighteenth century 172 The literary context. The Augustans. Alexander Pope (1688–1744). Activity 11.1 An extract from The Rape of the Lock. The reflective tradition. The Augustans and the English poetic tradition. 12 Poetry of the nineteenth century 183 The literary context. The Romantics: William Blake (1757–1827). Activity 12.1 ‘The Nurse’s Song’. Wordsworth, Coleridge and the principles of Romanticism. William Wordsworth (1770–1850). Activity 12.2 An extract from The Prelude. Lord George Byron (1788–1824) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). John Keats (1795–1821). Activity 12.3 ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. The Romantic poets and the English poetic tradition. The Victorians: Poetry and the role of the poet. The content. The poetry of escape and the ‘individual moment’. The dramatic monologue. Style. The Victorians and the English poetic tradition. Activity 12.4 ‘Dover Beach’, Matthew Arnold. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889): Influences. Attitudes to poetry. Language and structure. The content. Hopkins and the English poetic tradition. Activity 12.5 ‘The Windhover’.

13 Poetry of the twentieth century 241 The literary context. Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). The literary context. The content. Language, structure and style. Thomas Hardy and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.1 ‘The Voice’. The War poets: Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). Wilfred Owen (1893–1918). The War poets and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.2 ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Wilfred Owen. W.B. Yeats (1865–1939): The literary context. The development of Yeats’s work. Yeats’s approach to writing. Yeats’s beliefs. Content and themes. Style. Imagery and symbolism. Structure. Yeats and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.3 ‘Meru’. T.S. Eliot (1888–1965): The literary context. The development of Eliot’s verse. Eliot’s approach to poetry. Content and themes. Style. Imagery and symbolism. Poetic form. Eliot and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.4 An extract from The Waste Land. Dylan Thomas (1914–53): The literary context. Thomas’s approach to poetry. Content and themes. Images and symbols. Poetic form. Style. Dylan Thomas and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.5 ‘Fern Hill’. Neo-Romanticism and its alternatives: The New Apocalypse. Alternatives to Neo- Romanticism. Activity 13.6 ‘Invocation’, Kathleen Raine. Philip Larkin (1922–85): The literary context. The development of Larkin’s work. Attitudes to poetry. Content and themes. Poetic voice and style. Imagery. Poetic form. Larkin and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.7 ‘Here’. Ted Hughes (1930–98): The literary context. The development of Hughes’s work verse.

Contents vii Hughes’s approach to poetry. Hughes, nature and the inner life. Content and themes. Images and symbols. Poetic form. Style. Ted Hughes and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.8 ‘Red’. Women poets 1960–90: The emergence of a strong women’s tradition. Single-gender anthologies. The groundbreakers. Sylvia Plath (1932–63). Women poets of the 1970s and 1980s. The search for an appropriate voice. The dramatic monologue. Content and themes. Language, style and tone. Women poets and the English poetic tradition. Activity 13.9 ‘Because She Has Come’, Grace Nichols. 14 Into the twenty-first century 386 Poems written to mark a public event: Activity 14.1 ‘Everyday Eclipses’, Roger McGough; ‘R.S.’, Gillian Clarke; ‘Regime Change’, Andrew Motion. Poems written to mark a private experience: Activity 14.2 ‘Seeing the Sick’, Seamus Heaney; ‘White Writing’, Carol Ann Duffy; ‘Ultrasound’, Kathleen Jamie. Where next?

Glossary 405 Wider reading 425 Index 429

viii Contents Part I Approaches to poetry 1 Introduction

Poetry is perhaps the most distinctive literary genre in terms of its presentation on the page, its structural conventions, and its often unexpected approach to language and syntax. For these very reasons it is both challenging and exciting. This book aims to help you unravel the complexities so that you can enjoy your experience of poetry whether you are reading it for pleasure or as part of an exam- ination syllabus.

Reading a poem

On first reading, we respond to a poem at a personal level. We may engage with the ideas, empathise with the poet’s attitudes, relish the sound of the words, or be fascinated by the lexical choice – we may even be bewildered. All of these are valid first responses, but where do we go from this starting point? Poems are complex texts that merit closer reading. They are ‘products’ created by a poet who wishes, perhaps, to explore universal feelings and attitudes, or to express a personal response to a particular event, place or occasion. They are ‘products’ in the sense that poems, on the whole, do not just ‘happen’ – they are crafted, consciously composed from words, grammatical structures, poetic devices and forms. The poet makes decisions and each of these decisions will have an effect on the final work. This book will help you to look at a poet’s decisions, moving beyond your first response to an analytical assessment that will enhance your understanding. You will become an active reader, able to look more closely at the techniques a poet uses and the effects they create.

The approach of the book

Beginning with the assumption that how a poet says something is as important as what he or she says, this book aims to use close reading techniques to explore the ways in which poets communicate with their readers. Words may be chosen according to their sound, their meaning, their function or their relationship with the words around them. They are used within syntactical structures and, on a larger scale, within the conventions of poetic form. It would therefore seem logi- cal that, once we have familiarised ourselves with the general ideas of a poem, we must look more closely at the language and structure.

2 Approaches to poetry By combining the benefits of language study with traditional literary approaches, you will be able to explore the relationship between poets and their material, words and their effects, meaning and structure. You will move beyond first impressions to considered opinions that can be supported by reference to the text. This kind of analysis does not have to preclude pleasure in the ‘being-ness’ of a poem – its sound, images, ideas and textures. Instead, it encourages us to ask questions, a process that helps us to move towards an understanding of the multi- ple possibilities of poetry. It is important to remember that poems are polysemic – different readers inter- pret them in different ways. What this book offers is a wide range of texts with commentaries that suggest a possible reading based on the literary and linguistic features. The hope is that you will become an active reader, using the discussions as a starting point and coming to your own conclusions based on evidence that supports your point of view.

The organisation of the book

The first part of this book is designed to make you think about poetry in general terms. It addresses key areas that are relevant to the genre whether you are tack- ling a single poem, a key poet, or a period or movement. Explanations, examples and commentaries are used to help you understand the terminology and its rele- vance to a particular poem. Part II tackles a selection of poets who have made a significant contribution to the development of a distinctive English poetic tradition. Poets are set within their literary and historical context, and their work is considered under key head- ings that will enable you to discuss their poetry in a focused and analytical way. The selection of poets is clearly not exhaustive, but offers an introduction to the development of English poetry. Finally, the book will conclude with a glossary that will explain the terminol- ogy used in the book for those who wish to develop or reinforce their knowledge of key literary and linguistic concepts. Definitions, examples and explanations will demonstrate how each concept works in context. Above all, I hope that this book will overcome general fears about the difficulty of poetry by encouraging you to look closely at the words on the page. Enjoy exploring the physical properties of poetry and benefit from the pleasure at seeing the layers of meaning unfold.

Introduction 3 Index

This index has been designed to help you develop your study of poetry. You can use it to track down discussion of a particular poet, poem or genre; or to identify references to key terms. It can also help you to research topics of interest: the way in which different types of grammatical mood can change our relationship with a poem; the semantic effect of present participles; or the way in which poets control reader response through their use of patterning. Many of the key terms are used throughout the text, making it cumbersome to list all relevant references. Page numbers cited in these cases focus on examples of usage in the activities where the poems are quoted in full. As you read, however, you will be able to collect further examples to broaden your understanding. Main entries and poems cited in activities are in bold. abstract nouns, see under nouns Arnold, Matthew (1822–88), 197, active voice, see under voice 217–18, 219, 221, 229 adjacency pairs, 221, 296, 321, 405 ‘Dover Beach’, 229–32 adjectives, 51, 64, 139, 357, 405 aspect, see also modifiers; phrases, adjective perfective, 57, 83, 375, 384, 417; adjective phrases, see under phrases progressive, 43, 57, 64, 83, 418 adverbs,11, 25, 51, 74, 77, 216, 231, 332, assonance, 70, 72–3, 85, 215, 252, 258, 349, 356, 405 296, 407 adverb phrases, see under phrases asyndetic listing, see under listing adverbials, 60, 65, 67, 139, 231, 277, attributive adjectives, 56, 407 342, 344, 361–2, 406 Auden, W.H.(1907–73), 244, 298 alexandrine, 137, 140, 406 Augustan, 174, 181–2, 187, 188, 208, 217 allegory, 100, 103–4, 117, 134, 136–7, 264, 302, 406 ballads, 9, 21–2, 40, 45, 193, 194, 248, alliteration, 69–70, 72, 74, 97, 111, 139, 250, 407 180, 239, 240, 252, 406 Barrett Browning, Elizabeth (1806–61), allusion, 35, 174, 181, 285, 286, 292, 10, 218, 223, 226 294, 297, 335, 354, 397–8, 406 Aurora Leigh, 218–19, 222; ‘How Do I Alvi, Moniza (1954–), 3, 79 Love Thee?’, 10–12, 18 ‘Presents from My Aunts in Pakistan’, Beowulf, 40, 104–7, 395 380; ‘The Laughing Moon’, Betjeman, John (1906–84), 244, 298–9 379–80 Bishop, Elizabeth (1911–79), 366, 366–7 amphibrach, 18, 21, 227, 406 ‘One Art’, 36–8 anapaest, 17–19, 21, 227, 273, 401, Blake, William (1757–1827), 184, 406 185–92 anaphoric references, 10, 166, 277, 402, Jerusalem, 186, 187, 188; The Marriage 406 of Heaven and Hell, 186, 188; The anticlimax, 67, 84, 179, 180, 292, 406 Songs of Innocence and Experience, antithesis, 84, 103, 124, 130, 144, 153, 186, 189–90; ‘Infant Sorrow’, 189; 179, 199, 361, 407 ‘The Nurse’s Song’, 190–2 apostrophe, 75, 239, 407 blank verse, 24–6, 29–30, 98, 193, 200, archaism, 53, 238, 248, 407 226, 407

Chapter title 429 Bloom, Valerie (1956–), 373, 374 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834), ‘Language Barrier’, 373 193, 194–5, 217 Boland, Eavan (1944–), 371 collocations, 53, 301, 305, 313, 314, 317, ‘Nightfeed’, 379 318, 335, 408 Breeze, Jean Binta (1956–), 374 colloquial, 49, 53–4, 118, 144, 281, 326, ‘I Poet’, 380; ‘Spring Cleaning’, 382 334, 335, 357, 393–4, 408 Bridges, Robert (1844–1930), commands, see under grammatical ‘London Snow’, 73–4 mood Brontë, Emily (1818–48), complements, 60–1, 65, 317, 398, 408 ‘Spellbound’, 41, 43–4 complex sentences, see under sentences Brooke, Rupert (1887–1915), 252–3 compound sentences, see under ‘The Soldier’, 253 sentences Browning, Robert (1812–89), 219, 221, compound-complex sentences, see under 223–4, 224–6, 228 sentences A Death in the Desert’, 223–4; ‘Andrea conceit, 145, 148, 149, 153, 157, 167, del Sarto’, 223; Fifine at the Fair, 223, 170, 289 224; ‘Love Among the Ruins’, 221; concrete nouns, see under nouns ‘My Last Duchess’, 219, 224–5; ‘The conjunctions, 61 Lost Leader’, 21–2 coordinating, 44, 60, 84, 232, 277, Burke, Edmund (1729–97), 173, 182, 199 318, 343, 399, 409; contrastive, 44, the ‘sublime’ and the ‘beautiful’, 200, 150, 165, 214, 231, 277, 353, 360, 205, 206 390; subordinating, 384, 421 Burns, Robert (1759–96), connotations, 50–1, 53, 409 ‘A Red, Red Rose’, 76–7 consonance, 70, 255, 409 Byron, Lord George Gordon coordinating conjunctions, see under (1788–1824), 184, 201–3 conjunctions Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 201; Don Cope, Wendy (1945–), 245, 371 Juan, 202; ‘We’ll Go No More A- ‘Reading Scheme’, 379 Roving’, 28, 30–1 couplet, 46, 47, 70, 97–8, 120, 140, 169, Byronic hero, 31, 202, 203 177, 201 see also heroic couplet cacophony, 69, 408 Couzyn, Jeni (1942–), caesura, 19–20, 22, 214, 216, 231, 276, ‘Dawn’, 378–9; ‘The Message’, 379 342, 361, 390, 408 Crane, Hart (1899–1932), caudate sonnet, 235, 408 ‘Forgetfulness’, 81–2 Chatterjee, Debjani (1952–), Crane, Stephen (1871–1900), ‘To the English Language’, 373 ‘A Man Said to the Universe’, 28, 30 Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1343–1400), cynghanedd, 233, 235, 409 113–32 The Book of the Duchess, 113, 116; The dactyl, 17, 18, 22, 227–8, 250, 252, Canterbury Tales, 116, 117–32 268–9, 276, 391, 401, 409 Clarke, Gillian (1937–), 245, 371, 375, Decadent poets, 243, 246 377, 387, 394 declaratives, see under grammatical ‘Letter from a Far Country’, 377–8; mood ‘Overheard in County Sligo’, 275; delayed main clauses, see under main ‘R.S.’, 388, 391–2 clauses clauses, 408 denotations, 50 adverbial, 61, 286, 406; elements, determiners, 30, 52, 56, 277, 288, 299, 60–2, 65, 324; non-finite, 60, 61, 350, 402 252, 277, 280, 290, 336, 342, 389, dialect, 40, 45, 53, 76–7, 112, 113, 373, 398, 415; noun, 61, 79, 277, 306, 379, 398, 402, 409 415; relative, 61, 76, 330, 342, 418; Dickinson, Emily (1830–86), subordinate, 61–2, 63, 120, 200, ‘If I Shouldn’t be alive’, 49–50; ‘It’s 313–14, 385, 402, 403, 421 Coming’, 63–5 climax, 66, 73, 80, 84, 125, 200, 239, diction, 10–11, 32, 48–55 275, 362, 385, 408 doggerel, 134, 229, 374, 409

430 Index Donne, John (1572–1631), 144–54, 157, Feinstein, Elaine (1930–), 371 170 ‘Muse’, 380 ‘A Feaver’, 145–7; ‘A Valediction: feminine rhyme, see under rhyme Forbidding Mourning’, 147–8; figurative language, 15, 33, 47, 50, 64, ‘Goodfriday, 1613. Riding 74–9, 124, 206 Westward’, 151–4; ‘Holy Sonnet foot, metrical, 18–19 XIV’, 150–1; ‘The Flea’, 148–50 foregrounding, 65, 67–8, 83, 154, 296, dramatic monologue, 98, 176, 219, 314, 411 224–6, 284, 293, 356, 374–6 see also under fronting; initial position; dream vision, 98, 100, 102, 104, 222, 410 marked theme Dryden, John (1631–1700), 167–70 free verse, 26–7, 29, 30, 67, 293, 296, dub poetry, 374 356, 390, 403, 411 Duffy, Carol Ann (1955–), 245, 371, 376, fricatives, 15, 46, 70, 72, 102, 252, 401, 382–3, 395, 403 411 ‘Standing Female Nude’, 376; fronting, 65, 411 ‘Translating the English, 1989’, 382; see also under foregrounding; initial ‘Valentine’, 379; ‘Warming Her position; marked theme Pearls’, 376; ‘White Writing’, 396, full rhyme, see under rhyme 400–2 future time, 58, 411–12 dynamic verbs, 44, 46, 51, 67, 102, 231, 238, 276, 393, 410 Georgian poets, 246–7, 255, 278–9 grammar, 48, 55–68, 313, 412 eclogues, 136, 410 grammatical mood, 58, 412 Edwardian poets, 246 declarative, 11, 37, 65, 221, 306, 324, elegy, 13–14, 38–9, 44–5, 117, 159, 360, 369, 376; imperative, 37, 47, 303–4, 389, 410 63, 83, 153–4, 216, 230, 385, 393; Eliot, T.S. (1888–1965), 278–97 interrogative, 11, 154, 257, 284, Ash Wednesday, 281, 286, 290, 291; 296, 331, 360, 376 Four Quartets, 282, 285, 287; Gray, Thomas (1716–71), 174 ‘Gerontion’, 286; ‘Journey of the Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard, Magi’, 285, 290, 292; ‘Preludes’, 283, 181 286, 288, 289–90; ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, 23–4, 281, 283–4, Gunn, Thom (1929–2004), 344–5 285, 288–9, 291–2, 293, 294–7; The ‘Considering the Snail’, 344–5; Waste Land, 281, 285, 286–7, 290, ‘Human Condition’, 345; ‘On the 291, 294–7 Move’, 344, 345 elliptical, 8, 14, 46, 65, 79, 239, 324, 360, 410 haiku, 38, 280 end focus, 66, 143, 162, 210, 342, 410 half rhyme, see under rhyme end rhyme, see under rhyme Hallam, Arthur Henry (1811–33), end-stopped, 12, 13–14, 15, 27, 305, 219–20 338, 410 Hardy, Thomas (1840–1928), 246–52 enjambement, 14, 15, 49, 210, 280, 296, ‘The Voice’, 250–2 338, 351, 375, 391, 410 Heaney, Seamus (1939–), 245, 394, 403 see also run-on lines ‘Seeing the Sick’, 395–6, 397–400 epic, 40, 136, 139, 158, 161, 170, 175, Herbert, George (1593–1633), 154–6 177, 178–80 ‘The Church-Porch, 154–5’; ‘The epiphany, 38, 86, 251, 261, 316, 411 Collar’, 155; ‘Virtue’, 17, 18, 19, euphony, 69 155–6 exclamatory, 14, 163, 331, 411 heroic couplet, 24, 170, 174, 175, 176, Existentialism, 243 193, 201, 209, 210, 412 Expressionism, 244 heroic verse, 104–7 eye rhyme, see under rhyme hexameter, 18, 137 Hill, Selima (1945–), 371, 377 fabliau, 126, 127, 130 ‘Chicken Feathers’, 377 Fanthorpe, U.A. (1929–), 371, 375 homographs, 70, 412 ‘Sisyphus’, 375 homophones, 70, 412

Index 431 Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844–89), Jamie, Kathleen (1962–), 395, 403 232–40 ‘Ultrasound’, 296–7, 402–3 ‘God’s Grandeur’, 71–3; ‘The Sea and Jennings, Elizabeth (1926–2001), 325, the Skylark’, 236; ‘The Windhover’, 366–7 237–40; The Wreck of the juxtaposition, 102, 120, 130, 179, 214, Deutschland, 232, 236; ‘Tom’s 257, 295, 413 Garland’, 235–6 Horovitz, Frances (1938–83), Kay, Jackie (1961–), 245, 372–3 ‘January’, 26–7 ‘Maw Broon Visits a Therapist’, 379; Hughes, Ted (1930–98), 343–63 ‘The Seed’, 372–3 ‘A Childish Prank’,354; ‘A Kill’, 66–8, Keats, John (1795–1821), 184, 207–16, 356; ‘A Wind Flashes in the Grass’, 217, 222–3 349; ‘Coming down through ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, 211–16, 222–3; Somerset’, 351; ‘Crow and the Sea’, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s 353; ‘Crow on the Beach’, 352–3; Homer’, 34–6; ‘Sleep and Poetry’, ‘Crow’s Account of the Battle’, 354; 210; ‘To Autumn’, 42, 45–6, 209 ‘Fingers’, 352; ‘How Water Began to Play’, 355–6; ‘Lineage’, 354; Langland, William (c.1330–c.1386), 99 ‘Littleblood’, 353; ‘Pennines in The Vision of Piers Plowman, 100–4 April’, 349; ‘Pike’, 349–50, 354, Larkin, Philip (1922–85), 324–43 356; ‘Red’, 358–63; ‘Second Glance ‘Afternoons’, 339–40; ‘A Study of at a Jaguar’, 352; ‘Sheep’, 350; Reading Habits’, 335–6; ‘At Grass’, ‘Skylarks’, 352; ‘Stations’, 351; ‘The 328, 334–5, 336, 337, 338; Green Wolf’, 351; ‘The Dogs Are ‘Broadcast’, 328; ‘Church-Going’, Eating Your Mother’, 352; ‘The 327, 332–3, 336, 338; ‘Dockery and Jaguar’, 352, 354; ‘Theology’, 354; Son’, 328; ‘Essential Beauty’, 330–1; ‘The Thought-Fox’, 354, 356; ‘Here’, 328, 336, 337, 340–3; ‘Lines ‘Thistles’, 356; ‘View of a Pig’, 351, on a Young Lady’s Photograph 354 Album’, 329–30, 333; ‘Love Songs in Age’, 332, 336; ‘MCMXIV’, 336; ‘Mr iamb(ic), 16–18, 21–2, 71–2, 239, 276, Bleaney’, 328, 329, 333, 338; ‘This 362, 401, 403, 412 be the Verse’, 335; ‘Toads’, 329, 331, iambic pentameter, 18–19, 32, 85, 118, 335, 336, 337; ‘Toads Revisited’, 167, 180, 256, 269, 338 336, 337; ‘Wants’, 331–2; ‘Whitsun idiom, 128, 159, 221, 234, 248, 334, 335, Weddings’, 332, 333, 337, 338 412 Lawrence, D.H. (1885–1930), 334 imagery, 31, 64, 73–9, 119–20, 131, 200, ‘Morning Work’, 15; ‘Work’, 62–5 277, 319, 341, 400, 412–13 Leonard, Tom (1944–) Imagism, 38, 279–81, 287, 326 ‘Right inuff’, Ghostie Men, 53–5 ‘Oread’, H.D. (1886–1961), 279; listing, 84–7 ‘Skaters’, John Gould Fletcher asyndetic, 11, 29, 139, 277, 318, 341, (1886–1950), 280; see also Pound, 342, 361, 407; syndetic, 11, 29, 331, Ezra 376, 393, 421 imperatives, see under grammatical mood literary language vs poetic features, 8–12 initial position, 65, 413 lyric, 30, 39, 43–4, 154, 189, 363, 374, And, 31, 60, 143, 179, 180, 232, 413–4 251, 318, 343, 399; But/Yet, 44, 143, 214, 231; key word, 36, 82, main clauses, 60–2, 63, 74, 143, 414 200, 342, 343 delayed, 11, 67, 83, 120, 179, 200, 296 interjections, 22, 44, 62, 75, 86, 214, marked themes, 65, 414 319, 402, 413 see also foregounding; fronting; initial internal rhyme, see under rhyme position interrogatives, see under grammatical Marlowe, Christopher (1564–93), 133 mood ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’, irony, 124, 165, 179, 202–3, 226, 281, 42–3, 47 282, 288, 334, 413 masculine rhyme, see under rhyme

432 Index mask, 116, 203, 261, 267, 270, 284, 288, noun clauses, see under clauses 293 noun phrases, see under phrases see also persona McGough, Roger (1937–) 386–7, 394 objective correlative, 281–2, 284, 288, ‘Everyday Eclipses’, 387–8, 389–90 289, 297, 415 Meehan, Paula (1955–), objects (grammatical), 58, 60, 61, 65, ‘You Open Your Hands to Me’, 78–9 277, 353, 415 metaphors, 75, 77–8, 145, 414 O’Callaghan, Julie (1954–), see also images; figurative language ‘Yuppie Considering Life in her Loft Metaphysical poets, 144–57, 163, 166, Apartment’, 375 170–1, 175, 281, 289 octave, 34–5, 71, 72, 140, 238, 256, 257, metre, 16–19, 20–2, 72, 200–1, 239–40, 415 251, 268–9, 296, 338, 401, 403, 414 octosyllabic lines, 116, 226, 415 Middle English, 70–1, 97–8, 99–104, ode, 39, 45–6, 206, 209, 210–11, 211–16, 107–11, 112 415 see also Chaucer Old English, 20, 69, 70, 96–7, 98–9, Mill, J.S. (1806–73), 197, 218 104–7, 111–12 Milton, John (1608–74), 157–66 onomatopoeia, 70, 235, 415 Lycidas, 158–60; Paradise Lost, 158, ottava rima, 202, 273, 415 160–1, 163–6; Samson Agonistes, Owen, Wilfred (1893–1918), 245, 254–8 161–3 ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, 256–8; minor sentences, see under sentences ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, 254; Mitchell, Elma (1919–2000), 375–6 ‘Futility’, 254; ‘The Show’, 254 ‘Country Life’, 58–60; ‘The Death of Adam’, 376 paeon, 235, 240, 416 mock heroic, 177, 178–80, 414 parallelism, 80, 125, 179–80, 186, 268, 353, 390, 416 modal verbs, 29, 31, 37, 44, 57–8, 143, parenthesis, 11, 120, 166, 179, 200, 341, 166, 318, 324, 414 342, 398 Modernism, 243, 244, 245, 249, 258, parody, 178, 354, 379, 416 278, 299, 324 participles, modifiers, 11, 51, 56–7, 84, 231, 414 past, 57, 59, 252, 335, 416; present, monosyllabic, 29, 45, 72, 73, 227, 351, 51, 57, 59, 67, 74, 179, 231, 251, 367, 414 252, 276, 341, 398, 418 mood, see grammatical mood passive voice, see under voice Motion, Andrew (1952–), 245, 382, 387 pastoral, 36, 39, 40, 47, 59, 159, 322 ‘Regime Change’, 388–9, 392–4 past participles, see under participles Movement, the, 324–5, 339, 343, 344, past tense, see under tense 345, 358, 367 patterning, 79–80, 84 Muir, Edwin (1887–1959), 320–1 lexical, 86, 97, 142, 200, 268, 385; metrical, 72, 180, 239–40, 250–1, narrative poems, 24, 40, 209 268–9, 276, 403; rhetorical, 80, see also ballads 81–4, 86, 131, 153, 179; sound, neologisms, 53, 390, 414 69–73, 102, 139, 210, 296, 339, 361, neo-Romanticism, 244–5, 319–24 362; syllabic, 29, 111, 312 alternatives to, 324–5 pentameter, see under iambic pentameter Nichols, Grace (1950–), 371, 377 perfective, see under aspect ‘Because She Has Come’, 383–5; persona, 116, 117, 120, 121, 261, 336, ‘Configurations’, 379; ‘Epilogue’, 373, 374, 381, 417 81–3; ‘In My Name’, 378; ‘Those see also mask Women’, 377 personification, 75, 86, 99, 120, 143, non-finite clauses, see under clauses 200, 216, 257, 290, 318, 417 nouns, 51, 415 phrases, 56–60, 417 abstract, 10, 25, 44, 86, 107, 139, 199, adjective, 27, 35, 61, 64, 82, 83, 232, 238, 276, 342, 405; concrete, 46, 47, 296, 317, 391, 405; adverb, 74, 299; 67, 102, 103, 111, 317, 341, 360, noun, 58–60, 61, 415; verb, 57–8, 408; proper, 110, 120, 394, 415 422

Index 433 Plath, Sylvia (1932–63), 367–71 rhyme, 23–4, 69–73, 418–19 ‘Barren Woman’, 370; ‘Blackberrying’, end, 12, 29, 30, 31, 70, 71, 74, 275, 369; ‘Brasilia’, 368; ‘By Candlelight’, 301, 410; eye, 70, 411; full, 23, 70, 369; ‘Frog Autumn’, 369; ‘Getting 71, 411; feminine, 24, 70, 251, 411; There’, 368; ‘Lady Lazarus’, 368; half, 23, 338, 339, 412; internal, 46, ‘Mary’s Song’, 368; ‘Moonrise’, 369; 70, 72, 74, 97, 239, 252, 361, 393, ‘Nick and the Candlestick’, 369–70; 399, 413; masculine, 24, 53, 70, 414 ‘Sculptor’, 370; ‘Stillborn’, 370; rhythm, 26, 419 ‘Stings’, 368; ‘Words’, 370 falling, 18, 22; of speech, 19, 20, 25, plosives, 22, 44, 70, 72, 85, 103, 180, 145, 171, 294, 326, 381; rising, 17, 216, 361, 362, 384, 393, 417 21; see also metre poetry, rime riche, 70, 419 guide to analysis, 89–91; how to read a romance, 40, 97, 104, 116 poem, 88–9; poetry vs prose, 8; what court, 126, 127–9, 129–32; Sir Gawain is poetry, 4–5; what makes a poem, and the Green Knight, 107–11 8–9; what writers say about poetry, Romanticism, 181–2, 183, 184–5, 192–5, 6–8 203, 216–17, 244 Pope, Alexander (1688–1744), 174–80 Ross, Alan (1922–2001), The Rape of the Lock, 175, 177–80; ‘Embankment Before Snow’, 56–7 Windsor Forest, 177 Rossetti, Christina (1830–94), 220–1, Pound, Ezra (1885–1972), 8, 38, 237, 221–2, 229 249, 274, 279, 280 ‘A Birthday’, 81, 83–4, 222; ‘Up-Hill’, ‘In a station of the Metro’, 8 220–1 predicative adjectives, 56, 57, 292, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–78), 185, 417 195, 204 predicators, 56, 60, 83, 313, 342, 417 run-on lines, 14–15, 25, 29, 36, 276, 338, present participles, see under participles 419 present tense, see under tense see also enjambement progressive, see under aspect pronouns, 418 Sassoon, Siegfried (1886–1967), 245, first person, 47, 82, 85, 153, 288, 381; 253–4 second person, 47, 63, 76, 153; third ‘The General’, 254 person, 64, 299, 350 satire, 14, 115, 124, 126, 129–32, 144, proper nouns, see under nouns 167–70, 174–6, 354, 419 pyrrhic, 72, 418 sentences, 56, 60–5, 65–8 complex, 61, 63, 166, 230, 271, 277, quatrain, 29, 32, 36–7, 43, 52, 141, 226, 392, 399, 403, 408; compound, 61, 418 63, 408; compound-complex, 62, questions, 57, 252 74, 153, 267, 276, 308, 376, 403, see also under grammatical mood, 408; minor, 14, 55, 62, 214, 277, interrogatives 331, 361, 399, 414; simple, 60–1, 79, 225, 292, 342, 360, 362, 390, Raine, Kathleen (1908–2003), 320–1, 392, 419 364 sestet, 12, 32, 419 ‘Invocation’, 232–4 see also sonnet reflective tradition, 181, 182 Shakespeare, William (1564–1616), 133, relative clauses, see under clauses 140–4 religious verse, 98–100, 100–4, 150–1, ‘Sonnet LX’, 141–3; ‘Sonnet LXXIII’, 151–4, 220–1 32–3 devotional poetry, 98, 145; medieval Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792–1822), 184, sermon, 126, 180 203–7, 217 repetition, 40, 44, 47, 70, 80 192, 200, Adonais, 204–5; Queen Mab, 203–4, 206 324, 418 sibilance, 46, 102, 231, 252, 258, 362, rhetorical devices, 69, 79–87, 118, 418 391, 419 see also listing, patterning, tripling Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–86), 135, 170 rhetorical questions, 159, 165, 225 similes, 35–6, 63, 75, 76, 79, 86, 419

434 Index simple sentences, see under sentences tenses, 421 Skelton, John (?1460–1529), 134, 419 past, 31, 53, 58, 231, 318, 416; Smith, Stevie (1902–71), 367 present, 27, 52, 58, 64, 230, 231, sonnet, 10, 12, 32–6, 419–20 252, 277, 342, 375, 401 Petrarchan (Italian), 32, 71–3, 84–7, tetrameter, 18, 146 134, 144, 210; Shakespearean Thomas, Dylan (1914–53), 245, (English), 32, 140–4, 210, 256, 275; 297–319, 344 Spenserian (English), 32 ‘After the Funeral’, 305, 306–7; sound patterning, see under patterning ‘Altarwise by owl-light’, 310–11; see also assonance; consonance; ‘And death shall have no onomatopoeia; rhyme dominion’, 304–5; ‘A Refusal to Spenser, Edmund (c.1552–99), 135–40, Mourn the Death by Fire, of a Child 170 in London’, 303–4, 313–14; ‘Do not ‘Amoretti LXXIX: Men Call You go gentle into that good night’, Fair’, 34–5; The Faerie Queene, 305–6; ‘Especially when the 137–40 October Wind’, 311–12; ‘Fern Hill’, Spenserian stanza, 137, 157, 201, 211, 310, 314, 315–19; ‘How shall my 223, 338, 420 animal’, 308; ‘In my Craft or spondee, 17–19, 26, 72, 180, 200–1, 251, Sullen Art’, 308–9; ‘In the White 276, 401, 420 Giant’s Thigh’, 313; ‘On no work sprung rhythm, 235, 240, 420 of words’, 301–2; ‘Over Sir John’s Standard English, 53–5, 76, 83, 373, Hill’, 302–3; ‘Poem in October’, 420 307–8, 310, 312; ‘Poem on his stative verbs, 27, 51, 87, 218, 220, 276, Birthday’, 301, 304, 311–12; ‘The 420 force that through the green fuse Stevenson, Anne (1933–), 366, 371 drives the flower’, 311; ‘This bread I ‘Making Poetry’, 380; ‘The Spirit is too break’, 310; ‘Vision and Prayer’, Blunt an Instrument’, 378 310–11 stress, 420 Thomas, R.S. (1913–2000), 322–3 see also metre Thomson, James (1700–48), 174, 182 style, 7, 48–68, 118, 126–7, 130, 226–8, tone, 13–14, 29–30, 49–50, 421 267–9, 287–9, 312–14, 333–6, tripling, 80, 146, 165, 375, 385, 422 357–8, 381–2 trochee, 18, 22, 143, 176, 362, 421 subjects (grammatical), 52, 60–1, 65, 83, 342, 421 Vaughan, Henry (1621–95), 156 subjunctive, 31, 64, 77, 331, 349, 421 verbs, 51, 57–8, 421 subordinate clauses, see under clauses see also aspect, participles, voice, subordinating conjunctions, see under tense conjunctions verbal nouns, 238, 280, 321, 422 Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745), 173 verb modifiers, 422 ‘A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a see also participles Late Famous General’, 13–14, 20 verb phrases, see under phrases Symbolism, 258–9, 269, 279, 287 vers libre, 26–7, 279, 287, 422 Symbols, 45, 77–9, 269–72, 289–92, Victorian poetry, 184, 217–32 309–11, 355–6, 421 villanelle, 36–8, 305–6, 312, 422 syndetic listing, see under listing voice, synonyms, 74, 97, 99, 106, 110, 421 active, 55, 405; passive, 58, 65, 169, 277, 296, 391, 416 Teasdale, Sara (1884–1933), volta, 32, 35, 71, 235, 422 ‘Song Making’, 51–3 Tennyson, Lord Alfred (1809–92), 10, War poets, 252–8 220, 221, 223, 226–8, 228 women poets, 363–85 ‘Break, Break, Break’, 44–5; ‘Maud’, see also under poets’ names 226–8; ‘The Eagle’, 10–12; ‘The word class, 51–3, 422 Lotos–Eaters’, 223; ‘Ulysses’, word order, 19, 65–6, 99, 108, 200, 277, 28–30 314, 318, 422

Index 435 Wordsworth, William (1770–1850), 185, Forgotten Beauty’, 267–8; ‘In 192, 193–4, 195–201, 217 Memory of Major Robert Gregory’, ‘Composed Upon Westminster 264; ‘Lapis Lazuli’, 266, 272; ‘Leda Bridge’, 84–7; The Prelude, 25–6, and the Swan’, 273; ‘Meditations in 196, 197–201 Time of Civil War’, 265, 266; ‘Meru’, Wyatt, Sir Thomas (1503–42), 134 265, 274–8; ‘Responsibilities’, 262; ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, 264, 271; Yeats, W.B. (1865–1939), 258–78 ‘The Choice’, 261; ‘The Double ‘A Coat’, 259, 265; A Man Young and Vision of Michael Robartes’, 270; Old, 263; ‘Byzantium’, 265, 272; ‘The Gyres’, 262, 266; ‘The Second ‘Coole Park, 1929’, 262; ‘Easter Coming’, 265, 268–9; ‘The Tower’, 1916’, 264, 270–1; ‘Ego Dominus 264; ‘The Wild Swans of Coole’, Tuus’, 267; ‘He Remembers 266; ‘Vacillation’, 261

436 Index