What do you think is being described by the following sets of words?
wild strange magic
ecstatic rapture mysterious fire apocalyptic
lumbering steady great hulks
broad-breasted gigantic warm
smouldering manes
Horses - Edwin Muir (no. 113)
1 Use the class dictionaries to look up any words that you are not sure about and to annotate the poems
carefully. Also remember that the poems have a glossary underneath.
Edwin Muir was born in 1887 on a farm in the Orkney Islands.
At the age of 14 he moved with his family to Glasgow ( a big
industrial city in Scotland) which he came to regard as a
descent from Eden into hell.
2 In what ways is the poem about the (a) environment (b) the animal itself.
Highlight using 2 different colours to help yourself illustrate this.
3 Are there any time shifts (changes in time) in the poem? Identify where the poet seems to refer to a pre
industrial age. With what emotion does he do it?
4 Find an example of personification in the poem.
5 What is the tone of stanzas 4 and 5? What shows us this?
6 How effective is the final verse of the poem. What is he trying to do and is he successful?
One person in each pair swap and share ideas with your new partner making sure that you both have
a complete set of notes.
Homework
Research the term Romantic poetry. Make sure that you use more than one source (book or
website) and make notes. *Deadline next Monday.
Watch this documentary to understand the period of the Romantics more and their connection with
nature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGugapN0hs
Romantic poetry
Pike - Ted Hughes
http://poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7079
Listen to the poet talking about the poem and then his reading of the poem itself.
When it is finished write down your first impressions of the reading.
What moods does it bring to mind?
Look up words that you don´t understand and annotate the poem.
Do these images match the picture that you had in your mind?
Pike - Ted Hughes
Focus on the descriptive language at the start of the poem.
1 What kind of view of nature/the world does Ted Hughes present in this poem? Back up
your ideas with 3 bits of evidence.
2 What is its 'instrument' that is referred to in stanza 4?
´instrument´in this sense its "way of achieving or causing something"
3 In what ways are stanzas 5-7 different from the rest of the poem?
4 The economy of the last two words of stanza 5 is effective in conveying what?
5 What is the atmosphere of the last verse? In the final line who is watching whom?
Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.
They dance on the surface among the flies.
Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,
Over a bed of emerald, silhouette
Of submarine delicacy and horror.
A hundred feet long in their world.
In ponds, under the heat-struck lily padsGloom of their stillness:
Logged on last year's black leaves, watching upwards.
Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds
The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs
Not to be changed at this date:
A life subdued to its instrument;
The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.
Three we kept behind glass,
Jungled in weed: three inches, four,
And four and a half: red fry to themSuddenly there were two. Finally one
With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.
And indeed they spare nobody.
Two, six pounds each, over two feet long
High and dry and dead in the willow-herb-
One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet:
The outside eye stared: as a vice locksThe same iron in this eye
Though its film shrank in death.
A pond I fished, fifty yards across,
Whose lilies and muscular tench
Had outlasted every visible stone
Of the monastery that planted themStilled legendary depth:
It was as deep as England. It held
Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old
That past nightfall I dared not cast
But silently cast and fished
With the hair frozen on my head
For what might move, for what eye might move.
The still splashes on the dark pond,
Owls hushing the floating woods
Frail on my ear against the dream
Darkness beneath night's darkness had freed,
That rose slowly toward me, watching.
Can you guess what animal will be discussed next from
these words?
grace reeling diamond
tongue flicking
Hunting snake
1 Highlight in different colours
a The description of the snake.
b The effect the snake has on the walkers.
2 What connections can you make to the 2 poems about animals that we have already read?
3 Do you note anything about the number of syllables being used per line?
How is this achieved? What effect does it have?
4 What is the effect of alliteration in the poem (verse 3)
5 How might the word 'reeling' have a double meaning in this context?
6 What are the snakes majestic qualities?
7 Does the use of monosyllabic words work with the meaning of the poem?
Sun-warmed in this late season’s grace
under the autumn’s gentlest sky
we walked, and froze half-through a pace.
The great black snake went reeling by.
Head down, tongue flickering on the trail
he quested through the parting grass,
sun glazed his curves of diamond scale
and we lost breath to see him pass.
What track he followed, what small food
fled living from his fierce intent,
we scarcely thought; still as we stood
our eyes went with him as he went.
Cold, dark and splendid he was gone
into the grass that hid his prey.
We took a deeper breath of day,
looked at each other, and went on.
Choose 2 poems from Horses, Pike and Hunting Snake to answer the following exam style
question.
Compare the ways in which these two poets use an animal to show the power of nature.
Remember to
discuss what happens in the poems
comment on perspective of the speaker (time changes and role in the poem, do they match
ideas of Romanticism)
identify the language and imagery
establish tone
identify structure (and its effect)
Give a personal response (try to do this all the way through, but especially at the end)
Poetry comparison feedback
1 Beware of listing too many examples or quotations withoput discussing
them or explaining connotations
2 The same for list of techniques without examples
3 Saying ´formal language´to mean anything that is not slang is not a useful
lcomment
4 Explanation needs to link back carefully to the question