Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature"

Ursula Sherman
6 years ago
Views:

1 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature irevise.com Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

2 irevise.com All revision notes have been produced by mockness ltd for irevise.com. Copyrighted material. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, reprinting, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of irevise.com or a license permitting copying in the United Kingdom issued by the copyright licensing Agency. 2 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

3 Table of Contents Contents... 5 When We Two Parted... 7 Context/Summary... 8 Annotation... 9 Love s Philosophy Context/Summary Annotation Porphyria s Lover Context/Summary Annotation Sonnet 29 I think of thee! Context/Summary Annotation Neutral Tones Context/Summary Annotation Letters from Yorkshire Context/Summary Annotation The Farmer s Bride Context/Summary Annotation Walking Away Context/Summary Annotation Eden Rock Context/Summary Annotation Follower Context/Summary Annotation From Book of Matches, Mother, any distance Context/Summary Annotation Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

4 Before You Were Mine Context/Summary Annotation Winter Swans Context/Summary Annotation Singh Song! Context/Summary Annotation Climbing My Grandfather Context/Summary Annotation Sample Answers Compare how poets present attitudes towards a parent in Follower and in one other poem from Love and Relationships Compare how poets present ideas about the effects of relationship difficulties in When We Two Parted and in one other poem from Love and Relationships Compare how poets present the state of being in love in Sonnet 29 I think of thee! and in one other poem from Love and Relationships Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

5 Get A-Grade Membership Why become A-Grade member? Access unlimited Revision Premium revision notes Created by top class teachers and subject experts. Access revision content across a wide range of subjects. Access almost 1000 maths tutorials helping you understand, learn and approach maths questions to ace your exams. Access A-Grade Sample Answers to help steer you in the right direction. Access mock exam papers (unseen) and marking schemes to help you continuously practice. Access revision notes any time anywhere and on your mobile device. Only 4.99 per month. The Sample Answers, revision notes, and all their Maths videos really made me feel comfortable in my exams. They improved my confidence so much and I found my grades improving. Definitely recommend them to everyone! Rob Shaw, London Get A-Grade Membership 5 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

6 Contents Poems (Poem Summary/Context Annotation) 1. When We Two Parted by Lord Byron 2. Love s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley 3. Porphyria s Lover by Robert Browning 4. Sonnet 29 I think of thee! by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 5. Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy 6. Letters From Yorkshire by Maura Dooley 7. The Farmer s Bride by Charlotte Mew 8. Walking Away by Cecil Day Lewis 9. Eden Rock by Charles Causley 10. Follower by Seamus Heaney 11. Mother, any distance by Simon Armitage 12. Before You Were Mine by Carol Ann Duffy 13. Winter Swans by Owen Sheers 14. Singh Song! By Daljit Nagra 15. Climbing My Grandfather by Andrew Waterhouse 6 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

7 When We Two Parted When We Two Parted When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning Sank chill on my brow It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame; I hear thy name spoken, And share in its shame. They name thee before me, A knell in mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. In secret we met In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears. 7 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

8 Context/Summary Lord George Gordon Byron was well-known in his time and remains well-known today for his work in poetry, through which he was able to express much of the melancholy and inner emotion that was never seen in him, save through the written word. During his lifetime, he was also known for his numerous scandals and debts, and for his own self-imposed exile from his home country. And despite all of this chaotic insanity that followed him around, his poetry paints a very different picture of the man. Poems such as When We Two Parted indicate a different aspect to Byron s many relationships, and his feelings about them throughout his life. 8 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

9 Annotation When We Two Parted When we two parted (separated) In silence and tears, (there was nothing left to say; they both knew it was time) Half broken-hearted To sever for years, (suggests that their separation lasted years ; a modern interpretation could be that they were broken-hearted at the very thought of breaking up for long before they actually did) Pale grew thy cheek and cold, (the lover lost their warmth towards the narrator) Colder thy kiss; (they no longer kissed the narrator with the same warmth or feeling) Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. (their parting was a sign of things to come, how sorrow -ful they would be) The dew of the morning Sank chill on my brow (the elements warned of what was about to happen/the significance of the event) It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. (the narrator continues to draw links between what happened and its significance on his life in the aftermath of it) Thy vows are all broken, (did they vow to always be together; were they married?) And light is thy fame; (an ambiguous description: does the narrator mean that their lover s fame is insignificant, well-travelled because it is light like a feather, etc.? I hear thy name spoken, (the ex-lover is well-known enough that the narrator hears their name in others conversation on occasion) And share in its shame. (this could suggest that the ex-lover s reputation is not a positive one; perhaps they were indeed married and their separation has helped to sully the reputation of the narrator s lover, whom we assume is a woman) They name thee before me, (is the woman more famous/regarded than the narrator; were people used to naming them as a couple?) A knell in mine ear; (the sound of death; this signifies the death of their love and the emptiness of the narrator s life of the present) A shudder comes o'er me (how the narrator responds to any mention of his former lover; she haunts him like a ghost) Why wert thou so dear? (he now questions how he could have loved someone whose absence has hurt him so much) They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well (it seems as if the people who speak of her do not do so carelessly; they don t know that the narrator used to be in a relationship with her) Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. (he will always regret what happened between them their separation, we assume, rather than the relationship itself) In secret we met ( secret suggests that their meeting could have been illicit; was it an affair?) 9 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

10 In silence I grieve, (the narrator is unable to talk about his grief, perhaps to ensure that his ex-lover s reputation is not damaged by their former relationship_ That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. (he grieves the fact that she no longer loves him the way she did, then questions if she ever truly loved him) If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears. (the narrator would greet his ex-lover exactly as he parted from her, in silence and tears, but this time, we assume, because of his grief in the long years since they parted) 10 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

11 Love s Philosophy Love's Philosophy The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one another's being mingle Why not I with thine? See the mountains kiss high Heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdain'd its brother: And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea What are all these kisses worth, If thou kiss not me? 11 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

12 Context/Summary The central thematic concerns in Shelley s poetry are largely the same themes that defined Romanticism in his era: beauty, nature, political liberty, passions, creativity and imagination. Shelley s fervent belief in beauty and its relation to happiness and nature is evident in his best-known poems Ode to the West Wind and To a Skylark. Unlike Byron in She Walks in Beauty, for instance, who connects beauty and goodness but only when goodness is related to youth and innocence (in the image of the woman), or Keats, who, like Oscar Wilde, believed in aesthetics for its own sake, Shelley believes in the power of art to transform society in a positive way. 12 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

13 Annotation Love's Philosophy The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; (the narrator muses on how everything in the universe is related in some way; that things must relate to each other; no man is an island ) Nothing in the world is single; (as the previous line; nothing is dependent solely on itself for existence) All things by a law divine In one another's being mingle (it is God s will and nature s prerogative for beings to mingle with each other) Why not I with thine? (the narrator questions why he cannot mix with her; thine implies her things, rather than here; this can be interpreted as a sexual reference) See the mountains kiss high Heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdain'd its brother: (the narrator repeats the pattern and ideas of the opening four lines of the first stanza; it is natural for things to mix with and relate to each other) And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea What are all these kisses worth, (just some of the aspects of life and nature that the narrator deems beautiful) If thou kiss not me? (despite the beauty of these things, the narrator believes they mean nothing and are of little importance without this woman s kiss ) 13 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

14 Get A-Grade Membership Why become A-Grade member? Access unlimited Revision Premium revision notes Created by top class teachers and subject experts. Access revision content across a wide range of subjects. Access almost 1000 maths tutorials helping you understand, learn and approach maths questions to ace your exams. Access A-Grade Sample Answers to help steer you in the right direction. Access mock exam papers (unseen) and marking schemes to help you continuously practice. Access revision notes any time anywhere and on your mobile device. Only 4.99 per month. The Sample Answers, revision notes, and all their Maths videos really made me feel comfortable in my exams. They improved my confidence so much and I found my grades improving. Definitely recommend them to everyone! Rob Shaw, London Get A-Grade Membership 14 Love and Relationships Poetry Cluster AQA GCSE Revision Notes English Literature.

AQA Love and relationships cluster study guide

AQA Love and relationships cluster study guide As you approach each poem in the cluster, think about the following questions. 1. What is the poem about? 2. Who is the speaker of the poem? 3. Who is the speaker speaking to or addressing? 4. What happens