Detailed points Flashcards
(39 cards)
1
Q
3
Eat Me
A
- Post-colonial undertones: The female speaker’s consumption, paralleling the passive body of the colonized, critiques both patriarchal and colonial consumption.
- Power inversion: Uses the language of domination (“broad belly wobble”) and fetishism to eventually subvert control; the speaker’s final act of suffocating the man reclaims agency, echoing revenge tragedy structure.
- Exploitation and body politics: Reimagines the female body as a political battlefield, complicating narratives of consent and coercion with the phrase “too fat” vs “he said open wide”.
2
Q
3
“Chainsaw vs Pampas Grass” – Simon Armitage
A
- Masculine violence vs feminine resilience: Chainsaw symbolizes toxic masculinity and mechanical aggression; pampas grass, stereotypically feminine, embodies natural endurance.
- Irony and satire: The narrator’s frustration mirrors futile patriarchal rage; his eventual impotence (“gave up and left it”) critiques superficial power.
- Lexical field of war and weaponry: Heightens tension and lends psychological insight into male fragility.
3
Q
3
“Material” – Ros Barber
A
- Elegy for pre-digital motherhood: Hanky becomes a tactile metaphor for lost intimacy and care in contrast to disposable consumerism.
- Generational disconnect: Suggests a failure in intergenerational transmission of emotional labour.
- Metapoetic reflection: The poem itself is a ‘material’ act of re-weaving maternal presence in poetic form.
4
Q
3
“History” – John Burnside
A
- Interplay of global and personal trauma: Post-9/11 setting interweaves historical enormity with domestic minutiae, destabilizing reader’s moral compass.
- Fragmented form mirrors emotional dislocation: Disjointed syntax enacts the rupture of world order.
- Ecological poetics: Deep ecological awareness in images of nature (“tiny, translucent crabs”) points to fragility and shared vulnerability.
5
Q
3
. “An Easy Passage” – Julia Copus
A
- Liminality and coming-of-age: The moment frozen between childhood and adulthood is rendered mythic.
- Temporal distortion: Present tense blurs chronology, suggesting adolescence as eternal return.
- Psychological ekphrasis: The visual language mirrors a painting, suggesting voyeurism and innocence under surveillance.
6
Q
3
“The Deliverer” – Tishani Doshi
A
- Commodification of children: Explores adoption through a global capitalist lens; babies become exportable products.
- Dystopian lyricism: Cold, clinical tone juxtaposed with emotive content, creating ethical dissonance.
- Neo-colonial critique: Western rescue narratives are deconstructed, implicating privilege in systemic inequality.
7
Q
3
“The Lammas Hireling” – Ian Duhig
A
- Gothic hybridity: Evokes myth, sexuality, and repressed guilt; the speaker becomes unreliable, constructing a modern folk-horror.
- Catholic guilt and transgression: The tension between supernatural transformation and moral decay reflects post-religious unease.
- Language as incantation: Dense allusion and ambiguous syntax mirror the spell-like quality of confession and memory.
8
Q
3
“To My Nine-Year-Old Self” – Helen Dunmore
A
- Dialogic structure as temporal bridge: Dual-address allows the adult and child selves to co-exist, but never fully reconcile.
- Trauma of adulthood: Poem mourns not just loss of youth but loss of embodied freedom.
- Ecocentric nostalgia: Nature is coded as a realm of liberty and purity now inaccessible, adding eco-critical resonance.
9
Q
3
“A Minor Role” – U. A. Fanthorpe
A
- Theatrical metaphor of illness: Life is rendered as performance, suggesting emotional suppression and existential alienation.
- Subversion of passive patient trope: The speaker resists medical objectification with ironic self-awareness.
- Intertextual critique: Classical allusions (e.g. “Greek theatre”) suggest timelessness of suffering, contrasting modern bureaucracy of care.
10
Q
3
“The Gun” – Vicki Feaver
A
- Phallic imagery and power reallocation: The gun becomes a symbol of both eroticism and death, destabilizing binary gender roles.
- Domestic invasion: Juxtaposition of rural domestic space with violent masculinity critiques normalized aggression.
- Ambiguous complicity: Speaker’s fascination suggests shared culpability in cycles of destruction.
11
Q
3
“The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled” – Leontia Flynn
A
- Anti-epic travel narrative: Replaces exoticism with the mundane; rucksacks and hostel beds challenge romantic myths of self-discovery.
- Millennial drift: Postmodern mobility becomes symbolic of dislocation, not liberation.
- Semantic double entendre: “Distances” are both geographical and emotional, underscoring inner disconnection.
12
Q
3
“Giuseppe” – Roderick Ford
A
- Allegorical horror: The mermaid dissection critiques fascism, genocide, and moral complicity in historical atrocities.
- Poetic ethics: The matter-of-fact tone raises questions about dehumanization and suppression of guilt.
- Myth to reality transposition: Reframes magical realism into brutal realism, suggesting trauma makes the fantastic grotesquely real.
13
Q
3
“Out of the Bag” – Seamus Heaney
A
- Interplay of myth and medicine: The childhood view of childbirth blends mythic with medical, creating layered epistemologies.
- Eliotic temporality: “Time present and time past” intertwine; childhood, adolescence, and adulthood collapse into poetic simultaneity.
- Catholic symbolism: Subtle sacred motifs suggest a spiritual reverence for the physical and maternal.
14
Q
3
“Effects” – Alan Jenkins
A
- Object-memory dynamic: Uses metonymic items (e.g. “cheap cut”) to conjure character and pathos.
- Suppressed male grief: Stoic syntax and enjambment reflect cultural constraints on male emotional expression.
- Domestic minimalism: Quietly devastates through absence—absence of voice, action, comfort.
15
Q
3
“Genetics” – Sinéad Morrissey
A
- Chiasmic structure mirrors DNA: The form mimics the intertwining hands/genes of parents, enforcing theme via shape.
- Biological determinism vs personal autonomy: Struggles with the idea of selfhood as inheritance.
- Christian allusion: “I shape a chapel where a steeple stands” blurs body, religion, and inheritance, suggesting identity as spiritual and somatic.
16
Q
3
“Look We Have Coming to Dover!” – Daljit Nagra
A
- Postcolonial pastiche: Disrupts canonical syntax and diction to mock imperial literary tradition.
- Linguistic hybridity: Coinages and non-standard English reflect linguistic and cultural fusion.
- Satire of assimilation: Challenges myths of multicultural utopia; “yobbish rain” becomes metaphor for xenophobic hostility.
17
Q
3
“From the Journal of a Disappointed Man” – Andrew Motion
A
- Irony of masculine detachment: The speaker’s inaction becomes a critique of patriarchal emotional inexpressivity.
- Meta-observation: The act of recording, not participating, turns masculinity inward—suggesting performance is emptiness.
- Philosophical bleakness: Evokes absurdist themes akin to Camus—the existential gap between work and meaning.
18
Q
3
“Please Hold” – Ciaran O’Driscoll
A
- Postmodern Kafkaesque satire: Automation strips human interaction to absurdity, critiquing late capitalism’s bureaucratic alienation.
- Circular futility: Repetition mirrors systems of power that trap rather than serve.
- Dark comic tone: Exposes dehumanization via technological mediation of life events—even grief and death.
19
Q
3
“On Her Blindness” – Adam Thorpe
A
- Autobiographical immediacy: Poem’s confessional tone draws emotional power from raw restraint.
- Subversion of Miltonic vision trope: Rejects romanticizing blindness—”she’d say” creates ironic distance from the expected sublime.
- Grief as dialogic silence: Fragmented enjambment mimics conversational gaps, where absence haunts every line.
20
Q
3
“Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn” – Tim Turnbull
A
- Mock-Ode structure: Parodies Keats to critique consumerist “eternity” in modern culture.
- Temporal degradation: Classical permanence is replaced by fleeting youth culture—“kids in trainers” vs “Cold Pastoral”.
- Cultural vandalism vs preservation: Argues for art that reflects the now—even if vulgar—rather than idealized beauty.
21
Q
3
“The Sick Rose” – William Blake
A
- Psychosexual allegory: The rose and the worm represent corrupted love and the intrusion of hidden, destructive desire—echoing Blake’s critique of repressive morality.
- Mystical ambiguity: The poem’s brevity and lack of clear referent embody Blake’s visionary style; the poem becomes a fragment of an apocalyptic symbolic system.
- Organic innocence decayed: Nature is not pure; rather, it is susceptible to metaphysical infection, undermining pastoral idealism.
22
Q
“Holy Thursday” (Innocence) – Blake
A
- Sublime orchestration of childhood: Presents poor children as divine agents, aligning with Blake’s idealized view of uncorrupted innocence.
- Challenging charity: Despite the grandeur, the poem subtly critiques performative philanthropy masked as religious benevolence.
- Formal containment: Rigid quatrains and predictable rhyme echo the institutional structuring of children’s lives.
23
Q
3
“Holy Thursday” (Experience) – Blake
A
- Dystopian inversion: Offers a grim counterpoint to its twin in Innocence, exposing systemic cruelty beneath ritualized appearances.
- Prophetic anger: Blake uses apocalyptic diction to condemn a society where “eternal winter” rules over orphaned innocence.
- Subversive religion: The poem’s biblical register turns accusatory, directing moral indictment at Church and State.
24
Q
3
“The Tyger” – Blake
A
- Theodicy and awe: Contemplates how the same divine hand that made the lamb could forge a creature of sublime terror.
- Industrial sublime: The forge imagery evokes both divine creation and the destructive power of human industry—prefiguring Blake’s critique of Enlightenment rationalism.
- Repetitive interrogation: The poem’s unanswered questions highlight Romantic uncertainty in the face of metaphysical creation.
25
# 3
"London" – Blake
- Urban dystopia: Challenges Enlightenment ideals of progress; London becomes a prison of institutional control.
- Psychogeography: Every face is “mark’d,” echoing the inescapable internalisation of social structures.
- Revolutionary voice: Reclaims poetic agency through social critique, indicting monarchy, Church, and state mechanisms.
26
# 3
"Lines Written in Early Spring" – Wordsworth
- Nature-human disjunction: Laments the moral disintegration of humanity against nature’s serene harmony.
- Pastoral melancholy: Uses the natural setting to reflect the poet’s disillusionment with post-revolutionary society.
- Empiricist natural theology: Implies the presence of divine benevolence in every budding flower, affirming Romantic pantheism.
27
# 3
"Tintern Abbey" – Wordsworth
- Memory as transcendence: Explores how recollected sensory experience fosters moral and spiritual growth.
- Romantic epiphany: The poem stages a movement from physical to metaphysical engagement with nature.
- Dual temporality: Contrasts youthful ecstasy with mature reflection, constructing a lyrical philosophy of selfhood.
28
# 3
"Intimations of Immortality" – Wordsworth
- Pre-existence philosophy: Draws from Neoplatonic and Christian traditions to posit a divine origin to the soul.
- Elegiac grandeur: Mourns the loss of visionary childhood perception while affirming compensatory wisdom.
- Hybrid ode structure: Formal innovation mirrors thematic fusion of lament and praise.
29
# 3
"Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed from a Skull" – Byron
- Memento mori subversion: Byron’s irreverent wit undermines Romantic sublimity with Gothic irony.
- Thanatopic materialism: Rejects spiritual transcendence, embracing death’s finality as the only truth.
- Philosophical libertinism: Challenges religious orthodoxy and sentimental mourning through sardonic tone.
30
# 3
"On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year" – Byron
- Romantic heroism: Enacts the Byronic ideal of embracing death in noble, unrequited causes (e.g., Greek independence).
- Mortality as self-definition: Byron’s identity is bound up with his mythologized demise, merging life and legend.
- Sublime masculinity: Frames vulnerability as an aesthetic of honour and masculine legacy.
30
# 3
"So We’ll Go No More A-Roving" – Byron
- Romantic exhaustion: Expresses fatigue with hedonism, suggesting emotional depletion masked by lyric grace.
- Tension between sensuality and restraint: The poem performs an elegant farewell to youthful impulse without fully relinquishing its allure.
- Economy of lyricism: Its brevity and musicality encapsulate Romantic brevity as a vehicle of deep emotional resonance.
31
# 3
"The Cold Earth Slept Below" – Shelley
- Nature as emotional mirror: Desolate winter landscape reflects inner barrenness and grief.
- Gothic sensuality: Death becomes erotically charged, suggesting a necrophilic longing for lost love.
- Melancholic sublime: Shelley crafts beauty from death, echoing Romantic fascination with annihilation.
32
# 3
"Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples" – Shelley
- Alienation within paradise: Juxtaposes natural beauty with personal despair; a paradox of disconnection.
- Anticipation of existentialism: The speaker feels cast out of a meaningful universe, estranged even in sublime settings.
- Romantic irony: The dissonance between setting and emotion reveals Shelley’s inner disillusionment with idealism.
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# 3
"Ode to the West Wind" – Shelley
- Poet as Aeolian harp: The speaker longs to be the wind’s instrument—reflecting the Romantic notion of passive inspiration.
- Revolutionary hope through natural force: The wind becomes a metaphor for socio-political change and poetic renewal.
- Terza rima form: Symbolizes interconnectedness and breathless forward momentum, mimicking the wind’s ceaseless motion.
34
# 3
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" – Keats
- Art as eternal moment: The urn’s frozen tableaux contrast human mutability with artistic permanence.
- Aesthetic paradox: The final lines challenge the reader—is beauty truth, or is that a comforting fiction?
- Ekphrasis as philosophy: The act of describing art becomes a meditation on temporality, desire, and meaning.
34
# 3
"The Question" – Shelley
- Dreamscape lyricism: Constructs an Edenic space accessible only through the imagination, mirroring Romantic idealism.
- Transcendental aesthetics: Suggests beauty’s ephemerality as both its weakness and source of spiritual power.
- Floral symbolism: Flowers become metaphors for states of being—innocence, desire, sorrow—each blending into the next.
35
# 3
"Ode to a Nightingale" – Keats
- Negative capability: Embodies Keats’s idea of embracing uncertainty and mystery without irritable reaching after reason.
- Temporal transcendence through art: The bird’s song offers a momentary escape from mortality.
- Sensuous immersion: The tactile imagery enacts Romantic immersion into the sublime through the body as much as the soul.
36
# 3
"Ode on Melancholy" – Keats
- Joy and sorrow entwined: Advocates the acceptance of suffering as the necessary condition for experiencing beauty.
- Anti-anesthetic message: Contrasts Romantic self-destruction (e.g., opium, suicide) with the rich pathos of emotional engagement.
- Mythological embodiment: Uses Greek references (Psyche, Proserpine) to mythologize internal states.
37
# 3
"Sonnet on the Sea" – Keats
- Nature as restorative sublime: The sea becomes a cure for mental alienation, countering urban modernity.
- Miltonic cadence: Imitates Milton to evoke grandeur and moral seriousness.
- Silent power of the sea: Contrasts loud human chaos with the ocean’s paradoxically “mighty” stillness.
