ENGLISH LITTERATURE PAPER 2 Flashcards
(30 cards)
What context can I use for Before You Were Mine?
Carol Ann Duffy reflects on her mother’s youth before motherhood, exploring memory, identity, and sacrifice. Set in the 1950s, it highlights women’s roles and societal expectations.
What is the form of Before You Were Mine?
Written in four stanzas of five lines each, in free verse, mirroring photo album structure and emphasizing memory and reflection.
Quote: ‘Marilyn’
Allusion to Marilyn Monroe – suggests glamour and vibrant youth of her mother.
Quote: ‘I’m not here yet’
Highlights speaker’s reflective position – the daughter imagines her mother before her birth.
Quote: ‘I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on’
Shows nostalgia and longing to connect with the mother’s past self.
What is Before You Were Mine about overall?
The poem explores a daughter’s view of her mother’s life before parenthood, showing love and a complex admiration tinged with loss.
What context can I use for Walking Away?
C. Day-Lewis reflects on his son starting school – a metaphor for all parental separation, exploring growth and independence.
What is the form of Walking Away?
Four stanzas with consistent rhyme and metre, reflecting calm reflection and emotional clarity.
Quote: ‘like a satellite / Wrenched from its orbit’
Metaphor for separation and disruption in parent-child bond.
Quote: ‘Gnaws at my mind still’
Indicates ongoing emotional impact and pain.
Quote: ‘love is proved in the letting go’
Final reflection – love requires allowing independence.
What is Walking Away about overall?
A father’s reflective meditation on the painful but necessary journey of letting a child grow up.
What context can I use for The Farmer’s Bride?
Written in a time when women’s roles in marriage were restrictive. Reflects power imbalance and emotional repression.
What is the form of The Farmer’s Bride?
Dramatic monologue in irregular rhyme, giving insight into the farmer’s unstable emotions.
Quote: ‘Shy as a leveret’
Simile comparing bride to a timid hare, showing fear.
Quote: ‘She does the work about the house’
Shows functional, not emotional, role in marriage.
Quote: ‘Her smile went out, and ’twasn’t a woman— / More like a little frightened fay.’
Illustrates emotional detachment and fear in the bride.
What is The Farmer’s Bride about overall?
The poem reveals a disturbing, one-sided relationship where love is overshadowed by control and fear.
What context can I use for Sonnet 29?
Written as part of a series of love sonnets to Robert Browning, expressing deep romantic and spiritual longing.
What is the form of Sonnet 29?
Petrarchan sonnet with octave and sestet. The volta marks a shift from thought to physical desire.
Quote: ‘I think of thee!’
Opening line shows the speaker’s obsessive love.
Quote: ‘set thy trunk all bare’
Desire to be close physically, not just in thoughts.
Quote: ‘my thoughts do twine and bud / About thee, as wild vines, about a tree’
Extended metaphor – thoughts and love are wild and consuming.
What is Sonnet 29 about overall?
Explores intense romantic passion and longing, preferring real presence over imagination.
