Lammas Hireling

Question 1

What does the title Lammas Hireling mean?

Answer 1

The title refers to a person that is ‘hired’ during the period of Lammas (harvest-time)

Question 2

How does the poem begin with a positive tone?

Answer 2

The ‘fair’ that is described has connotations of fun and celebration, and the speaker’s metaphorical ‘light heart’ reinforces this tone of happiness

Question 3

In the poem, what is significant about the speaker describing how the hireline is ‘stuck so cheap’?

Answer 3

This literally describes how the hireling only demanded low wages.
However, the verb ‘struck’ has forceful connotations, which foreshadows the later violence

Question 4

In the poem, what is significant about the way that the ‘cattle doted on him’?

Answer 4

‘Doted’ implies the hirelings unusual affinity with the natural world and hints at his own inhuman identity

Question 5

Why does the first stanza end with ‘then one night’?

Answer 5

It conveys a change - both in time and tone - as the mood becomes darker and more sinister

Question 6

What technique is used in the phrase ‘disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife’?

Answer 6

The plosive alliteration signals a change to a darker, more troubling tone

Question 7

The speaker describes confronting the hirelings true identity via the hirelings true identity via the ‘light of the dark lantern’
What is significant about this image?

Answer 7

The oxymoronic image conveys a sense of confusion and disorder as the speaker discovers the hirelings true identity