Poetry

Question 1

Lord Byron
1788-1824
She Walks in Beauty

Answer 1

• many controversial relationships

- his poems don’t reflect his actual personality

Question 2

William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet 116

Answer 2

• said to be the most influential/important playwright of the English Renaissance
• grammar school education
• married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway (older woman); left her in Stratford-upon-Avon to go to London, but returned to die when wealthy
• speculation over “Mr W.H” who his sonnets were dedicated to; sonnet about a man or woman?

Question 3

John Donne
1572-1631
The Flea

Answer 3

• married in secret to Anne Moore; had 12 kids, she died in childbirth
• Elizabethan era; time of Renaissance
• links science to literature
• use metaphysical conceits (extended metaphors that make you think about life)

Question 4

Earl of Rochester
1647-1680
A Song (Absent from thee)

Answer 4

• Andrew Marshall describes him as ‘the best English satirist’
• Charles II on the throne; Rochester slept with his mistress TIME OF EXCESS
• he had syphilis - slept with everyone
• liberal in his morality

Question 5

William Blake
1727-1757
The Garden of Love

Answer 5

• believed that religion should not take over: disliked organised religion
• In 1780, things were becoming industrialised - French Revolution

Question 6

Andrew Marvell
1621-1678
To His Coy Mistress

Answer 6

-often described as being a metaphysical poet (using images and word play to express complex ideas and feelings)

Question 7

Robert Burns
1759-1796
Song (Ae fond kiss)

Answer 7

• National Poet of Scotland
• promiscuous: had many lovers and children
• “the ploughman poet” - romanticism
• poem written directly to Nancy Melehose (she was married); “may we meet in Heaven” - written in her diary 49 years later, she published the personal poems later
• not a physical relationship, slept with her maid, kept a silhouette of her til his death

Question 8

Christina Rossetti
1830-1894
Remember

Answer 8

• a woman - controversial for the time
• written when 19: doesn’t seem to be written by a 19 year old
• published in “Goblin Market and Other Poems”
• Father was seriously ill, experienced herself a mental breakdown: more in touch with death and illness than modern 19 years olds
• brother, Dante, was an important poet and painter: apart of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Question 9

Ernest Dowson
1867-1900
Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regna Cynarae

Answer 9

• a part of the Rhymers Club - trying to reflect Parisian poetry
• most of his poems are about unrequited love: proposed to an 11 year old girl
• part of Decadent Movement (devotion to Catholic) excess and over the top

Question 10

John Keats
1795-1821
La Belle Dame San Rherei: A Ballad

Answer 10

• died of TB, after seeing the suffering of mother’s and brother’s premature deaths with TB: would have affected poem
• premature death, and was engaged - separated, never together

Question 11

Sir Thomas Wyatt
1503-1542
Who so list to hount I knowe where is an hynde?

Answer 11

• friends with Henry 8th: relationship with Anne Boleyn
• married and separated from Elizabeth Brooke
• poetry is from the Renaissance era: emotive language
• none of his poems were published whilst he was alive

Question 12

Thomas Hardy
1840-1928
The Ruined Maid AND At an Inn

Answer 12

• Victorian realist; influenced by Romantics
• Very aware of class divisions: including women’s inequality
• couldn’t afford to go to university - trained to be an architect
• greatly affected by his first wife’s death: his heart was buried with her
• At an Inn inspired by stay at the George Hotel with Florence Henniker