Poetry Context Flashcards
(15 cards)
I am very bothered
Simon armitage was a probation officer for 6 years before he focused on his varied literary career
Postgraduate course in social work
Ranges from war and conflict to history and human geography
Clearances 7
-Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
-He lived in Mossbawn with his father and mother. He was the eldest of nine siblings – most likely the “we” in the poem.
-This poem was published in Heaney’s collectionThe Haw Lanternin 1987. His mother - Margaret Kathleen Heaney – had died three years before. The book is dedicated “In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984”.
Before you were mine
Duffy raised in impoverished part of Glasgow
Moved to England, aged 6
Awarded Poet Laureate in 2009, the first woman to hold the post in its nearly 350-year history
Place names used in the poem provide biographical details about the mother’s life before she had children
Poem could be seen as autobiographical
Her mother died in 2005
‘When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else’s‘ - Duffy
Symptoms of love
A veteran of the First World War, Robert Graves availed of a government education grant aimed at ex-soldiers and studied English at Oxford. In 1961 he became Professor of Poetry at his former university and in 1962 was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
His early literary influences included his father, an Irish poet fascinated by Irish mythology; and George Mallory, his teacher at Charterhouse public school who fostered his literary interests (especially poetry).
Graves’ experience of relationships was turbulent. Despite his early homosexual feelings, he eventually married Nancy Nicholson with whom he had four children. He left her to live with the poet Laura Riding in Majorca and the two wrote prolifically about literary criticism. Riding and Graves separated in 1939 after a brief move to the US and he later married Beryl Pritchard with whom he had four more children.
Wild oats
Philip Larkin was born in Coventry in 1922 and died in 1985.
For Larkin, ‘it was immoral not to work’, which led to him seeing poetry as a spare-time activity and also restricted his output. His poetic reputation rests on less than 100 poems.
Following his graduation from Oxford University with First Class Honours in English Language and Literature, Larkin embarked on a career as a librarian, mainly in university libraries. He worked for five years at QUB in Belfast, but spent most of his working life as Chief Librarian at Hull University.
Larkin saw in life ‘much to be endured and little to be enjoyed.’ For him, life was futile, frustrating and filled with disappointment and this response informs most of his poetic output.
From the evidence of the first line, the poem describes a relationship which began when he was in his early 20s and in his first job, working in a library in Wellington This was with his first girlfriend, Ruth Bowman, the only woman whom he came close to marrying. She had a friend called Jane who is the model for the ‘bosomy English rose’, while Ruth was ‘her friend in specs I could talk to
Long distance 2
Tony Harrison was born 1937 in Leeds
He is from a northern English working class family - his northern roots and class-conscious outlook are often reflected in his writing
Many of his poems are semi-autobiographical
Harrison: “I wanted to write the poetry that people like my parents might respond to”
Funeral blues
Originally appeared as a song
Public mourning vs personal grief
I carry your heart with me
Influenced by classical languages, Cummings studied at Harvard
Captured human emotion often central theme of his poem
Cummings married 3 times
When you are old
Yeats born in Dublin
Published in 1892
Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923
Autobiographical poem
When You Are Old was written for the Irish revolutionary and actress Maud Gonne who rejected Yeats’ marriage proposals and married another man
Remember
Youngest of 4
13, health of father declined, spent time caring for him
Patriarchal society
Taught values of self denial, self discipline
Wrote a lot on religion and sin
Engaged but broke off at 19 as he would not abandon his catholic faith
Wrote remember in first half of engagement
The laboratory
Women speaking to pharmacist as he prepares poison which she will use against a love rival
Money is no obstacle for her
Writing in a time of Darwinism
Influenced by science
Inspired by life of Marie madeleine margerite daubray poisened her dad and 2 brothers and planed to do so to her husband
To his coy mistress
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
The Cambridge-educated son of a clergyman. After a period abroad he became tutor to the daughter of Lord Fairfax (1650-52) and during this period wrote most of his best poetry.
He served as MP for Hull from 1659 until his death 20 years later.
Marvell was a metaphysical poet, one of a loose group of poets whose work was characterised by subtlety of wit, passionate argument, a sense of drama, conciseness, learned imagery and a fondness for conceits (ingenious metaphors). Their themes were primarily love, religion and the relationship between body, soul and spirit
Sonnet 130
A key figure of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare is famed primarily for his 39 plays. He was hailed by Ben Jonson as “not of an age, but for all time” and indeed his work continues to be performed, read and studied worldwide. His acting company enjoyed the royal patronage of James I and were fittingly renamed ‘the King’s Men’.
It is unclear whether the subject of this sonnet, often dubbed by critics ‘the Dark Lady’, is purely a fictional construct or has an historical parallel although many possible identities have been speculated. As Booth remarks, Shakespeare “gently mocks the thoughtless mechanical application” of traditional sonnet imagery which had become predictable.
At eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (eight years his senior) who gave birth to their first child, Susanna, six months later. Shakespeare bequeathed only his “second best bed, with the furniture” to Hathaway in his will. Susanna inherited the majority of his estate.
How do I love thee
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a widely-read English poet during the Victorian period. She narrowly lost the position of Poet Laureate to Tennyson following the death of William Wordsworth.
She was knowledgable about theological debates in literature and reflects this in religious allusions throughout this poem. Lilian Whiting describes Barrett Browning’s life as “a Gospel of applied Christianity”, capturing the influence of faith on her relationships.
In 1844 her poetry caught the attention of future husband Robert Browning who admired her “true new brave thought”. This relationship inspired her ‘Sonnets From the Portuguese’ from which this poem comes. She claimed the collection was a work of translation to keep her intimate feelings private upon publication.
On my first son
He was a contemporary of Shakespeare
In 1603 bens son Benjamin died at the age of 7 from an episode of bubonic plague, influence of faith in grief is shown throughout
Associated with the cavalier poets who indulged Charles 1 liking for fine artistry
