englishwithboucher.files.wordpress.com€¦ · Web viewExcerpts from the Anthology POEMS FOR EXAMINATION IN JUNE AND NOVEMBER (Years 2013, 2014, 2015) Contents 110. Sujata Bhatt,

IGCSE English Literature

Paper 1: Section B (Poetry)

Songs of Ourselves: Excerpts from the Anthology

POEMS FOR EXAMINATION IN JUNE AND NOVEMBER (Years 2013, 2014, 2015)

Contents

110. Sujata Bhatt, ‘A Different History’111. Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Pied Beauty’

112. Allen Curnow, ‘Continuum’113. Edwin Muir, ‘Horses’

114. Judith Wright, ‘Hunting Snake’115. Ted Hughes, ‘Pike’

116. Christina Rossetti, ‘Birthday’117. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘The Woodspurge’

118. Kevin Halligan, ‘The Cockroach’119. Margaret Atwood, ‘The City Planners’

120. Boey Kim Cheng, ‘The Planners’121. Norman Maccaig, ‘Summer Farm’

122. Elizabeth Brewster, ‘Where I Come From’123. William Wordsworth, ‘Sonnet: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’

Key Information

English IGCSE is comprised of the study of two subjects, English Language and English Literature, for which you get two separate grades.

We will, this half of term, be studying 14 poems from the anthology in readiness for Literature Paper 1, an examined paper lasting 2hrs 15.

This paper will ask you to answer on three different texts (one prose piece and one play) and as such, these poems represent 1/3 of your Literature Exam

The exam is open-book (no annotation); all sections carry equal marks (25)

The Poetry question will give you a choice of three questions: one passage-based and two essay questions

There are four, equally weighted Assessment Objectives◦ AO1: UNDERSTANDING OF CONTENT

Show detailed knowledge of the content of literary texts in the three main forms (Drama, Poetry, and Prose);

◦ AO2: IDEAS AND INTENTIONSUnderstand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes;

◦ AO3: ANALYSISRecognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure, and form to create and shape meanings and effects;

◦ AO4: PERSONAL RESPONSECommunicate a sensitive and informed personal response to literary texts.

Some useful advice:

Do a lot with a little Question word choice Get to know the mark scheme really well Look for multiple connotations: never be satisfied with one interpretation. Argue

with yourself. Happy Poetic Device Hunting! Theme > Form and Structure > Language

PEEE.... Extended PEEE

Poetry Mark Scheme

Structuring Notes and Essays

THEMES (T=IFA)Ideas

• Ideas relate to Thinking and Understanding. They are usually expressed as Abstract Nouns, and focus on the key ideas that the poem deals with; what the poem is essentially about (e.g., Democracy, Socialism, Equality, Loneliness, Cruelty, Conformity, Culture, Identity)

Feelings • Feelings relate to personal and emotional states within the poem – usually expressed as nouns or adjectives

(fear, happiness, satisfaction, pleasure)

Authorial Intention • If Ideas and Feelings are the ‘what’ (what is the poem about?), then Authorial Intention is the ‘why’ (why

does the poet write it?). What is the point of the poem; what is the poet’s intention, their purpose, their moral imperative. What do they need to communicate to you? The Authorial Intention is the attitude and purpose of the writer outside of the poem. Remember that a poem is a construction: it is an idea constructed of words. These words – their meanings, their sounds, their length, their position in the poem itself – all have been specifically chosen because they best convey the ideas of the poet. Everything is there for a reason and a purpose – what is it?

FORM AND STRUCTUREForm

• Best thought of as a silhouette. Form relates to the external shape of a text, determined by how it is presented on paper, organised by stanzas, lines, syllables, rhyme, justification. It is a simpler thing to comment on because it is visible and usually requires specific technical identification (e.g., free verse, stanzaic, sonnet, haiku, couplets, heroic/rhyming couplets, meter and stress, iambic pentameter/blank verse, followed by explanation)

Structure • Best thought of as an x-ray, the skeleton. Structure is more interesting because it goes beyond the visible: it

is about the internal development and relationship between parts, displaying the organic relationship between ideas, feelings and attitudes within a text. It also relates to line length, end-stopping/enjambement, punctuation and pace, and an exploration of why this structure was chosen.

LANGUAGE • Best thought of as the internal organs of a poem. Linguistic devices are what give the poem colour and

meaning: you must be confident both in terms of technical identification as well as depth of analysis.

1. Letter-level: think about particular letters, syllables and shapes and textures of these and what effect they have: the impact of Alliteration, Assonance, Sibilance, Cacophony, Half Rhyme, Plosives, Soft/Hard Consonants, Short/Long Vowels, Repetition.

2. Word-level: think about what kinds of words are chosen and for what purpose: Verbs, Imperatives, Participles, Pronouns, Nouns, Adjectives, Lexis, Semantic Fields. Think also about the ways words are used to develop ideas, specifically in terms of Figurative Language: Anthropomorphism, Onomatopoeia, Metaphors, Personification, Similes.

3. Sentence-level: think about how words are grouped and linked and for what purpose: for example, Imagery, Emotions, The 5 Senses, Colours.

A technical knowledge is all well and good; however, knowing WHAT is not enough. Do not just identify and label. The critical questions of analysis are:

WHY?HOW?

TO WHAT PURPOSE?WITH WHAT EFFECT?

WHO CARES? – MAKE ME CARE

Thematic Links

Iden

tity

and

Lang

uage

Tim

e

Relig

ion

Nat

ure

and

the

Nat

ural

Wor

ld

The

Met

aphy

sical

Pers

onal

Refl

ectio

n

Rom

antic

vs.

Anti

-Ro

man

tic

Sonn

ets

The

City

Bhatt, A Different History

Hopkins, Pied Beauty

Curnow, Continuum

Muir,Horses

Wright, Hunting Snake

Hughes,Pike

C. Rossetti,A Birthday

DG Rossetti,

The Woodspurg

eHalligan,

The Cockroach

Atwood, The City

Planners

Cheng, The Planners

Maccaig, Summer

FarmBrewster,

Where I come from

Wordsworth, Sonnet...

110

A Different History

SUJATA BHATT

Great Pan is not dead;he simply emigrated           to India.Here, the gods roam freely,disguised as snakes or monkeys;every tree is sacredand it is a sinto be rude to a book.It is a sin to shove a book aside                      with your foot,a sin to slam books down            hard on the table,a sin to toss one carelessly           across a room.You must learn how to turn the pages gentlywithout disturbing Sarasvati,without offending the treefrom whose wood the paper was made.

           Which language            has not been the oppressor’s tongue?           Which language

truly meant to murder someone?And how does it happenthat after the torture,after the soul has been croppedwith a long scythe swooping outof the conqueror’s face – the unborn grandchildrengrow to love that strange language.

Pan] the Ancient Greek God of Nature, part-man, part-goatSarasvati] the Hindu goddess of the arts

111

Pied Beauty

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare and strange;Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

pied... dappled... couple-colour] of different shades of colour; two-tonebrinded] streaked with different coloursfresh-firecoal chestnut-falls] falling chestnuts as bright as glowing coalscounter] opposite, duplicatefathers-forth] creates, engenders

112

Continuum

ALLEN CURNOW

The moon rolls over the roof and falls behindmy house, and the moon does neither of these things,I am talking about myself.

It’s not possible to get off to sleep orthe subject or the planet, nor to think thoughts.Better barefoot it out the front.

door and lean from the porch across the privetsand the palms into the washed-out creation,a dark place with two particular

bright clouds dusted (query) by the moon, one’s minethe other’s an adversary, which may dependon the wind, or something.

A long moment stretches, the next one is noton time. Not unaccountably the chill ofthe planking underfoot rises

in the throat, for its part the night sky emptiesthe whole of its contents down. Turn on a bareheel, close the door behind

on the author, cringing demiurge, who picks uphis litter and his tools and paces me backto bed, stealthily in step.

continuum] that which extends continuouslyprivets] hedgesdemiurge] creator

113

Horses

EDWIN MUIR

Those lumbering horses in the steady plough, On the bare field – I wonder why, just now, They seemed terrible, so wild and strange, Like magic power on the stony grange.

Perhaps some childish hour has come again, When I watched fearful, through the blackening rain, Their hooves like pistons in an ancient mill Move up and down, yet seem as standing still.

Their conquering hooves which trod the stubble down Were ritual that turned the field to brown, And their great hulks were seraphim of gold, Or mute ecstatic monsters on the mould.

And oh the rapture, when, one furrow done, They marched broad-breasted to the sinking sun! The light flowed off their bossy sides in flakes; The furrows rolled behind like struggling snakes.

But when at dusk with steaming nostrils home They came, they seemed gigantic in the gloam, And warm and glowing with mysterious fire That lit their smouldering bodies in the mire.

Their eyes as brilliant and as wide as night Gleamed with a cruel apocalyptic light, Their manes the leaping ire of the wind Lifted with rage invisible and blind.

Ah, now it fades! It fades! and I must pine Again for the dread country crystalline, Where the blank field and the still-standing tree Were bright and fearful presences to me.

Grange] farmhouseSeraphim] angelsMould] groundBossy] swellingGloam] duskMire] mudCrystalline] as if made of crystal

114

Hunting Snake

JUDITH WRIGHT

Sun-warmed in this late season’s graceunder the autumn’s gentlest skywe walked, and froze half-through a pace.The great black snake went reeling by.

Head-down, tongue-flickering on the trailhe quested through the parting grass;sun glazed his curves of diamond scaleand we lost breath to watch him pass.

What track he followed, what small foodfled living from his fierce intent,we scarcely thought; still as we stoodour eyes went with him as he went.

Cold, dark and splendid he was goneinto the grass that hid his prey.We took a deeper breath of day,looked at each other, and went on.

115

Pike

TED HUGHES

Pike, three inches long, perfectPike in all parts, green tigering the gold.Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.They dance on the surface among the flies.

Or move, stunned by their own grandeur, Over a bed of emerald, silhouetteOf submarine delicacy and horror.A hundred feet long in their world.

In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads – Gloom of their stillness: Logged on last year's black leaves, watching upwards.Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds

The jaws' hooked clamp and fangsNot to be changed at this date: A life subdued to its instrument; The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.

Three we kept behind glass, Jungled in weed: three inches, four, And four and a half: fed fry to them – Suddenly there were two. Finally one.

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.And indeed they spare nobody.Two, six pounds each, over two feet longHigh and dry and dead in the willow-herb –

One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet: The outside eye stared: as a vice locks – The same iron in this eyeThough its film shrank in death.

Pike] large, predatory freshwater fishTigering] ie making stripes like a like a tiger’s skinPectorals] lateral finsFry] newly hatched fishWillow-herb] yellow loosestrife, a wild plantFilm] the eye’s surface

A pond I fished, fifty years across, Whose lilies and muscular tenchHad outlasted every visible stoneOf the monastery that planted them –

Stilled legendary depth: It was as deep as England. It heldPike too immense to stir, so immense and oldThat past nightfall I dared not cast

But silently cast and fishedWith the hair frozen on my headFor what might move, for what eye might move.The still splashes on the dark pond,

Owls hushing the floating woodsFrail on my ear against the dreamDarkness beneath night's darkness had freed, That rose slowly toward me, watching.

Tench] freshwater fishCast] flick the line of a fishing rod

116

A Birthday

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

My heart is like a singing birdWhose nest is in a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple-treeWhose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shellThat paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all theseBecause my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my lifeIs come, my love is come to me.

Halcyon] idyllic, calmDais] platformDown] soft feathersVair] squirrel furEyes] ie the circles in a peacock’s tailFleurs-de-lys] three-petalled flowers

117

The Woodspurge

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,Shaken out dead from tree and hill:I had walked on at the wind’s will, – I sat now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was, – My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!My hair was over in the grass,My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eye, wide open, had the runOf some ten weeds to fix upon;Among those few, out of the sun,The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not beWisdom or even memory:One thing then learnt remains to me, –The woodspurge has a cup of three.

At the wind’s will] wherever the wind blew me

Woodspurge] a wild plant, whose flowers form in groups of three from a cup-like stem

118

The Cockroach

KEVIN HALLIGAN

I watched a giant cockroach start to pace,Skirting a ball of dust that rode the floor.At first he seemed quite satisfied to traceA path between the wainscot and the door,But soon he turned to jog in crooked rings,Circling the rusty table leg and back,And flipping right over to scratch his wings – As if the victim of a mild attackOf restlessness that worsened over time.After a while, he climbed an open shelfAnd stopped. He looked uncertain where to go.Was this due payment for some vicious crimeA former life had led to? I don’t know,Except I thought I recognised myself.

Skirting] avoiding by a detourWainscot] panelling

119

The City Planners

MARGARET ATWOOD

Cruising these residential Sundaystreets in dry August sunlight:what offends us isthe sanities:the houses in pedantic rows, the plantedsanitary trees, assertlevelness of surface like a rebuketo the dent in our car door.No shouting here, orshatter of glass: nothing more abruptthan the rational whine of a power mowercutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass.

But though the driveways neatlysidestep hysteriaby being even, the roofs all displaythe same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,certain things:the smell of spilt oil a faintsickness lingering in the garages,a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,a plastic hose poised in a viciouscoil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide-windows

give momentary access tothe landscape behind or underthe future cracks in the plasterwhen the houses, capsized, will slideobliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciersthat right now nobody notices.

That is where the City Plannerswith the insane faces of political conspiratorsare scattered over unsurveyedterritories, concealed from each other,each in his own private blizzard;

guessing directions, they sketchtransitory lines rigid as wooden borderson a wall in the white vanishing air

tracing the panic of suburborder in a bland madness of snows.

Sanities] sanity = the condition of mental healthSwath] track, row

120

The Planners

BOEY KIM CHENG

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,filled with permutations of possibilities.The buildings are in alignment with the roadswhich meet at desired pointslinked by bridges all hangin the grace of mathematics.They build and will not stop.Even the sea draws backand the skies surrender.

They erase the flaws,the blemishes of the past, knock off useless blocks with dental dexterity.All gaps are plugged with gleaming gold.The country wears perfect rows of shining teeth.Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.They have the means.They have it all so it will not hurt,so history is new again. The piling will not stop.The drilling goes right through the fossils of last century.

But my heart would not bleedpoetry. Not a single dropto stain the blueprintof our past’s tomorrow.

Piling] building foundationsBlueprint] architectural plan

121

Summer Farm

NORMAN MACCAIG

Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grassAnd hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glassThe water in the horse-trough shines.Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.

A hen stares at nothing with one eye,then picks it up. Out of an empty skyA swallow falls and, flickering throughThe barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.

I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,Afraid of where a thought might take me – asThis grasshopper with plated faceUnfolds his legs and finds himself in space.

Self under self, a pile of selves I standThreaded on time, and with metaphysic handLift the farm like a lid and seeFarm within farm, and in the centre, me.

Plated] ie as if comprising sections of a metal plate

Metaphysic] concerned with the nature of abstract or transcendent truth

122

Where I Come From

ELIZABETH BREWSTER

People are made of places. They carry with themhints of jungles or mountains, a tropic graceor the cool eyes of sea-gazers. Atmosphere of citieshow different drops from them, like the smell of smogor the almost-not-smell of tulips in the spring,nature tidily plotted in little squareswith a fountain in the centre; museum smell,art so tidily plotted with a guidebook;or the smell of work, glue factories maybe,chromium-plated offices; smell of subwayscrowded at rush hours.            

                         Where I come from, peoplecarry woods in their minds, acres of pine woods;blueberry patches in the burned-out bush;wooden farmhouses, old, in need of paint,with yards where hens and chickens circle about,clucking aimlessly; battered schoolhousesbehind which violets grow. Spring and winterare the mind’s chief seasons: ice and the breaking of ice.

A door in the mind blows open, and there blowsa frosty wind from fields of snow.

123

Sonnet: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Earth hath not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty:This City now doth like a garment wearThe beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lieOpen unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.Never did sun more beautifully steepIn his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!The river glideth at his own sweet will:Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Westminster Bridge] ie across the River Thames in LondonSteep] bathe (in light)

Glideth] glides

Key Themes Identity Time Nature Personal Reflection Religion Moon Sonnets The Metaphysical The City Romantic vs. Anti-Romantic

Other ......................................................

Ideas Feelings Authorial Intention

Form Structure

LanguageFeatures/Technical Term

Example (line reference) Analysis; relevance to theme and message

Personal Response