English Literature Poetry EDEXCEL IGCSE

If

- Language - repetition
- Form/structure - Iambic pentameter
- Meaning of being a man - having good virtues
- Rhyming scheme ABAB - more understanding to the son

Prayer Before Birth

- Language - repetition to create a rhythm - alliteration like a religious ceremony
- Structure - each stanza is 1 sentence besides the last one, mimicking a prayer
- Highlights the horror with the juxtaposition of an unborn child saying it.
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Search For My Tongue

- Language/Form/Structure - 2nd stanza is in Gujrati, showing the reader what it's like to forget the language - stanza 1 and 3 are in free verse like a conversation and stanza 2 shows what the reader has to try and understand
- She has a fear of forgetting her native tongue.
- Language is part of her identity.
- Anaphora - "the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth" - repetition emphasises her excitement.

Half-past Two

- Language - Capital letters - a child showing how important the teacher thought it was - the brackets shows it wan't important to him - She - capital letter to show her authority - Something Very Wrong - he has a different concept of time.
- Describes the clock as having "little eyes and two long legs" showing his childhood innocence and describes as a "language" to show that he needs to learn it.
- Appreciating nature to show that childhood is a time with no worries
- Doesn't say sorry to the boy when she "forgot" showing no guilt.

Piano

- Form/Structure - 3 quatrains, aabb
- Proustian moment
- Childlike imagery to show the innocence and peace.
- Piano can be related how life was black and white as a child.

Hide and Seek

- Form/Structure - one stanza to show the excitement of the game
- Language - sibilance - the sound of the sea
- Discomfort - "cold", "puzzled"
- Tension with the triadic structure
- Adjectives are used to show uneasiness

Sonnet 116

- Form/Structure - Sonnet (iambic pentameter, about love and abab, ending with aa)
- First quatrain is about what love isn't, second is about love is and the third is more specific in what it isn't
- The couplet shows his certainty

La Belle Dame sans Merci

- Form/Structure - Ballad (short stanza, abcb, iambic tetrameter)
- The sedge is withered to mimic the atmosphere.
- Lily and rose are signs of death
- The last line of each stanza doesn't follow the meter making it end mysteriously.

Poem at Thirty-Nine

- Form/Structure - enjambment so slows down the pace to be more meditative.
- "grieved" have 2 meanings - the dad upset and the daughter mourning.
- The cooking and yoga juxtapose the previously mentioned beating.
- Learned a lot from the dad (seasoning metaphor)

The Tyger

- Form/Structure - 6 quatrains, iambic tetrameter (the rhythm helps the point)
- Many Christian beliefs - questioning - if god is all good, how did he make the tiger.

My Last Duchess

- Form/Structure - dramatic monologue, rhyming couplets, iambic pentameter - one long speech - variety of punctuation to show twists and turns.
- Many personal pronouns to show he thinks highly of himself.
- Very insecure about his wife despite all of his possessions.

Half-caste

- Form/Structure - one sentence, short lines so it's quick and confrontational.
- Assertive and aggressive or jokey.
- Language - Patois so it gets the point across he is mixed heritage.

Do not go gentle into that good night

- Form/Structure - ABA, same 2 lines are repeated to emphasise the point of trying to fight death.
- "light" is life and "good night" is death
- "blinding sight" - oxymoron to show the "rage"
- "I pray" shows his desire for his dad to fight

Remember

- Form/Structure - Sonnet, abba, iambic pentameter
- Changes tone halfway through
- A back and forth nature of the poem like the rhyme scheme - there is life, then there is death and there this is life in memory.