Winter Swans – Owen Sheers/Neutral Tones – Thomas Hardy/Porphyria’s Lover – Robert Browning

Winter Swans – Context

• Contemporary Welsh poet (b. 1974)

• From Skirrid Hill (2005), exploring relationships and emotional landscapes

• Free verse style reflects realism and the natural world

• Often writes about modern love, with tension and healing

Winter Swans – Themes

• Love and reconciliation

• Nature reflecting emotion

• Emotional distance

• Hope and unity after conflict

"The clouds had given their all – two days of rain and then a break"

• Pathetic fallacy reflects tension in the relationship

• Suggests emotional exhaustion and potential for reconciliation

"Like boats righting in rough weather"

• Simile shows the couple stabilising

• Suggests love is resilient even in storm

"They halved themselves in the dark water"

• Swan imagery = unity & lasting love

• “Halved” shows both separation and coming together

• Mirroring suggests healing connection

Neutral Tones – Context

• Written in 1867 (Victorian era)

• Hardy experienced failed relationships, often pessimistic about love

• Reflects emotional repression and societal expectations of the time

Neutral Tones – Themes

• Love, loss, and disappointment

• Emotional detachment

• Memory and bitterness

• Nature mirroring inner emptiness

"The sun was white, as though chidden of God"

• Bleached sun = lifelessness, no passion

• Religious language implies scolding, coldness from above

• Sets the bleak tone

"And the deadest thing alive enough to have strength to die"

• Paradox: even death feels more alive than their relationship

• Emphasises hopelessness

"Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove / Over tedious riddles of years ago"

• Simile shows emotional disconnect

• “Riddles” = confusion, unsolved issues in love

Porphyria’s Lover – Context

• Victorian poet, published 1836

• Known for dramatic monologues & psychological depth

• Themes of power, madness, and control in love

• Reflects Victorian anxieties about gender, class, and morality

Porphyria’s Lover – Themes

• Obsession and control

• Power in love

• Madness and unreliable narrator

• Death as preservation of love

"That moment she was mine, mine, fair, / Perfectly pure and good"

• Repetition = obsession with possession

• Irony: kills her to “freeze” the perfect moment

"And strangled her. No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no pain."

• Calm tone = disturbing, psychotic

• Justifies act to himself – unreliable narrator

"And all night long we have not stirred, / And yet God has not said a word!"

• Believes he’s been morally justified

• Lack of divine punishment reinforces his delusion