at an inn - thomas hardy

author context? (4 points)

• romantic influence

• pessimist

• feminist

• believed life was fundamentally tragic

poem context?

about hardy and a friend he liked romantically while in an unhappy marriage

‘when we as strangers sought’…?

• ‘we’ shows a close relationship between two

• ‘strangers’ - to both the innkeepers and eachother

‘catering care’ ? (2 points)

• alliteration for rhythm

• implies hunger/sexual desire

‘veiled smiles bespoke their thought / of what we were’ ? (2 points)

• innkeepers assume they’re together

• ‘veiled’ has marriage connotations

‘…they opined us more than friends — / that we had all resigned for love’s dear ends’ ? (2 points)

• caesura shows lingering on a thought

• personification of love - regarded as aspirational

‘swift sympathy / with living love’ ?

alliteration - adds to gentle, melancholy rhythm

‘the spheres above’ …?

stars or planets - relates to fate, their situation is out of their hands

‘made them our ministers’ ?

religious imagery - society’s standards stop them from being together

‘we were left alone…yet never the love-light shone between us there!’ ? (2 points)

• alliteration Ls - soft tone

• ironic, as they are unhappy

‘chillled the breath of afternoon’? (2 points)

• contrasts ‘warmness’ from earlier stanza

• hard plosive sounds juxtapose soft tones

‘…unto death / the pane-fly’s tune’ ?

‘fly on the wall’ reference, innkeepers watching them

‘the kiss their zeal foretold…came not’

anti-climax of ‘came not’ - disappointment

‘love lingered numb’

slow vowels suggest depression