BL final

Browning "My Last Duchess"

Developed dramatic monologue Trying to accomplish 2nd marriage Fra Pandolf is a monk - not supposed to care about material things Wasn't only her husband who brought color to her cheeks, unfaithful He wants her to respond to him in a special way Unhappy with her, doesn't like her behavior, but doesn't say anything to her has her killed treats wives like objects The Duke of Ferrara is negotiating with a servant for the hand of a count's daughter in marriage. (We don't know anything about the Count except that he is a count. And that he's not the Count from Sesame Street - different guy.) During the negotiations, the Duke takes the servant upstairs into his private art gallery and shows him several of the objects in his collection. The first of these objects is a portrait of his "last" or former duchess, painted directly on one of the walls of the gallery by a friar named Pandolf. The Duke keeps this portrait behind a curtain that only he is allowed to draw. While the servant sits on a bench looking at the portrait, the Duke describes the circumstances in which it was painted and the fate of his unfortunate former wife. Apparently the Duchess was easily pleased: she smiled at everything, and seemed just as happy when someone brought her a branch of cherries as she did when the Duke decided to marry her. She also blushed easily. The Duchess's genial nature was enough to throw the Duke into a jealous, psychopathic rage, and he "gave commands" (45) that meant "all smiles stopped together" (46). We're guessing this means he had her killed although it's possible that he had her shut up somewhere, such as in a convent. But it's way more exciting if you interpret it as murder, and most critics do. After telling this story to the servant of the family that might provide his next victim - er, sorry, bride - the Duke takes him back downstairs to continue their business. On the way out, the Duke points out one more of his favorite art objects: a bronze statue of Neptune taming a seahorse.

Heaney "Digging"

The poem begins with our speaker at his desk, his pen poised to begin writing. He gets distracted by the sound of his father outside, working in the garden, and this sends our speaker into a spiral of memories about his father working in the potato fields when the speaker was a young boy. The memory stretches even further back to his grandfather and the hard work he did as a peat harvester (there's all kinds of hard work going on). Eventually, our speaker snaps out of his daydream, and we find him back at his desk, ready to get to work on his writing.

John Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Urn tells a story. Their love/beauty will not fade, city empty forever romanticism - reach for the impossible. man is whispering sweet nothings to a Grecian urn, an ancient Greek pot that is covered in illustrations. He thinks the pot is married to a guy named "Quietness," but they haven't had sex yet, so the marriage isn't official. He also thinks that the urn is the adopted child of "Silence" and "Slow Time." Then the speaker gives us the urn's profession: it's a "historian," and it does a much better job of telling stories than the speaker possibly could. The speaker looks closer at the urn and tries to figure out what's going on in the pictures that are painted on it. Illustrated on the urn is some kind of story that might involve gods, men, or both. It looks like a bunch of guys are chasing beautiful women through the forest. People are playing pipes and beating on drums. Everyone looks happy. The scene is chaotic and the speaker doesn't know quite what's happening. Not only is the urn a better storyteller than the poet, but the musicians in the illustration have sweeter melodies than the poet. The poet then tries to listen to the music played by the people in the image. That's right: even though he can't hear the music with his ears, he's trying to listen to it with his "spirit." He looks at the illustration of a young guy who is playing a song under a tree. Because pictures don't change, the man will be playing his song as long as the urn survives, and the tree will always be full and green. Then the speaker addresses one of the guys who is chasing a maiden, and he offers some advice: "You're never going to make out with that girl, because you're in a picture, and pictures don't change, but don't worry - at least you'll always be in love with her, because you're in a picture, and pictures don't change." The speaker thinks about how happy the trees must be to keep all their leaves forever. It's always springtime in the world of the urn, and every song sounds fresh and new. Then he starts talking about love and repeats the word "happy" a bunch of times. He is jealous of the lovers on the urn, because they will always be lusting after each other. Seriously. He thinks the best part of being in love is trying to get your lover to hook up with you, and not the part that follows. We're starting to think that the speaker needs a cold shower. The word "panting" threatens to send the poem careening into X-rated territory. Things were getting a bit steamy, but now the speaker has moved to a different section of the urn. He's looking at an illustration of an animal sacrifice. This is pretty much the cold shower he needed. A priest is leading a cow to be sacrificed. People have come from a nearby town to watch. The speaker imagines that it's a holy day, so the town has been emptied out for the sacrifice. The town will always be empty, because it's a picture, and pictures don't change. The speaker starts freaking out a bit. He's basically yelling at the urn now. Whereas before he was really excited about the idea of living in the eternal world of the illustrations, now he's not so sure. Something about it seems "cold" to him. He thinks about how, when everyone he knows is dead, the urn will still be around, telling its story to future generations. The urn is a teacher and friend to mankind. It repeats the same lesson to every generation: that truth and beauty are the same thing, and this knowledge is all we need to make it through life.

Armitage "The Shout"

about a boy the speaker of the poem spent time with as a child but didn't know too well. Now that the boy is dead (apparently by suicide) the speaker cannot forget about him. The boy has become a mystery to him because he was connected to the boy through them playing together, yet they never knew each. The boy grew up to become a person totally separate from him, dying far from home. And of course the death can be interpreted to be a mystery in itself to the speaker.

Hardy "Channel Firing"

'Channel Firing' must be one of the finest poems written from the perspective of a skeleton: the speaker is one of the dead, roused from the deep slumber of death by the sound of the guns firing out at sea in the English Channel. (The noise is a result of the navy's gunnery practice.) In summary, the poem's speaker is a member of the dead addressing Stonehenge by starlightthe living ('your great guns'), describing how the noise of the gunfire roused the dead from their rest - indeed, so loud was the sound of firing that the dead thought Judgment Day had arrived. Even the animals in the surrounding area are frightened and disturbed by the sound of gunfire. But this is not Judgment Day - as God himself confirms, speaking to the dead and assuring them that this is the same old sound of men firing guns and preparing for war. 'The world', as God says, 'is as it used to be'. It's merely 'nations' fighting to make 'Red war yet redder'. God goes on to say that it's a 'blessed thing' for many of the living that this isn't the Day of Judgment, for if it were, many of them could expect to spend a long time in Hell for the sins they have committed - including, it's implied, the war they have waged. God summarily commands the dead to go back to their rest and not to worry about the 'channel firing' going about them. It's just men killing, or practising to kill, each other: nothing new. So they lie down again in their coffins. In a lovely touch, Hardy takes the word 'indifferent' and makes it strange - as it were, different - by loading it with two meanings: So down we lay again. 'I wonder, Will the world ever saner be,' Said one, 'than when He sent us under In our indifferent century!' 'Indifferent' normally means 'uncaring': if you're indifferent to something, you aren't bothered or concerned by it. So the past century in which these dead men lived is 'indifferent' to the fighting going on in the present because that century is dead and buried (literally, in so far as its inhabitants now lie under the ground). But 'indifferent' is also twisted by Hardy into meaning - or at least suggesting - a second meaning of 'not different': both the previous century in which these dead men lived and the present century in which Hardy is writing are not all that different. 'The world is as it used to be', to go back to God's words in the poem. The poem then concludes with the grimly humorous image of the skeletons shaking their heads (or skulls), lamenting the fact that the men of future generations are still fighting each other, nations are still at war with other nations, and the bloodshed continues. The dead parson wonders what was the point of having spent his life preaching, when men have clearly not heeded the Christian message of love and peace. Perhaps he should just have enjoyed himself and not cared about trying to change the world, taking pleasure in his 'pipes and beer' instead of preaching Christ's word. 'Channel Firing' ends with a stanza reporting how the reverberations from the gunfire could be heard 'As far inland as Stourton Tower, / And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.' Hardy's decision to mention these places is significant: Stourton Tower is also known as King Alfred's Tower, a folly built to commemorate the end of the Seven Years' War against France and erected near the location where it is believed that Alfred the Great rallied his troops before the Battle of Edington in 878. Thus the Tower is a reminder of two different battles and wars: the Saxons' resistance to the Vikings in the ninth century and the Seven Years' War some nine centuries later. War has always been a part of history. The mention of Camelot and Stonehenge can also be analysed in terms of war: Camelot, the mythical seat of King Arthur's Court, summons up a romanticised view of medieval history filled with battles and knights, while Stonehenge takes us back not hundreds, but thousands of years, when Celtic tribes were doubtless at war with each other, too. Nothing has changed when it comes to warfare, Thomas Hardy seems to be saying in 'Channel Firing'. A few months after he wrote the poem, he would be proved right yet again.

Tennyson "Ulysses"

"Ulysses" details Ulysses' intense dissatisfaction and boredom on his island home of Ithaca. The poem is a monologue spoken by him, where he not only expresses his discontent, but also describes his desire to keep sailing. He's getting older and doesn't have a lot of time left, so he wants to get busy living rather than busy dying. The poem concludes with his resolution to "strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Tennyson "The Lotus Eaters"

As the poem opens, we're thrown right into the action. A crew of sailors is about to arrive in a new and strange country. When they get there, they find a lazy, tropical place, full of streams and mountains and waterfalls. Pretty soon, they meet the natives, called the "Lotos-eaters," who are a mysterious bunch with "dark faces" (line 26) who look both gentle and sad. Even more importantly, they are carrying some of their favorite food, an "enchanted" plant called the Lotos. Some of the sailors try the Lotos, and it has a strange effect on them. It makes them incredibly sleepy and lazy. They basically just plop down on the beach and refuse to move, insisting that they are tired of working all the time and want to stay in this new spot and just chill. The rest of the poem is taken up by the sailors talking about how tired they are, and how, even though they miss their families and their home, it would just be too much work to get back there. Finally they decide to stay forever, relaxing and dreaming and eating Lotos until the day they die. Far out.

Browning "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's Church"

Bishop is dying, talking about his tomb nephews standing around - not really nephews - had a mistress - mother of "nephews" - gandolf fought over her images, inscriptions, both religions and pagan on his tomb We begin in Rome, sometime during the sixteenth century. A bishop is lying on his deathbed. It sounds like the set-up to a joke, but it's really just the start of this poem. He's got his sons, or nephews, around him. He's a little fuzzy about how he's related to these guys, but we do know that he knew their mother once upon a time. She's been dead for some time, though. The bishop is talking about St. Praxed's church, where he's planning to stay after he dies. You see, he's making plans for his tomb to be built there. Even though someone name Gandolf tricked him and got the best spot for a tomb, he's still pretty stoked about where he'll end up. He describes the high quality of stone and marble that will go into building his tomb. Then he asks his sons—as the bishop starts to refer to them—to go dig him up a giant piece of lapis lazuli stone. He wants to decorate his tomb with it, so he can look like God holding the world. That ought to make Gandolf super-jealous—even though, you know, Gandolf is firmly in a tomb of his own. The bishop goes on with more decoration demands, including depictions of mythological symbols, St. Praxed, Jesus, a nymph getting her clothes ripped off by a Pan figure, and Moses. It's certainly an...unusual set of requests. The bishop is serious, though, and he gets mad when his sons aren't listening to him. He tells them that, if they meet his demands, he'll get St. Praxed to send them gifts like horses and rare manuscripts and good-looking mistresses. If they want all that, though, they have to carve him a better epitaph than the one that Gandolf has. He goes on to describe how he spends his time lying still, waiting for death to arrive. Then he confuses Jesus with St. Praxed and hates on Gandolf a bit more. Suddenly, he seems to realize that he's led an evil life...but then he goes right back to demanding more lapis lazuli for his tomb, as well as various other decorations. After more of this, the bishop turns and gets mad at his sons. He's convinced that they're going to leave him with a cheap and leaky tomb. He throws them out of his room and tells them that he's just going to lie back and wait to see if dead Gandolf gives the bishop a jealous look. After all, the bishop notes, his sons' mother was a really good-looking gal.

Hardy "The Convergence of the Twain"

Blub, blub, blub... the poem opens with the imagery of the sea that's holding the Titanic deep at the bottom. All of the steel chambers, mirrors, jewels and other pretty things are at the bottom too, only this time they're surrounded by curious fish and sea-worms that are none too impressed. But since they're in the sea now, those jewels aren't as pretty since they're lightless (no light at the bottom of the sea) and of no use to anyone. The speaker then goes on to tell the story of the Titanic's construction that was simultaneously underway while the iceberg was growing too. So the two are kind of cosmically connected, but not in a good way. When the two do eventually meet, these worlds collide with some awfully tragic circumstances.

Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Exploration of his own hell "i would tell you if i thought you would stay" hes not happ exploring person who is alone but does nothing to change it out of reach for him indecision similar to hamlet he views himself badly lack of confidence from feeling as if everyone has categorized him comparing himself to an insect in collection attracted to women he sees himself victimized, can't express how he feels "my life is dead" not a hero, hes an attendant Meet Prufrock. (Hi, Prufrock!). He wants you to come take a walk with him through the winding, dirty streets of a big, foggy city that looks a lot like London. He's going to show you all the best sights, including the "one-night cheap hotels" and "sawdust restaurants." What a gentleman, he is! Also, he has a huge, life-altering question to ask you. He'll get to that later, though. Cut to a bunch of women entering and leaving a room. The women are talking about the famous Renaissance painter Michelangelo. We don't know why they're talking about Michelangelo, and we never learn. Welcome to Prufrock's world, where no one does anything interesting. Did we mention that it's foggy. Like really, really foggy. The fog has a delightful yellow color, and it acts a lot like a cat. Yawn. What a day. We've accomplished so much already with Prufrock. There's still a lot of stuff he still wants to get done before "toast and tea." People to see, decisions to make, life-altering questions to ask. But not yet...There's still plenty of time for all that later. Where did the women go? Oh, yes, they're still talking about Michelangelo. Yup. Pleeeen-ty of time for Prufrock to do all that really important stuff. Except that he doesn't know if he should. He's kind of nervous. You see, he was about to tell someone something really important, but then he didn't. Too nervous. Oops! At least he's a sharp-looking guy. Well, his clothes are sharp-looking. The rest of him is kind of not-so-sharp-looking. People say he's bald and has thin arms. But he still has pleeen-ty of time. And he's accomplished so much already! For example, he has drank a lot of coffee, and he's lived through a lot of mornings and afternoons. Those are pretty big accomplishments, right? Plus, he's known a lot of women. Or at least he's looked at their hairy arms, and that's almost as good. Prufrock says something about how he wishes he were a crab. Oh, Prufrock! Always the joker. Wait, you were serious? That's kind of sad, my friend. Don't you have important things to do? Oops! It looks like he didn't do that really important thing he meant to do. He was going to tell someone something life-altering, but he was afraid of being rejected. So he didn't. Oh well. Meanwhile, Prufrock keeps getting older. He doesn't worry about that really important thing anymore. Instead, he worries about other important things, such as whether to roll his pant-legs or eat a peach. It turns out that Prufrock really likes the ocean. He says he has heard mermaids singing - but they won't sing to him. Boy, you sure do talk a lot about yourself, Prufrock. Finally, he brings us back into the conversation. He talks about how we lived at the bottom of the sea with him (geez, we don't remember that one!). It turns out we were asleep in the ocean, but all of a sudden, we get woken up by "human voices." Unfortunately, as soon as we wake up, we drown in the salty ocean. Boy, what a day. We thought we were talking a walk, and now we're dead.

John KeatsJohn Keats "Ode to a Nightingale"

Exualted language over a serious subject sad men, happy bird, wants to die, suicide?, leave/death, everyone gets old/beauty fades, will follow mocking jay. asking for death, bird represents happiness, birds son last forever, dreams of death The poem begins as the speaker starts to feel disoriented from listening to the song of the nightingale, as if he had just drunken something really, really strong. He feels bittersweet happiness at the thought of the nightingale's carefree life. The speaker wishes he had a special wine distilled directly from the earth. He wants to drink such a wine and fade into the forest with the nightingale. He wants to escape the worries and concerns of life, age, and time. He uses poetry to join the nightingale's nighttime world, deep in the dark forest where hardly any moonlight can reach. He can't see any of the flowers or plants around him, but he can smell them. He thinks it wouldn't be so bad to die at night in the forest, with no one around except the nightingale singing. But the nightingale can't die. The nightingale must be immortal, because so many different kinds of generations of people have heard its song throughout history, everyone from clowns and emperors to Biblical characters to people in fantasy stories. The speaker's vision is interrupted when the nightingale flies away and leaves him alone. He feels abandoned and disappointed that his imagination is not strong enough to create its own reality. He is left confused and bewildered, not knowing the difference between reality and dreams.

Armitage "In Gooseberry Season"

How does Armitage make the theme of destruction so memorable in this poem? In Gooseberry Season, Armitage dramatises a murder in a cool, calm way which leaves an eerie aftertaste. The narrator's detached tone and unbroken narrative slides over the murder too easily and the disconnection between emotion and action is part of what gives this poem its power. The poem begins with the chatty, colloquial expression 'Which reminds me', and feels as if the poet, or character is talking to us. It's unclear at first whether this is a dramatic monologue, as it feels quite intimate and reasonable at first. It's unclear who 'he' is, which adds to the feeling we're part way through a conversation. This is both intriguing and disorienting. The enjambement (run on lines) give a strong flow to the story and we're caught on the tide. Structurally, the poem seems regular - at first. It's divided into stanzas of five, though the odd number has a disconcerting irregularity to its regularity. On the other hand, the line lengths are wildly irregular, as if there's no underlying logic, perhaps echoing the underlying madness of the narrator. The victim is never named and is alsways called 'he', which creates mystery. His situation, coolly described - having 'walked from town after losing his job' with the odd detail of him 'locking his dog in the coal bunker' is also intriguing, as well as disturbing. Like the narrator's later behaviour - which he attempts to justify - there's no comfortable explanation. The narrator's further explanations of the man's behaviour seem to flow, but are also disjointed. More oddly specific details like 'he hung up his coat' and 'he mentioned a recipe' are disturbingly nonsensical. It's unclear why the narrator is fixing on these details. The poem hardly seems like a poem at all: it's unrhymed, irregular, and where it is cut into stanzas, seems utterly random. It lacks imagery, emotive language, description, sensory language except for the very centre of the poem where we encounter a bizarrely out of place sensory description of the gooseberry 'sorbet' flowing over sensual sibilants: 'smooth, seedless'. The title is 'Gooseberry Season' so we could expect this to be significant. Culturally a 'gooseberry' is someone who's not wanted. Certainly the victim could fit this role. The narrator says 'I was tired of him' 'sucking up to my wife' 'sizing up my daughter'. In the centre, we also have a seemingly out of place metaphysical meditation: 'Where does the hand become the wrist?' This is about connections, which is ironic in a poem which seems so disconnected, with an emotionally disconnected narrator. It's as if he's justifying himself. He uses colloquial language 'tips us over that razor's edge' which has a violent, brutal edge, and tips quickly through 'I could have told him this but didn't bother', into violence. 'Didn't bother' is brutally casual. What's stranger still is the use of the inclusive 'we ran him a bath' 'we drove': as if the whole family's in this together. It's hard to believe the entire family could be complicit and it is this last image that is so disturbing and gives this poem its disturbing power. In conclusion, the final stanza gives an inadequate summary: drawing together the image of the 'gooseberry season' with that of the family 'five equal portions' including the dead man. It gives no explanation, no justification - though it ends, with vile irony, with the words 'I mention this for a good reason'. There is no good reason, and that's the point. The word 'hell' in the penultimate line is not accidental.

Hard Times

In the industrial city of Coketown, Josiah Bounderby is a rich and fairly obnoxious factory owner and banker. He loves to tell everyone he meets about how he grew up in the gutter, abused by a drunken grandmother. He is friends with Thomas Gradgrind, a rich politician and an education reformer in whose school students only learn about facts. Gradgrind's own children, Tom and Louisa, also grow up in this system. The kids are forbidden to be creative or imaginative or to have too many feelings. Gradgrind is basically trying to make kids into robots, with predictably bad results. When a traveling circus show comes to Coketown, one of the clowns abandons his daughter, Sissy Jupe, there. Gradgrind takes her in as a servant. She is a natural, happy, not particularly robotic girl, and his system does not seem to make too much of a dent in her good nature. Louisa and Tom grow up (well, not really - she is nineteen and he is seventeen, but everything happened faster back in the day, especially for robot-children). Gradgrind basically gives both of them to Bounderby. Tom works for him as a bank clerk, and poor Louisa ends up marrying the guy. Oh, did we mention that he's a nasty and annoying? And that Louisa is grossed out by the sight of him? And that he has been really creepily waiting to marry her? Let's all say it together now - ewwwww. But, obviously Gradgrind thinks everything is fine - because since when do robots care about that kind of thing? Meanwhile, in Bounderby's factory, a worker named Stephen Blackpool is the world's most decent man and he leads a pretty sad life. He got married too young to a woman who is now a raging, half-crazy alcoholic. He pays her to stay away from him, which she mostly does, except when she doesn't. He is also in love with a factory worker named Rachael, but they're both out of luck, obviously. We know what you're thinking (Stephen should get a divorce), but that's not the way Victorian England rolled. As Stephen finds out from Bounderby, to get a divorce he would need to pay for Parliament to pass a law letting him do it. Then he'd have to pay for another law allowing him to remarry. Not happening. A year later, Louisa is still pretty miserably married to gross Bounderby. Tom, meanwhile, is getting into his own trouble with being a lazy bank clerk, gambling, staying out till all hours, and generally behaving like a jerk to his sister. Bounderby is as unpleasant as ever, and Gradgrind has now been elected to Parliament. The four of them meet James Harthouse, a smooth operator who claims to be trying to get into politics. He mostly just coasts on his good looks, his wealth, and his attitude of completely not caring about anything or anyone. Because he is a born gentleman, he is instantly the coolest, most popular kid on the block. He decides to use that popularity to seduce Louisa. Hmm, let's see, Louisa's husband revolts her, she has never been taught about emotions or how they work, and Harthouse is hot! But on the other hand, adultery is a really big no-no.... Stay tuned to see what happens! In the factory, all the workers are being organized into a union. Everyone is psyched to finally stick it to the man, except Stephen, who for some undisclosed personal reason doesn't want any part of it. So, the other workers decide to ignore and ostracize him. Then Bounderby asks Stephen to rat on the union. When he refuses, Bounderby fires him. Stephen is forced to look for work elsewhere. Before he leaves, Louisa gives him some traveling money, and Tom in secret asks him to loiter in front of Bounderby's bank for a few nights. To which the obvious answer seems "Um, no thanks," but Stephen agrees. The morning after Stephen leaves, Bounderby discovers that the bank has been robbed! Of only 150 pounds. But still, a crime. Suspicion naturally falls on Stephen, who seemingly was casing the joint before he left. People also suspect an old woman who periodically comes in to town to watch the bank for unknown reasons. Bounderby leaves town to personally oversee the investigation. Seizing the opportunity, Harthouse reveals to Louisa his passion for her and asks her to run away with him. She seems to agree to a complicated plan involving meeting him later, but instead takes the train to her father's house in Coketown. For the first time in her life, she confronts Gradgrind about the unnaturalness of her upbringing. She tells him she might be in love with Harthouse, confesses that she almost had an affair, and then faints. Gradgrind is shocked, and he finally realizes how much he messed up his kids. Trying to keep things civil, Gradgrind asks Bounderby to let Louisa be a semi-permanent "visitor" at her father's house. But Bounderby is all like, "Actually, no, because you pretty much sold her to me, remember? If she doesn't come back by tomorrow, this marriage is over." This might seem ideal. But it means that Louisa would no longer be financially supported by Bounderby, but would still have to be married to him legally. She'd be totally stuck. Sissy seeks out Harthouse , telling him to leave and never come back. At the same time, Sissy Jupe and Rachael are worried about Stephen and try to find him. Taking a walk across the countryside they stumble on him (literally) lying almost dead in a huge well dug by some factory owner and not marked in any way. He is fished out, pleads his innocence about the robbery, and dies. Yes, sorry, no happy ending for the only decent guy in the whole book. Tom flees, and Louisa and Gradgrind realize that he is the bank robber, and that the only hope is to smuggle him out of the country. Tom hides as a clown in the same circus where Sissy's father used to work. When Gradgrind confronts him, Tom tells his father that political economy made him into a thief, and if he hadn't stolen the money, someone else would have. Just as Gradgrind is about to put him aboard ship, the family is discovered by one of Gradgrind's old students, Bitzer. Bitzer is quite the economist and refuses to be swayed by Gradgrind's begging to let them go. After all, Bitzer has learned only to advance his own self-interest, which at this point indicates that he should capture Tom to get the probable reward. This is the final nail in the coffin of Gradgrind's educational theory. Still, the circus guys help Tom get away. In the end, Bounderby dies of some kind of fit in the street. Gradgrind lives to old age and tries to undo the damage he did to his children. Louisa remains unmarried and childless (which is a pretty severe punishment back in those days). Tom eventually feels bad about being so awful, but has to remain abroad. Rachael lives out her life taking care of Stephen's drunken widow. Sissy gets married, has children, and seems to be the only light in everyone's lives.

Remains of the Day

It's the summer of 1956, and butler James Stevens is in the middle of preparing Darlington Hall for its new American owner, Mr. Farraday. Chill Mr. Farraday proposes that Stevens take a road trip through England's West Country while he is in America—he needs a vacation. Stevens has recently received a letter from Miss Kenton, a former co-worker. It sounds like she would like to return to Darlington Hall, which Stevens is psyched about. Stevens decides to accept Mr. Farraday's offer and uses the road trip as a chance to visit Miss Kenton and ask her to return as housekeeper. While road-tripping out to Miss Kenton's home in Cornwall, Stevens mulls over the events at Darlington Hall in the period between the two world wars, a time when both he and Miss Kenton worked together. These events are significant both to Stevens and to his employer, Mr. Darlington. In 1923, when Lord Darlington hosts an international conference at Darlington Hall, Stevens's father dies. In the early 1930s, as Lord Darlington becomes more and more involved with the English fascists and the German cause—mostly out of ignorance rather than because he's a jerk. Well, he's kind of a jerk anyway: Stevens and Miss Kenton have to deal with his anti-Semitic policies. On the evening of an important meeting Lord Darlington has organized between the German ambassador and English diplomats, Miss Kenton announces to Stevens that she's leaving Darlington Hall and getting hitched. While he's thinking back over these events, Stevens struggles to understand a) how Lord Darlington, who was a pretty nice dude (and a gentleman), ended up working with the Nazis and b) why Miss Kenton left and what part he may have played in her leaving. On the road trip itself, Stevens takes the scenic route and thinks about how pretty England is. After spending the first night in Salisbury, he runs out of gas in Moscombe, near Tavistock, Devon. He spends the night with some kind villagers but is kind of weirded out at being mistaken for a gentleman—he has an upper-crust accent but is definitely not upper-class. When he arrives in Cornwall the next day, he finally meets up with Miss Kenton for tea in the afternoon, only to learn that he was mistaken: she isn't coming back to work. Miss Kenton tells him that she loves her husband and is staying put with him. She suggests to Stevens that he should stop worrying so much about the past. The novel ends with Stevens making a stop at Weymouth pier on the way back to Darlington Hall. He spends his second evening in Weymouth sitting, watching the pier lights come on, and thinking over his life with regret and with the grand plan of pleasing his American employer.

Hardy "The Darkling Thrush"

It's the very end of the day. In fact, it's the very end of the year. The countryside is frozen into an icy, unwelcoming landscape. It's not quite Hoth, but it's close. As our speaker stares out into the gloom, he's reminded that everything around him is on the fast track to death and decay. We're not saying that our speaker is a downer. He's just not exactly a "glass half full" sort of guy. Then again, maybe the world is full of zombie-like humans and gray, gray weather. After all, our speaker does hail from England. And the UK isn't exactly a tropical paradise. You'd think that our speaker would want to buy a one-way ticket to Aruba, right? Instead, he seems to obsess over the barren British countryside. Things go from dull and depressing to outright dismal. No life seems to stir. Anywhere. ...Until, that is, our speaker hears the most unexpected sound: a bird singing. The little thing isn't in the best of shape. It's been beaten badly by the weather, and it seems as old and death-bound as the year itself. That doesn't stop it from belting its heart out, though. It's bound and determined to share every last ounce of joy in its soul. Why be joyful when the world is so crummy? Well, that's a good question. In fact, that's exactly the question that our speaker asks himself. He can't figure out why in the world anything - let alone a bird - would waste its last breath in a song that no one will hear. Unfortunately, our feathered friend doesn't give him any answers. (What do you think this is, Disney? Birds don't talk, folks. Which makes it a bit tricky for out speaker to get any answers.) Strangely enough, our speaker doesn't even try to figure it out. He's content to know that something out there sees a reason to exist and to be joyful - even if he can't comprehend the reasons himself. But, don't worry, folks - one birdsong isn't going to turn this guy into an optimist. He's a hard skinned realist. No doubts about it. Nonetheless, he's able to appreciate happiness when he sees it. And that's something....right?

Hardy "Hap"

Our friend Thomas wishes for an angry god to peer down at him and laugh. Because god is such a powerful being that rains down misfortunes on humans, Hardy would have someone to target his anger towards. Hardy would know that God made him suffer and so Hardy would be completely alright dying hating god. Hardy finishes off this poem by hinting that his anger towards god would be unjustified. God does not bring forth only sadness, he also brings forth happiness and hope. If god gives us both, then why does Hardy need to be so depressed? Why can not he be extremely happy? Hardy's answer to his own philosophical question is: It is not some supreme being giving me happiness and then giving me sadness based on my actions. It is just random chance. It is random chance that I have been extremely happy and extremely depressed. Hardy wishes that god exist but sadly, he doesn't. Because all the good things and bad things that happen to us aren't based, created or assigned by a powerful being at all. It all depends on luck, chance or Hap.

Heaney "The Tollund Man"

Story. Heaney wants to go to Demark to see the wizened remains of the bog-body at Aarhus. He was executed with his last meal still in his stomach. He wants to worship him, against all religious constraints. He wants to call upon his to raise the dead Irish. He wants to derive a sort of power from the body, from the country, from being alone. Structure. The poem is divided into eleven stanzas, and three parts. The first part has five stanzas, and the second and third three. The first part of the poem is a description of what Heaney will see when he views the body. The second part is the relationship between the religious sacrifice and the dead Irish, and the third Heaney in the country of Denmark. There is little rhyme (although Heaney uses end of line assonance occasionally), but there is a singsong rhythm in the up and down of the vowel sounds, despite Heaney's use of enjambment. Language. Heaney makes a point of the place-names he uses in "The Tollund Man" - "Aarhus", "Tollund", "Graubelle", "Nebelgard", "Jutland". The language used to describe the body is quite impersonal - "his peat brown head", "a saint's kept body". He tries to emphasise the body's quasi-divinity. Diction. The poem has a first person persona, an "I". The Tollund Man is never named except in the title, it is only "he". Despite this, the bog is personified as "she", the divine worship of the primitives takes on the same identity as the people themselves. The poem is narrated in the future tense - with a sense of a perhaps, a distant. Heaney never wanders in his conviction that he will go, and he will do exactly this and that, but it is not a trip he is contemplating with urgency. It is a "Some day" poem. Tone. The opening tone of the first part is "mild" - Heaney will passively "see", and "stand for a long time", the meticulous observer. The description of the primitive "goddess" to whom the man was sacrificed makes the tone more ominous, more fateful. She "tighten[s]", "work[s]", and only away form her can he "repose". Heaney's tone is more emphatic in the second part, his verbs and language becomes stronger. He "could risk", "consecrate", "pray". His voice is doom-laden. The tone of the last stanza is mournful. "Freedom" is "sad", a man who is "a home" must also be "lost,/Unhappy". He is passive, accepting. Mood. The opening of the poem is expectant, determined - "Some day I will", and respectful, he intends to "stand for a long time" in the presence of the dead, the "bridegroom to the goddess". There is a sense of powerlessness on the part of the corpse, of larger forces drawing him along. He is consumed by the "torc" and "fen" of the "goddess". He is then left to chance, to the "turfcutters'/Honeycombed workings". He becomes anguished in the second part, calling upon words such as "blasphemy" to describe his impotent longings obliterate the wrongs of the past. In the third part the Heaney-persona feels quiet despair, quiet strength, "sad freedom". Poetic Devices. Alliteration - "peat... pods... pointed", "tightened... torc", "trove... turfcutters" "blasphemy... bog", "consecrate... cauldron", "tell-tale... teeth... trailed", "something... sad... should... saying", "pointing... people" Assonance - "Aarhus... head", "mild... lids", "bridegroom... goddess", "torc on", "honeycombed workings", "cauldron... pray", "ambushed/Flesh", "teeth... sleepers", "miles... lines". Figures of Speech. Metaphor - "a saint's kept body" Imagery. The first image is that of the corpse, who is quiet and impersonal, the poem's victim of fate, caught in the "torc" of others. He is "mild", and everything is done to him. He is "dug... out", "worked", left as a "trove". He is exposed - "naked", and finally he sleeps. He is described in a wizened state, careful emphasis made on his brown skin, the workings of the fen. He is destroyed and yet elevated at the same time. There is a bleak, harsh feeling associated with the surrounding country, the "cauldron bog", the "tumbril". They are the "old man-killing parishes", the larger for which the smaller is sacrificed. The "goddess" is part of the country - it absorbs and strangles, alone or destroyed at will. The only marks it leaves on its victims are the remains of their death "cap, noose and girdle". The first victim of fate is extended to the others, "the scattered, ambushed/Flesh of labourers", of victims "trailed/For miles along the lines." Their fellow in the Tollund Man should be somehow spiritually akin, his preservation making him their saint. His paradoxical survival and "repose" should give him the power to raise the others. Heaney's primary use of Denmark (and foreignness) as imagery is in the third part. The isolation from society is emphasised by dwelling on the strange names "Tollund, Graubelle, Nebelgard,", "not knowing their tongue". The "at home" is not supposed to be comforting, it is just the persona's normal state. He is always "lost,/Unhappy". But at the same time, the isolation from language gives a "sad freedom", too highly priced. Theme. The poem is about the forces of fate, the chance survival of the bog body, the "saint's kept body", against the "scattered... flesh of labourers". But even the body was tied to religious forces out of his sphere. In "The Tollund Man", freedom is bought at a high price, that of being "lost/Unhappy". There is no society, no group, merely cold death, and outside forces.

Heaney "Punishment"

Story. The poet is looking at a bog body, hung, found naked. He can imagine how it would have been, can imagine having watched. He then addresses her, in pity, but telling her, if he had been there, he would have not spoken, as he did not speak when Catholic girls were tarred for seeing British soldiers. Structure. The poem has eleven stanzas, each with four short lines. The poem is enjambed across both lines and stanzas, destoring the rhythm that would be implied by such a structure. Even with the enjambment, the pauses in the poem are breatless, each description as short as possible. There is no rhyme in the poem. Heaney uses prose punctuation for the poem, using full stops only after capitals. Language. The language in the first two stanzas is visual, and anatomical. Often the images are natural. Diction. The first part of the poem (up to the third line of the sixth stanza, exactly half way through) is in the third person - describing the woman to another, or to himself, Heaney focuses on her, on her body and death. The second part of the poem, although addressed in the second person to her - "Little adulteress... my poor scapegoat", is actually focussed upon Heaney himself. Tone. The use of the third person in the first four stanzas produces a tone of gentle sadness - she is frail and cold, but nameless, personless and distant. The violence of "her shaved head... her blindfold a soiled bandage,/her noose a ring" makes the tone more forceful, more powerful. The violence is softened in the second person address. "undernourished... scapegoat" are addresses of pity, and the vague "they" who punish are kept at a, not neutral, but impersonal distant. In the last three stanzas Heaney's thughts are on himself, and he is not angry, but confused, hesitant and rather detached. Mood. The opening is surprisingly peaceful, brought about by the focus on the girl's body, and the method of execution held in the background. The mood becomes violent in the fifth stanza, but the personal expression of love and desire transforms the mood into that of a lament. Heaney's emotional ambiguity, expressed in the last three stanzas, and especially the last, brings about an uncertain mood, confused and helpless. Poetic Devices. Double alliteration - "halter... nape... her neck... her naked... her nipples" Alliteration - "body... bog", "stones of silence", "shaved... stubble", "blindfold... bandage". Metaphor - "the halter [=noose]", "nipples... amber beads", "the frail rigging of her ribs", "she was a barked sapling", "her blindfold a soiled bandage", "her noose a ring/to store/the memories of love", "scapegoat", "your brain's exposed/and darkend combs", "your muscle's webbing" Kennings - "oak-bone", "brain-firkin", "flaxen-haired", "tar-black" Similie - "her shaved head/like a stubble of black corn" Imagery. The image of the body occupies most of the poem. It is mostly described in mteaphor and similie, and is composed of numerous sub-images. The body is first associated with a sea-storm, with wind, and "rigging", the descriptions emphasising frailty. The images of the death itself are heavy, eg "the weighing stone", and the bog itself, which kill not only the girl but "the floating rods and boughs". The imagery of the found body, although the tree metaphor continues, is more literal, the hair and bandage are visual descriptions. Heaney then presents his own imagination, and its products as imagery. He uses the image of his own desire to draw himself closer to the long-dead girl. Now he begins with the desciption of her in his mind's eye, and ends with his morals. Heaney and his actions are the primary image of the poem's second half. It is his own virtual voyeurism he focuses on. The image of the girl becomes clich�d. The final non-mental image is of the contempory Irish Catholic girls, tarred for seeing British soldiers. Heaney understands their pain, as dramtised in the bog body, and understands also the need for revenge. Theme. There are several themes in Punishment. One is the use of beauty and sexuality being turned on their possessors throughout time. Another is the compromises made in the presence of cruelty, through uncertainty, fear and anger. Another is the futility and hyprocrisy of mourning and sympathy for those whom you accept should be destroyed. A general need for revenge through cruelty in human nature, and the ensuing contradictions with the nature of socirty is the poem's primary theme.

Tennyson "The Lady of Shalott"

This is a pretty long poem, and a lot goes on, but Tennyson makes it easier to follow along by breaking the action up into four parts. We'll take you through them quickly, to give you an overview: Part 1: The poem opens with a description of a field by a river. There's a road running through the field that apparently leads to Camelot, the legendary castle of King Arthur. From the road you can see an island in the middle of the river called the Island of Shalott. On that island there is a little castle, which is the home of the mysterious Lady of Shalott. People pass by the island all the time, on boats and barges and on foot, but they never see the Lady. Occasionally, people working in the fields around the island will hear her singing an eerie song. Part 2: Now we actually move inside the castle on the island, and Tennyson describes the Lady herself. First we learn that she spends her days weaving a magic web, and that she has been cursed, forbidden to look outside. So instead she watches the world go by in a magic mirror. She sees shadows of the men and women who pass on the road, and she weaves the things she sees into her web. We also learn that she is "half sick" of this life of watching and weaving. Part 3: Now the big event: One day the studly Sir Lancelot rides by the island, covered in jewels and shining armor. Most of this chunk of the poem is spent describing Lancelot. When his image appears in the mirror, the Lady is so completely captivated that she breaks the rule and looks out her window on the real world. When she does this and catches a glimpse of Lancelot and Camelot, the magic mirror cracks, and she knows she's in trouble. Part 4: Knowing that it's game over, the Lady finds a boat by the side of the river and writes her name on it. After looking at Camelot for a while she lies down in the boat and lets it slip downstream. She drifts down the river, singing her final song, and dies before she gets to Camelot. The people of Camelot come out to see the body of the Lady and her boat, and are afraid. Lancelot also trots out, decides that she's pretty, and says a little prayer for her.

Browning "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"

speaker is a monk hates brother lawrence Doesn't like brother lawrences possessions, he gets special treatment his eyes aren't glowing he's better than brother lawrence cuts off all blossoms that could be fruit in middle of night because he doesn't want brother lawrence to have them Wants to catch brother lawrence doing something sinful - die and go to hell porn - speakers book - wants to give it to brother lawrence to catch him in sin making a deal with devil that he can get out of The unnamed speaker of the poem opens by sputtering and growling as he watches Brother Lawrence pass by. The title of the poem, plus the name "Brother Lawrence," tip us off that the setting is a monastery. The speaker is Brother Lawrence's fellow monk. The speaker goes through his day - working in the monastery gardens, eating his meal, and reading - while grumbling about how immoral and despicable Brother Lawrence is. But after a short time, it becomes clear that the speaker doesn't really have much to complain about. Brother Lawrence seems like an OK guy; the speaker just... hates him. A lot. Enough that he'd be willing to sell his soul to Satan to get rid of his rival. Yikes. That's a lot of hatred in a supposedly righteous, religious man!