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The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1854)
Notes on the background to the poem
Tasks for The Charge of the Light Brigade
Vitai Lampada by Sir Henry Newbolt (1892)
Language features in Vitai Lampada
For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon (1914)
Rupert Brooke - overview and biographical details
The Dead by Rupert Brooke
The Soldier by Rupert Brook
Stanza = a verse (section) of a poem.
Balanced syntax - lines of poetry divided into two equal halves e.g
"An hour to play | and the last man in."
Diction = word choices
Positive/Negative Connotations = the positive or negative ideas which are associated with a word or phrase; ideas that are denoted by it or come to mind when you hear or read it.
e.g. Words with positive connotations: Love, Honour, Peace, rich, gold.
Words with negative connotations: hunger, treachery, evil, hatred.
Exhortation or Exhortative Phrase - a phrase that encourages someone to do something. It is often an exclamatory phrase (ends with an exclamation mark).
e.g. "Play up! play up! and play the game!" or "Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!"
Imperative - a phrase which is an order. eg. "Listen!" or "Run!" or "Don't do that!"
Imperative phrases are very similar to exhortative phrases but an exhortative phrase is encouraging, giving the person the choice, while an imperative phrase is more an order or instruction which you expect to be obeyed.
Sonnet = a type of poem (we will discuss this further next week).
Enjambement - is when a sentence in a poem goes over the end of one line and into the next line.
e.g. "These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy;"
To understand the meaning of a poem, you need to read to the punctuation and ignore the line breaks:
e.g. "These [dead soldiers] laid the world away; [they] poured out the red sweet wine of youth; [they] gave up the years to be of work and joy."
= these dead soldiers set aside the world, they gave up their youth and they gave up their future careers and happiness.
Sibilance = alliteration of the "s" sound.
e.g. "And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote,"
dearth = scarcity, a lack or shortage of something
chivalry = knighthood, knightly conduct (from the French chevalier = knight/horserider)
bugle = a kind of trumpet, used for sounding signals in battle.
Also released under the title Regeneration, Behind the Lines (1997) was directed by Gilles MacKinnon. The screenplay was written by Allan Scott, based on the novel Regeneration by Pat Barker. The film tells of the experiences of WWI soldiers in 1917 who suffered from mental breakdowns (shell-shock) - what is called today Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Among the patients at Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland are Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, two of the most important British poets of WWI. The film gives important background to their poetry and experiences in the war.
A sonnet (from the Italian sonnetto = song/lyric) is a 14 line poem which follows a strict form in terms of structure, rhythm and rhyme.
The sonnet form originated in Italy and the main person responsible for its popularity was the poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), usually called Petrarch in English.
The Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet is usually divided into groups of 8 and 6 lines, called the octave (or octet) and the sestet. The octave usually develops an idea which is then reversed or looked at differently in the sestet, or the octave sets out a 'problem' which is then answered or resolved in the sestet.
The sonnet form became very popular in England, especially with Shakespeare, who wrote 154 sonnets. The Shakespearean (or Elizabethan) sonnet is usually divided into 3 groups of 4 lines, called quatrains, with a final rhyming couplet. The rhyming couplet often sets out an opposing idea or a resolution to the preceding three quatrains.
A sonnet has a strict rhythm of 10 beats per line, divided into pairs of unstressed (short) and stressed (long) syllables. These pairs are called iambs, and because there are 5 pairs per line, this rhythm (or meter) is called iambic pentameter.
Sonnets also have a strict rhyme scheme. Rhymes are marked by letters of the alphabet, with each new sound at the end of a line being marked by a new letter.
The Italian sonnet usually has the rhyme scheme: abba abba cdecde or abba abba cdcdcd.
The Shakespearean sonnet usually has the rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.
The WWI poets often used the sonnet form. Although they sometimes varied the structure or rhyme scheme slightly, their sonnets were always 14 lines and written in iambic pentameter.
For example: The Dead by Rupert Brooke has the rhyme scheme: abba cddc efe gfg. Although it is set out as one stanza (verse) it is divided into an octave and a sestet. The octave (first 8 lines) discusses the soldiers' deaths and what they have lost (youth, careers, children, peaceful old age), while the sestet (final 6 lines) sets out what Brooke sees as the compensation for this: the good qualities which they have gained from their sacrifice and passed on to the world, such as Holiness, Love, Honour, and Nobleness.