Staff - what do you think?

Larkin (1964) is writing about how love fades over time in 'Talking in Bed' but Eliot (1957) writes about how much promise love holds in 'Dedication To My Wife'. Which of the perspectives do you agree with and how do you think the poets have been influenced by the Post-WW2 context?


Write one response to this question and respond to one other comment.

Mark scheme

Is available at KLZ resources - AQA Jan12

This shows you the new banding for A2 and marking out of 40

General Certificate of Education (A-level) January 2012
English Literature A (Specification 2740)	LITA3
Unit 3: Reading for Meaning Love through the Ages
Mark Scheme

Task 4

Now we prepare a formal essay using all of the information in Tasks 1-3 and more


Title:


How do poets explore different aspects of love through the ages in the anthology 'Love Poetry?'


You need to refer to how poets shape meaning through use of language and structure as well as explore the different influence that contexts has had over the different eras.


You are expected to cover three eras and at least three poems.


Deadline Thursday 17th July (12B4), Monday 21st July (12B3)


Expect feedback over the summer with expectation of redraft for return first lesson back in September.

Task 3 - Essay
How do poets across the ages convey different and similar aspects of love?

A Dedication To My Wife - T.S. Eliot

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our waking time
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleeping time,
the breathing in unison.

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning.

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.

Task 2


The 'Love through the Ages' anthology looks at poetry through the medieval, renaissance, romantic, Victorian, modernist and post-modern eras.


You need to research then define each of these 6 terms.


Use this blog to record your findings and recommend some poems that fit into each section, if you can.

Hello Year 13, welcome to life after the trenches for A2 English Literature.


Here you are with a selection of poems about love. We are starting with the 'Desolations' chapter from our 'Love through the Ages' anthology.


To get us started, I'd like you to browse through this collection - they are from different poets writing in very different eras. See if any take your fancy.


The first question is 'What is the difference between Larkin's view of love in 'Talking in Bed' and Eliot's in 'Dedication to my Wife'?




Think about:

• how they convey their feelings and make use of familiar poetic devices
• how they have been influenced by the time they were writing (Larkin in 1964 and Eliot in 1957)

Respond to this blog as a discussion board and all post ideas about both bullet points here.


Can you compare these poems to a contrasting poem written at a different time?

La Belle Dame Sans Merci - John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

       And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

       With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

       Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

       And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

       And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,

       And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

       A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

       And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

       ‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

       And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

       With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

       On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

       Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

       With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

       On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

       Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

'My True Love Hath My Heart And I Have His' - Mary Coleridge

None ever was in love with me but grief.
   She wooed my from the day that I was born;
She stole my playthings first, the jealous thief,
   And left me there forlorn.

The birds that in my garden would have sung,
   She scared away with her unending moan;
She slew my lovers too when I was young,
   And left me there alone.

Grief, I have cursed thee often—now at last
   To hate thy name I am no longer free;
Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,
   I love no love but thee.

Bereft - Thomas Hardy

In the black winter morning
No light will be struck near my eyes
While the clock in the stairway is warning
For five, when he used to rise.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard -
Would 'twere underground!

When the summer dawns clearly,
And the appletree-tops seem alight,
Who will undraw the curtain and cheerly
Call out that the morning is bright?

When I tarry at market
No form will cross Durnover Lea
In the gathering darkness, to hark at
Grey's Bridge for the pit-pat o' me.

When the supper crock's steaming,
And the time is the time of his tread,
I shall sit by the fire and wait dreaming
In a silence as of the dead.
Leave the door unbarred,
The clock unwound,
Make my lone bed hard -
Would 'twere underground!

from Twelve Songs - W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Bonny Barbara Allan - Anon

It was in and about the Martinmas time,
When the greene leaves we a fallan,
That Sir John Grehme o' the west contrye
Fell in luve wi' Barbara Allan.
He sent his man down throw the towne,
To the plaice wher she was dwellan:
"O haste and **** to my maister deare,
Gin ye bin Barbara Allan."

O hooly, hooly raise she up,
To the plaice wher he was lyand;
And whan she drew the curtain by,
"Young man, I think ye're dyand."

"O its I'm sick, and very, very sick,
And its a' for Barbara Allan."
"O the better for me ye'se never be,
Though your harts blude wer spillan.

"Remember ye nat in the tavern, sir,
Whan ye the cups wer fillan,
How ye made the healths gae round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allan?"

He turn'd his face unto the wa',
And death was with him dealan;
"Adiew! adiew! my dear friends a',
Be kind to Barbara Allan."

Then hooly, hooly raise she up,
And hooly, hooly left him;
And sighan said, she could not stay,
Since death of life had reft him.

She had not gane a mile but twa,
Whan she heard the deid-bell knellan;
And everye jow the deid-bell geid,
Cried, "Wae to Barbara Allan!"

"O mither, mither, mak my bed,
O make it saft and narrow;
Since my love dy’d for me to-day,
Ise die for him to-morrowe."

The Newcomer's Wife - Thomas Hardy

He paused on the sill of a door ajar
That screened a lively liquor-bar,
For the name had reached him through the door
Of her he had married the week before.


'We called her the Hack of the Parade;
But she was discreet in the games she played;
If slightly worn, she's pretty yet,
And gossips, after all, forget.


'And he knows nothing of her past;
I am glad the girls in luck at last;
Such ones, though stale to native eyes,
Newcomers snatch at as a prize.'


'Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent
Of all that's fresh and innocent,
Nor dreams how many a love-campaign
She had enjoyed before his reign!'


That night there was the splash of a fall
Over the slimy harbour-wall:
They searched, and at the deepest place
Found him with crabs upon his face. 

Call It A Good Marriage - Robert Graves

Call it a good marriage - 
For no one ever questioned 
Her warmth, his masculinity,
Their interlocking views;
Except one stray graphologist
Who frowned in speculation 
At her h's and her s's, 
His p's and w's.

Though few would still subscribe
To the monogamic axiom
That strife below the hip-bones
Need not estrange the heart,
Call it a good marriage:
More drew those two together,
Despite a lack of children,
Than pulled them apart.

Call it a good marriage:
They never fought in public,
They acted circumspectly
And faced the world with pride;
Thus the hazards of their love-bed
Were none of our damned business - 
Till as jurymen we sat on 
Two deaths by suicide.

A Mammon-Marriage - George Macdonald

THE CROAK of a raven hoar!
  A dog’s howl, kennel-tied!
Loud shuts the carriage-door:
  The two are away on their ghastly ride
To Death’s salt shore!        

Where are the love and the grace?
  The bridegroom is thirsty and cold!
The bride’s skull sharpens her face!
  But the coachman is driving, jubilant, bold,
The devil’s pace.        

The horses shiver’d and shook
  Waiting gaunt and haggard
With sorry and evil look;
  But swift as a drunken wind they stagger’d
’Longst Lethe brook.

Long since, they ran no more;
  Heavily pulling they died
On the sand of the hopeless shore
  Where never swell’d or sank a tide,
And the salt burns sore.

Flat their skeletons lie,
  White shadows on shining sand;
The crusted reins go high
  To the crumbling coachman’s bony hand
On his knees awry.        

Side by side, jarring no more,
  Day and night side by side,
Each by a doorless door,
  Motionless sit the bridegroom and bride
On the Dead-Sea-shore.

from Modern Love - George Meredith

In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour,

When in the firelight steadily aglow,

Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow

Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower

That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat

As lovers to whom Time is whispering.

From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:

The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.

Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay

With us, and of it was our talk. "Ah, yes!

Love dies!" I said: I never thought it less.

She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.

Then when the fire domed blackening, I found

Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift

Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:—

Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. 

Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps 

The Topic over intellectual deeps 

In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. 

With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: 

It is in truth a most contagious game: 

HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. 

Such play as this the devils might appal! 

But here's the greater wonder; in that we, 

Enamoured of an acting nought can tire, 

Each other, like true hypocrites, admire; 

Warm-lighted looks, Love's ephemerioe, 

Shoot gaily o'er the dishes and the wine. 

We waken envy of our happy lot. 

Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot. 

Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shine

And You, Helen - Edward Thomas

And you, Helen, what should I give you?
So many things I would give you
Had I an infinite great store
Offered me and I stood before
To choose. I would give you youth,
All kinds of loveliness and truth,
A clear eye as good as mine,
Lands, waters, flowers, wine,
As many children as your heart
Might wish for, a far better art
Than mine can be, all you have lost
Upon the travelling waters tossed,
Or given to me. If I could choose
Freely in that great treasure-house
Anything from any shelf,
I would give you back yourself,
And power to discriminate
What you want and want it not too late,
Many fair days free from care
And heart to enjoy both foul and fair,
And myself, too, if I could find
Where it lay hidden and it proved kind.

Talking in Bed - Philip Larkin

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.


Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,


And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation


It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.

A Considered Reply To A Child - Jonathan Price

'I love you,' you said between two mouthfuls of pudding.
But not funny; I didn't want to laugh at all.
Rolling three years' experience in a ball,
You nudged it friendlily across the table.

A Stranger, almost, I was flattered - no kidding.
It's not every day I hear a thing like that; 
And when I do my answer's never pat.
I'm about nine times your age, ten time less able

To say - what you said; incapable of unloading
Plonk at somone's fee, like a box of bricks,
A declaration. When I try, it sticks
Like fish-bones in my throat; my eyes tingle.

What's called 'passion', you'll learn, may become 'overriding'.
But not in me it doesn't: I'm that smart,
I can give everything and keep my heart.
Kisses are kisses. No need for souls to mingle.

Bed's be, what's more, and you'd say it's meant for sleeping;
And, believe me, you'd be absolutely right.
With luck you'll never lie awake all night,
Someone beside you (rather like 'crying') weeping.

O Wha's The Bride? - Hugh MacDiarmid

O wha's the bride that carries the bunch
O' thistles blinterin' white?
Her cuckold bridegroom little dreids
What he sall ken this nicht.

For closer than gudeman can come
And closer to'r than hersel',
Wha didna need her maidenheid
Has wrocht his purpose fell.

O wha's been here afore me, lass,
And hoo did he get in?
–A man that deed or was I born
This evil thing has din.

And left, as it were on a corpse,
Your maidenheid to me?
–Nae lass, gudeman, sin' Time began
‘S hed ony mair to g'e.

But I can gi'e ye kindness, lad,
And a pair o' willin' hands,
And you sall ha'e my breists like stars,
My limbs like willow wands.

And on my lips ye'll heed nae mair,
And in my hair forget,
The seed o' a' the men that in
My virgin womb ha'e met . . . .

Les Sylphides - Louis MacNeice

Life in a day: he took his girl to the ballet;

Being shortsighted himself could hardly see it –

    The white skirts in the grey

    Glade and the swell of the music

    Lifting the white sails.

Calyx upon calyx, Canterbury bells in the breeze

The flowers on the left mirrored to the flowers on the right

     And the naked arms above

     The powdered faces moving

     Like seaweed in a pool.

Now, he thought, we are floating – ageless, oarless –

 Now there is no separation, from now on

       You will be wearing white

       Satin and a red sash

       Under the waltzing trees.

But the music stopped, the dancers took their curtain,

The river had come to a lock – a shuffle of programmes –

        And we cannot continue down

        Stream unless we are ready

        To enter the lock and drop.

So they were married – to be the more together –

And found that they were never again so much together,

         Divided by the morning tea,

         By the evening paper,

         The children and the tradesmen’s bills.

Waking at times in the night she found assurance

Due to his regular breathing but wondered whether

         It was really worth it and where

         The river had flowed away

         And where were the white flowers.

Love On The Farm - D.H. Lawrence

What large, dark hands are those at the window

Grasping in the golden light

Which weaves its way through the evening wind

At my heart's delight?

Ah, only the leaves! But in the west

I see a redness suddenly come

Into the evening's anxious breast —

'Tis the wound of love goes home!

The woodbine creeps abroad

Calling low to her lover:

The sunlit flirt who all the day

Has poised above her lips in play

And stolen kisses, shallow and gay

Of pollen, now has gone away —

She woos the moth with her sweet, low word;

And when above her his moth-wings hover

Then her bright breast she will uncover

And yield her honey-drop to her lover.

Into the yellow, evening glow

Saunters a man from the farm below;

Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed

Where the swallow has hung her marriage bed.

The bird lies warm against the wall.

She glances quick her startled eyes

Towards him, then she turns away

Her small head, making warm display

Of red upon the throat. Her terrors sway

Her out of the nest's warm, busy ball,

Whose plaintive cry is heard as she flies

In one blue stoop from out the sties

Into the twilight's empty hall.

Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes

Ride your quaintly scarlet blushes,

Still your quick tall, lie still as dead,

Till the distance folds over his ominous tread!

The rabbit presses back her ears,

Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes

And crouches low; then with wild spring

Spurts from the terror of his oncoming;

To be choked back, the wire ring

Her frantic effort throttling:

Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!

Ah, soon in his large, hard hands she dies,

And swings all loose from the swing of his walk!

Yet calm and kindly are his eyes

And ready to open in brown surprise

Should I not answer to his talk

Or should he my tears surmise.

I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair

Watching the door open; he flashes bare

His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes

In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise

He flings the rabbit soft on the table board

And comes towards me: ah! the uplifted sword

Of his hand against my bosom! and oh, the broad

Blade of his glance that asks me to applaud

His coming! With his hand he turns my face to him

And caresses me with his fingers that still smell grim

Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare!

I know not what fine wire is round my throat;

I only know I let him finger there

My pulse of life, and let him nose like a stoat

Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood.

And down his mouth comes to my mouth! and down

His bright dark eyes come over me, like a hood

Upon my mind! his lips meet mine, and a flood

Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown

Against him, die, and find death good.