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!