Study Work Guide: Poems From All Over Grade 11 Home Language

By Lynne Southey

How well do you know the poems in your prescribed poetry anthology? Do you understand the contents and structure of each poem? Are you ready to write your exams? This study work guide has been compiled to help learners understand and grasp each poem in Poems From All Over, the prescribed poetry anthology for Grade 11 English Home Language. This study work guide has been compiled to the requirements of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) and all important aspects relating to each poem have been covered – in accessible language.

Remember! This guide cannot be used on its own as it refers to the poems in the prescribed
text throughout.

What makes our study work guides different?
This study work guide forms part of a series. As the name suggests, this is not only a guide in which the poems are discussed, but also a workbook. Learners can write the answers to the contextual questions in a separate book. This provides revision for exams and tests and keeps valuable notes from going astray.

The contents of this study work guide
• An in-depth discussion and application of the structure (title, stanzas and verses) of each poem.
• Explanations and analysis notes.
• Notes on the content and context of each poem.
• Contextual questions (with space for learners’ answers).
• Complete word explanations within the analysis of each poem.
• Four formal assessment questions on seen poems and one formal assessment question on an unseen poem.

All study work guides in this series have been compiled according to CAPS requirements. This study work guide supplements the prescribed text Poems From All Over for Grade 11 English Home Language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Best Books
• Release date: Jun 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781776070695

Lynne Southey

Lynne Southey has been involved in publishing material for the educational sector since 1988 and has developed material for several publishers, both for prescription by the DBE for Grades 4-12, English as Home Language and as First Additional Language, and for the trade, including study guides for literature and language.

Book preview

Best Books Study Work Guide: Poems From All Over

for Grade 11 Home Language

Compiled by Lynne Southey

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The page references in this version refer to the pages in the printed book.

In instances where learners are asked to ‘answer the questions below’ the questions may appear on the next page depending on the device being used.

References to the back cover of the book refer to the About the book section in this version.

Foreword to the Learners

This study work guide is intended to supplement the poetry anthology, Poems From All Over for Grade 11 Home Language. It does not replace your anthology, as the poems themselves do not appear here.

We assume that you have read the notes in the anthology and answered the questions there. It is necessary for you to do this, as the notes we give in this guide are additional and different to those in the anthology and will take your understanding further.

You will not study all the poems, but we have included all of them in this guide so that there is a choice. You can answer all the questions on each poem as it will prepare you for tests and examinations.

The poems are referred to here in the same order that you will find them in the anthology, Poems From All Over for Grade 11 Home Language. The poems are presented in chronological order.

This study work guide is a workbook. We have left spaces for you to write your answers to our questions in this book. All answers appear at the back of this book. There is also a section of assessment that gives you the kind of questions you will find in your exam. There are answers for these as well.

Poetry is not like Maths; there are no final and correct interpretations of a poem. Each reader brings his or her own experience and knowledge to the interpretation. Your answers may differ from those given. However, you do need to be able to justify your ideas by referring to the poem itself.

You can work alone, with a friend or in a group, or use this study work guide in the classroom.

We hope the Best Books Study Work Guide: Poems From All Over – adds to you knowledge and enjoyment of the poems.

The author and publisher

Introduction to English poetry

This section assumes that you have read the introduction in your poetry anthology. Two sections are referred to here and discussed in more detail.

Interpreting and finding meaning in a poem means being actively involved in it

This is the what of a poem: what does it say or mean? You may not understand the poem on a first reading, but there will be words, phrases, and ideas that you do understand. These give you something to think about. They create expectations that you may have to change on a closer reading. This means you have to be actively involved in creating the meaning. Thinking about why you think or feel what you do means you look for confirmation or for a different idea. Certain thought processes take place.

A second reading may give you a more complete idea of what the poem is about:

•Does the poem have a central image or idea?

•What is the poem about? What is the link between the title and the central image or idea?

•Who is the persona/speaker in the poem?

•Is the persona describing something or someone? Why? How? For what purpose, e.g. to praise, make fun of, criticise or protest against something or someone? It may describe a scene: e.g. nature or the destruction of something. It may be personal, describing an emotion.

•Is the persona telling a story or an anecdote? If so, is it a sad story, a funny story, about a dramatic or tragic event? Is it about a famous historical or heroic character or is it describing an ordinary person in a very personal story? Is the story about a single person or about a group of people? Ask yourself what the poet’s purpose was in writing the poem. Was he or she trying to capture a feeling, a scene, an event?

•What is the atmosphere of the poem? How is this linked to the central image or idea of the poem? How does this make you feel?

•What is the connection between the poem and real life? There may be none for you today, but what about when the poem was written?

•What effect does the poem have on you now that you have thought about it? Do you understand something better? How does it relate to your own life? Does the poem have any very personal meaning for you? To what extent do you agree with its theme? Why?

Thinking through these questions will mean that you are actively involved in reading the poem. They may not all be applicable to the poem you are dealing with, of course. You can see with these questions why bringing your own experience to the poem means that your answers may be different from those of others.

Discussing the poem and the poet’s technique

A poet is an artist using words and language to create a literary text. A poet uses his or her talents, and applies various poetic techniques, to create a particular poem. You need to be familiar with the poetic techniques and look at how the poet uses them and why. Poetic techniques include all the figures of speech (see p. 245 of your anthology), and the poet’s choice of words and imagery (how the poet creates mind pictures, using words).

Asking the following questions may help you when you are considering and discussing the poetic techniques:

•A word or phrase: What is its literal meaning? (A glossary is provided on pp. 245 and 246 in your anthology) Does it also have another, perhaps figurative, meaning? What do you associate with the word/phrase?

•Which words or phrases express or describe feelings? What feelings? How are they described?

•How is the word order arranged? What effect does this achieve?

•An image or metaphor: What does it look like in real life? What does it sound, feel or taste like? Of what does it remind you? With what do you associate it?

•The punctuation: Where does a thought/statement begin and end? How do you know?

•The flow of thought/description: Is it interlinked and/or contrasted and/or developed and/or expressed?

These questions help you to see how the poet has created a poem.

Discussions of poems

They Flee From Me by Thomas Wyatt

(See p. 1 in Poems From All Over)

Discussion

Remember that a poem can be interpreted differently by different readers. To demonstrate this, the interpretation here differs slightly from that in your anthology. The anthology takes the they literally, and assumes that there were many women in the speaker’s life. The interpretation here is that the they refers to one woman in particular.

The speaker remarks on the fact that a woman used to happily seek him out, and how happy and grateful this made him. She would allow him to master and dominate her, to tame her. This doesn’t happen anymore. Then he remembers one time when she changed. She became the dominant one who tamed him. However, she left him for new adventures. The speaker ends by wondering whether he was too kind to her and that is the reason she left him, and he wonders what happened to her afterwards.

The poem, a lyric, is written in rhyme royal, which means that it uses the rhyme scheme ababbcc. There are seven lines to each of the three stanzas. Each stanza has a separate idea. The first stanza tells us that the speaker has been rejected by his lover, the second stanza what it was like with her and how he enjoyed it, and in the third stanza he speculates as to why she left and wonders what has become of her.

Sir Thomas Wyatt’s (1503–1542) work seem to deal with romantic love and mistresses – he was charged with adultery and having an affair with Anne Boleyn (Queen of England from 1533–1536).

Analysis

Contextual questions

1.What do you understand by that in the first line? (2)

2.The speaker says the woman doesn’t remember that she put (them) in danger when she came to him. Why do you think he says this? (3)

3.What is the tone of the second stanza? In other words, what do you think the speaker is feeling, or what emotion is he conveying by his words? How does this contrast with the tone of the third stanza? (3)

4.Line 15 is a statement. What do you think causes the speaker to make it? (3)

5.List any four words in the third stanza that show us the poem was written in 1557. (4)

(15)

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

(See p. 3 in Poems From All Over)

Discussion

This poem is fully discussed on p. xvii of your anthology as an example of how to analyse a poem. The sonnet is a love sonnet, but instead of using the traditional hyperbole (exaggeration) in comparing a beloved with what is most beautiful in nature, Shakespeare describes her as not being those things and tells what he actually sees. He loves the woman as much as any of the other poets love theirs, but refuses to use false comparisons in describing her. He is commenting negatively on other love sonnets (the popular Petrarch sonnets of that period). This sonnet is thus a parody (an imitation of a particular style with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect).

A sonnet has fourteen lines. The Shakespearian sonnet is divided into three quatrains (four lines) and a rhyming couplet. The three quatrains describe the beloved in terms of what she is not (e.g. her cheeks are not red like the roses the poet has seen). The couplet rounds off the sonnet by saying that even though he has not described her as others describe their lovers, he loves her in the same way. In other words the exaggerated comparisons are not necessary to describe real love.

Analysis

Contextual questions

1.Write out the rhyme scheme of the sonnet. (2)

2.What qualities of the sun do you think are used by the other poets to describe a woman’s eyes? (3)

3.Rewrite than her lips’ red (line 2) in modern English. (2)

4.If the mistress described in the poem were to read the first twelve lines, how do you think she would feel? Motivate your answer by referring to the poem. (5)

5.Refer to question 4 and your answer. What do you think she would feel if she also read the last two lines? Motivate your answer by referring to the poem. (3)

(15)

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne

(See p. 5 in Poems From All Over)

Discussion

The speaker is saying goodbye to his lover, as he has to leave her for a time. He doesn’t want any show of tears or unhappiness at their parting or any display of public emotion. The rest of the poem describes the superior kind of love the two have. He uses several comparisons and images to do this. He declares that their two souls are one and the separation will mean that this united soul expands to fill the space between them. His final comparison is with a compass, the two feet being joined at the centre, just as their souls are. He may move away from her just as one compass leg can move away from the other, but will always be moving in a circle around her and will always come back.

The poem has nine four-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme of abab. Notice also the way the poem appears on the page, its form. The indented alternate lines gives the poem a sense of balance and order which links with the ordered way the