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She was a Phantom of Delight
William Wordsworth (17701850)
William Wordsworth is a world-renowned British poet who, along with Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, is credited with developing the tenets of the Romantic Movement in his masterpiece
The Prelude (1798). In the Preface to this masterpiece, he outlines the theory behind
Romanticism, claiming that the language of poetry should be based on the real language of
men, and he pronounces poetry to be the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. Hence, one of the main tenets of
Romanticism is imagination, which takes precedence over intellect. He lived in the Lake District,
a scenic area of north western England, which frequently inspired his poetry. He received a
number of honorary degrees during his lifetime, as well as becoming Poet Laureate in 1843. The
poem She was a Phantom of Delight is addressed to his wife, Mary Hutchinson, celebrating
love and her good-natured personality.
Glossary:
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way-lay
household motions
countenance
transient
wiles
temperate will
intercept/lie in wait
domestic activity
appearance
brief, short-lived
artifice
moderate character
3. Why do you think the poet uses capital letters for some of the nouns he uses?
4. Compare Wordsworths description of his wife in the second stanza with that in the third
stanza.
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Glossary:
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menagerie
colonnade
main
aviary
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2. What do you think the expression rock shut could mean from the context?
3. What is the implied meaning of the image the bars were the lashes of the stripes / the
stripes were the lashes of the bars? What could this image actually mean?
4. What does the title Tiger in the Menagerie tell us about the tiger?
7. What descriptive words indicate the ferocity and fearsomeness of the tiger?
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Amanda Chong is the daughter of Singaporean Principal Senior State Counsel David Chong. She
is an avid reader who published her first book, The Best of Friends, with the aid of the Budding
Writers Project at the age of eleven. At sixteen, she won the top prize of the A-Level Literature
competition for students who are not British. The poem she won a prize for was lion heart in
which she addresses the spirit and emblem of Singapore, the mythical beast Merlion. At
nineteen, Chong won the well-known Angus Ross prize for Literature while competing with
students from India to New Zealand. The examiners, who were members of the Cambridge
International Examinations (CIE) committee chose her poem for its maturity of content and
outstanding style of expression. In 2004, she also won the Commonwealth Essay Competition
for her book What the Modern Woman Wants. The very next year, she went on to take Britains
well-known poetry award, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, which is offered to
students aged between eleven and seventeen. While she has chosen to study law, Chong has tried
her hand at writing, directing, and acting in plays.
Glossary:
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dappled
sinews
runes
heralding
haunches
summoned
loam
pulmonary
bumboats
keris
tentacles
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5. Which lines emphasize the fact that the creature is no longer an aquatic being?
6. In the line In crackling boats, seeds arrived, wind-blown, (l. 19), what does the noun
seeds refer to?
C. lion heart THIRD READING
1. Which stanza indicates that Singapore prospered under the watchful eye of this creature?
2. Who is the poet addressing in stanza six when she uses the words Remember your self:
your raw lion heart, (l. 30)?
3. Who is the subject of the seventh stanza?
4. Paraphrase the message that the poet is giving her people in stanzas six and seven.
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Edith Sitwell is best known for Faade, a group of poems accompanied by music, and for the
powerful and dramatic poem Still Falls the Rain which describes the Blitz in London during
the Second World War. Sitwell came from an affluent family, yet she suffered an unhappy
childhood due to her parents neglect. After escaping with her governess to London, she soon
came to dominate meetings held by writers and artists. By 1920, she was looked upon as an
important poet with a far-reaching influence. Sitwell was given the title of Dame in 1954. Her
poems make use of both symbolism and allegory to project a personal image that was often
looked upon as eccentric. Though her poems deal with social injustice and religious topics
related to the horrors of the atomic age, she is also acknowledged to be primarily a poet of love.
The poem Heart and Mind was written in 1944, a chaotic period during the Second World War
and was perhaps a criticism of allowing emotion to enter the realm of war.
Glossary:
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amber
HerculesSamson
Line 15
3. What line in the first stanza reflects that the lion is talking of a physical emotional/lustful
union?
4. What words in the first stanza indicate the vitality, strength, and energy of youth?
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deft
still-ticking
hand-span
skilful
still alive
the width of a hand (i.e., very slim)
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Students Edition
5. The words "need, necessity, and necessary" appear throughout the poem. How does
the meaning change at different stages in life.
2. Who does the pronoun they refer to? What effect does it have?
4. The line your grasp of things is not so good could have two meanings. What are they?
5. What do the lines master of your moments (l. 10) and you slit the still-ticking silver
fish, (l. 12) mean?
7. Pick out and comment on the comparisons between the quality of life in the past and the
present in stanza three.
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Glossary:
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commuters
soggy
monsoon
chappals
chapati
estrangement
sullen
static
nomads
daily passengers
unpleasantly wet and soft
period of heavy rains in South Asia
leather sandals
piece of unleavened bread
alienation; state of being unfriendly
bad tempered and sulky; resentfully silent
noise blocking regular radio or TV signal
a community that travels from place to place
3. What are the possible implications of the line Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes?
5. Give an appropriate contextual synonym for the word contemplate (l. 15).
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1. Which words in the poem represent the strongest image that reflects the fathers
alienation from his environment?
3. Which line tells us that Chitre is imagining his fathers regular activities?
4. Comment on the image: His bag stuffed with books is falling apart.
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5. What are the possible implications for the words Coming out he trembles at the sink
(l. 17)?
6. What does the father dream of?
7. According to Chitre, what are his fathers only forms of relief from this mundane
existence?
8. What is the dominant tone* of the poem? (*The manner/diction in which a writer
approaches a theme and subject is called the tone.)
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http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/lost-woman
Glossary:
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brook
ivy
tendrils
wit
OU
benign
crepuscular
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chide
small stream
climbing plant
thin leafless stems used for support
clever and amusing
Open University (the British distance-learning university)
benevolent; gentle; non-threatening
period of time when day is changing from light to dark or
vice-versa
to scold; to tell off
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2. How does Beers lost woman muse compare with other poets muses?
3. What are the accusations that Beers mother scolds her for?
4. What reversal of status is reflected in the last two lines of stanza six?
5. Whose voice ends this poem and has the last word?
6. How would you describe the mothers tone in the last stanza?
7. Does this elegy reflect the customary characteristics of this genre of poetry?
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Owen Sheers is a Welsh poet, author, and scriptwriter. His first poetry collection, The Blue Book,
won the Somerset Maugham award, while The Dust Diaries, a prose work, earned the 2005
Welsh Book of the Year Award. He had the honor of being chosen as a member of the Next
Generation Poets and the Independents top 30 writers. Sheers poems investigate useless
cruelty, emotions that arise due to feelings of love, death, loss, and the sufferings due to human
frailty. Sheers, known for his visual imagery and reflections on farm life, also writes
unconventional love poems. He describes himself as being quite an instinctive writer, I do a lot
of it on the ear to explain his free verse and use of rhyme that effects an easy lyricism.
Glossary:
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kneads
makes her over
snagged
blackthorn
5. What word in stanza two tells us that his fathers actions are customary (things he has
always done)?
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3. What words in stanzas one and two indicate that time has passed?
4. How do we know that the family members have come together in stanza three?
5. What does a tune he plays faster each year (l. 18) refer to?
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Sam Hunt is an icon in New Zealand. He enjoyed a happy family background in spite of a great
disparity in age between his parents: he was born to a thirty-year-old mother, and a father who
was sixty at the time! He comes from parents who enjoyed the arts and participated in poem
recitations. He is not only a poet, but also an actor who performed on stage due to his powerful
and memorable voice. Though he had a Catholic upbringing, he is known for his antiauthoritarian, rebellious, and unconventional behavior to such an extent that he had to leave his
Catholic high school. His poetry has the characteristic of being unique in expressing things that
few others could express, and in giving the illusion of simplicity in effecting his observations.
His poems, whether elegiac or romantic, present phrases that are often aphoristic in nature due to
their conciseness and meanings. In spite of being an unconventional individual, he nevertheless
acknowledges those influences that shape human lives, and hence makes use of the Christian
tradition in his poetry. Moreover, his own experiences dominate his poems; he writes about his
parents, sons, loss, and love.
Glossary:
Title
Line 3
inscribed
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4. Which lines tell us that years later things changed? Explain these lines.
Now in a different way, still like a girl,
She calls my father every other sort of name;
And guiding him as he roams old age
Sometimes turns to me as if it were a game (l. 912)
2. What is the poet in the last two lines of the poem telling us?
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5. Why has the poet called his poem by the title Stabat Mater?
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