Poetry, Year 11: Sonnet 29, Neutral Tones and The Farmer's Bride (Love and Relationships option)

Her thoughts are wild vines, and he is a tree

HintA climbing plant and the thing it climbs.

The whyShe writes “my thoughts do twine and bud / About thee, as wild vines, about a tree”. The vines grow so thick that the tree cannot be seen. The image sets up her complaint: thoughts of him are hiding the real man.

The man himself, present in person, and not just thoughts of him

HintA real presence is better than a memory.

The whyShe would rather have him in front of her than have the green cover of her own thoughts. The poem is about the gap between imagining love and having it.

Fall away, so that the man himself stands bare and clear

HintShe wants the covering stripped off.

The whyThe lines picture her thoughts bursting and dropping heavily down, leaving the tree standing open to the air. It is a joyful demand, not a fearful one.

She has stopped thinking of him because he is now so close that she has no need to

HintThe poem began with thoughts; it ends without them.

The whyThe ending completes the argument: thoughts are for when he is far away. A strong sense of joy is hidden in the plain statement.

14

HintThe same number as in every sonnet.

The whyThe first eight lines set out the image and make the demand that he appear in person; the last six lines celebrate the joy of being near him, ending on the paradox of the final line. Sonnet 29 is one of the Sonnets from the Portuguese.

4

HintEach is a block of four lines.

The whyHardy wrote it in 1867 and published it in Wessex Poems in 1898. The tidy shape contrasts with the broken love it describes.

White, as though it had been told off by God: pale and without warmth

HintIt gives no light that is any use.

The whyHardy writes “the sun was white, as though chidden of God”. The sun, which should bring warmth, is shown as punished and drained. The dead scene tells the reader the love has already gone cold.

The love is as good as dead: even her smile is barely alive

HintThe face that should show warmth shows none.

The whyThe line is a paradox: something so dead that it hardly had the strength to die. The smile gives no comfort, and the grin that follows is bitter.

That love deceives and brings pain, and that this scene has stayed with him

HintHe has not recovered; he carries the lesson.

The whyThe final lines return to the pond, the sun and the leaves of the opening, so the poem ends where it began. The memory has shaped the way he sees every later love.

It returns to the pond edged with leaves, so the poem ends where it began

HintThe scene of the opening comes back in the last line.

The whyThe final line is “And a pond edged with grayish leaves”. The circular shape suggests that he cannot move on: the same scene still fills his mind years later.

The farmer; his country dialect gives him a rural, plain-speaking voice

HintThe grammar is not standard English.

The whyMew writes his words as he would say them, with phrases such as “When us was wed”. The dialect makes him believable and makes his clumsiness more touching.

A young hare

HintSwift and timid, in the same family as the rabbit.

The whyThe wild animal comparisons continue throughout the poem: she is like a mouse, a fay and a hare. They show how the farmer sees her, as a frightened creature to be coaxed or caught.

She runs away; they chase and catch her, bring her home and lock her in

HintA hunt, with lanterns, across the fields.

The whyThe chase is described like a hunt for an animal, and they “turned the key upon her, fast”. Locking her in shows both his control and her fear.

A very short physical distance that is a wide emotional gap

HintClose in space, but a long way apart in feeling.

The whyShe sleeps alone, so the marriage has never really begun. The tiny distance makes the longing and frustration sharper.

His growing desire and frustration, which he cannot control

HintThe poem ends in an outburst rather than a conclusion.

The whyThe repetition breaks the calm of the earlier lines and ends in a cry. There is no resolution: the poem stops while his longing is unanswered.