ANALYSIS OF POETRY; THEMES ,STYLES ,MOOD, TONE, ATTITUDE
to understand the analysis of poetry, study the diagram below.
Now try to analyse the two poems below following the guidelines.
“It Was Long Ago” Eleanor Farjeon I’ll tell you, shall I, something I remember? Something that still means a great deal to me. It was long ago. A dusty road in summer I remember, A mountain, and an old house, and a tree That stood, you know. Behind the house. An old woman I remember In a red shawl with a grey cat on her knee Humming under a tree. She seemed the oldest thing I can remember, But then perhaps I was not more than three. It was long ago. I dragged on the dusty road, and I remember How the old woman looked over the fence at me And seemed to know How it felt to be three, and called out, I remember ‘Do you like bilberries and cream for tea?’ I went under the tree And while she hummed, and the cat purred, I remember How she filled a saucer with berries and cream for me So long ago, Such berries and such cream as I remember I never had seen before, and never see To day, you know. And that is almost all I can remember, The house, the mountain, the grey cat on her knee, Her red shawl, and the tree, And the taste of the berries, the feel of the sun I remember, And the smell of everything that used to be So long ago, Till the heat on the road outside again I remember, And how the long dusty road seemed to have for me No end, you know. That is the farthest thing I can remember. It won’t mean much to you. It does to me. Then I grew up, you see. |
Read “The African Beggar” below and try your hand at analysing the poem.
African Beggar Raymond Tong Sprawled in the dust outside the Syrian store, a target for small children, dogs and flies, a heap of verminous rags and matted hair, he watches us with cunning, reptile eyes, his noseless, smallpoxed face creased in a sneer. Sometimes he shows his yellow stumps of teeth and whines for alms, perceiving that we bear the curse of pity; a grotesque mask of death, with hands like claws about his begging-bowl. But often he is lying all alone within the shadow of a crumbling wall, lost in the trackless jungle of his pain, clutching the pitiless red earth in vain and whimpering like a stricken animal. |
