KNOWLEDGE
Some key quotations to memorise from the poetry anthology
For the AQA Love and Relationships poetry anthology, we have chosen around three quotations from each poem which we think are the best to learn. You don’t need to learn the quotations for every poem, but you should try to learn the ones from the poems you intend to use for the second poem in the comparison. Choose perhaps three poems from each half of the anthology (family love and romantic love) and learn at least these quotations from each one.
This page is currently under construction. The quotations are all in place, but not the reasons for learning them. We will continue to add reasons for each quotation over time. Once this process is complete this message will be removed.
‘When We Two Parted’ by Lord Byron
“When we two parted / In silence and tears"
Why this quotation: It sets up the story of the poem, the circular structure (see below) and there is some nice ambiguity in the idea of “silence and tears” (who is silent? who is in tears? what happened?)
“A knell in mine ear”
Why this quotation: One of several examples of language from the semantic field of death (“knell”) which conveys the idea of heartbreak as grief, the death of a relationship, etc.
“How should I greet thee? - / With silence and tears”
Why this quotation: Repetition concludes the circular structure (the inability of the speaker to move on); rhetorical question conveys speaker’s uncertainty — doesn’t know what to think.
‘Love’s Philosophy’ by Percy Shelley
“All things by a law divine / in one another’s being mingle"
Why this quotation: Introduces the religious semantic field — it’s not just nature but God that wants people to be together; mingling idea is light hearted, though — this isn’t a serious poem.
“And the sunlight clasps the earth / And the moonbeams kiss the sea”
Why this quotation: Nice example of natural imagery that pervades the poem — love is natural; also good for personification of nature (very big-R Romantic).
“What are all these kissings worth, / If thou kiss not me?”
Why this quotation: Final rhetorical question conveying speaker’s uncertainty and desire - poem is an argument, it is rhetoric; triviality of “kissings” (this is not a deep poem, it’s about lust).
‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning
“The sullen wind was soon awake / It tore the elm-tops down for spite"
Why this quotation: TBC
“That moment she was mine, mine, fair, / Perfectly pure and good”
Why this quotation: TBC
“her cheek once more / Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Sonnet 29’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“my thoughts do twine and bud / About thee, as wild vines about a tree"
Why this quotation: TBC
“And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee / Drop heavily down, - burst, shattered, everywhere!”
Why this quotation: TBC
“And breathe within thy shadow a new air”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Neutral Tones’ by Thomas Hardy
“And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; They had fallen from an ash, and were grey."
Why this quotation: TBC
“tedious riddles”
Why this quotation: TBC
“keen lessons that love deceives, / And wrings with wrong”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Letters from Yorkshire’ by Maura Dooley
“my heartful of headlines / feeding words onto a blank screen"
Why this quotation: TBC
“Still it’s you / who sends me word of that other world / pouring air and light into an envelope”
Why this quotation: TBC
“our souls tap out messages across the icy miles”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew
“Like the shut of a winter’s day / Her smile went out"
Why this quotation: TBC
“Sweet as the first wild violets, she, / To her wild self. But what to me?”
Why this quotation: TBC
“Oh! My God! the down, / The soft young down of her, the brown, / The brown of her — her eyes, her hair, her hair!”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Walking Away’ by Cecil Day-Lewis
“like a satellite / wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away"
Why this quotation: TBC
“pathos of a half-fledged thing set free / Into a wilderness”
Why this quotation: TBC
“Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Eden Rock’ by Charles Causley
“Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light"
Why this quotation: TBC
“The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.”
Why this quotation: TBC
“I had not thought that it would be like this.”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Follower’ by Seamus Heaney
“His shoulders globed like a full sail"
Why this quotation: TBC
“I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake”
Why this quotation: TBC
“I was a nuissance, tripping, falling, / Yapping always.”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Mother, any distance’ by Simon Armitage
“You at the zero-end, me with a spool of tape, recording / length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base"
Why this quotation: TBC
“Anchor. Kite.”
Why this quotation: It’s easy to learn (you know it already); there are two metaphors here which both convey the ambivalence in the relationship, the central connectedness and dependency of the both mother and child, with the desire to be free; it’s easy to analyse too.
“your fingertips still pinch / the last one-hundredth of an inch”
Why this quotation: TBC
“to fall or fly”
Why this quotation: It’s easy to learn; the alliterate binary opposites make for nice terminology; summarises the overall message of the poem about growing up and its dangers (fall) and exciting possibilities (fly).
‘Before You Were Mine’ by Carol Ann Duffy
“Marilyn.”
Why this quotation: TBC
“the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows / the right walk home could bring”
Why this quotation: TBC
“the decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?”
Why this quotation: TBC
“those high-heeled red shoes, relics”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Winter Swans’ by Owen Sheers
“the waterlogged earth / gulping for breath at our feet”
Why this quotation: TBC
“icebergs of white feather, paused before returning again / like boats righting in rough weather”
Why this quotation: TBC
“like a pair of wings settling after flight”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Singh Song!’ by Daljit Nagra
“my bride / tiny eyes ov a gun / and di tummy of a teddy”
Why this quotation: TBC
“Late in di midnight hour … vee cum down whispering stairs”
Why this quotation: TBC
“Is priceless baby —”
Why this quotation: TBC
‘Climbing My Grandfather’ by Andrew Waterhouse
“skin of his finger is smooth and thick / like warm ice.”
Why this quotation: TBC
“glassy ridge of a scar, place my feet / gently in the old stitches and move on.”
Why this quotation: TBC
“gasping for breath I can only lie / watching the clouds and birds circle, feelng his heat, knowing / the slow pulse of his good heart.”
Why this quotation: TBC