hi everybody

 

-The title of the poem is paradoxical. The word Garden is traditional, while the word forsaken is modern.
-The garden as a symbol of life and fertility is associated with the Garden of Eden.
-Words like (death, broken, ghost, lone, waste, rocks, barren) are associated with death, destruction and isolation.
-The ‘L’ sound in the poem evokes the feeling of loneliness (last, low, lone)
-The S sound implies secrecy.
-The poem is about the absence of human communication and man’s departure from nature and God.
-The Wasteland motif: modern poets start to think that society is like the wasteland.

 
- Thrush is a bird. Darkling doesn’t describe the thrush; it describes the place where the thrush is.
- The setting in the first stanza: the place is a field or a garden, the time is the end of the day and it starts to get dark. It is winter and the poet is standing near a gate.
- In the second stanza the poet associates this setting with the grave and death. He draws an analogy between the ends of secrecy with a corpse (end of life).
- “Century corpse” and “dead century” mean that the time is the end of the 19th century. Therefore everything related to this century is going to vanish like the Victorian Age and its dead spiritual values.
- The poet continues comparing the head of the dead person to the clouds; clouds are just like the canopy of a dead person. If somebody dies, his family and friends lament him. They will cry and this is exactly what the clouds do. It’s a striking personification.
- The poet sees that everything is lifeless and without energy. Nature is the mirror that reflects the poet’s mood. So both of them share the same situation; they are dead.
- In the third stanza the poet introduces the thrush which is singing a beautiful and joyful song. The song attracts the poet’s attraction because it’s a joyful and happy song. There is a contrast between the happy song and the dark and gloomy setting.
- The poet uses the word ‘voice’ instead of the word ‘sound’ because he is comparing the bird to a human being.
- In the fourth stanza the poet concludes that there must be something in the nature which is beautiful but we people cannot see it.
- The poem ends with ignorance, which means that the poet himself is ignorant. The bird is a symbol of nature and the poet is a symbol of mankind.
- When he doesn’t find the reason of the singing and happiness of the bird, this emphasis the theme of the absence of communication between man and nature.

 
- In traditional war poems we find the spirit of “Patriotism” which means showing love for your country and loyalty towards it. Also there is hostility towards the enemy and the hope of victory.
- In modern poetry all things turn upside down. One does not find any hope for victory and doesn’t show hatred towards his enemy and love towards his country.
- The poet is an English man and doesn’t hate his enemy, the Germans. So, he contradicts one aspect of traditional war poetry which is hostility. He also contradicts another aspect which is patriotism because he neither hates the Germans nor loves the English.
- The poet describes the emperor of Germany in praising terms, which shows his respect for him in spite of being his enemy.
- There are two witches who have two cauldrons. One of these two witches is English and the other is German. The two cauldrons produce a loud noise that results from boiling. From one cauldron, Germany, the Germans claims that they will win the war. From the other cauldrons, England, the English claims that this war will restore the greatness of their country.
- The poet doesn’t care if England restores its greatness or not. He says that God creates us from dust and England is made from dust too and all of us will turn to dust due to the nature of life. So England will turn to dust, it’s the end of everything.

Exam questions

 
1- extract question?
- An extract taken from a poem
- In the introduction we should write the title of the poem, the poet and general and brief idea about the whole poem.
- In the next paragraph, we should descuss the extract and paraphrase it. Also we should mention the kee elements that we find in this extract(not in the whole poem).
- Conclusion: a summary of the introduction and a personal evaluation.
2- Definitions.
3- General question.(should be writen in a form of essay).
4- Short questions.
5- Comparative question:comparing a specific element in two poems
- If the question is compare A to B, that means we should mention the similarities.
- If the question is compare A with B, that means we should mention both similarities and differences.