Analyse this poem. (4)
Setting
The setting in WH arguably appears to be an extended metaphor for the speaker’s mindscape, projected onto nature.
Using the title of the poem as a contextual indication, this mindscape would appear to be one that fears losing themself to a relationship. For example, the ‘roots’ of the heather may be a metaphor for the historical groundwork that provides the poem its implicit meaning.
This could be seen through a pattern of similes
The horizons dissolve and dissolve like a series of promises
The wind pours by like destiny, bending everything in one direction
Gothic Imagery
Graveyard metaphor: the air remembers people and moans (in despair), repetition of ‘black stone’ for gravestone. Could be a manifestation of the speaker feeling isolated from others.
What collection is “Wuthering Heights” from?
Crossing the Water (1971)
Structural techniques in “Wuthering Heights”
Declarative grammatical mood — no excitement or intrigue
Enjambment — talkative
Unexperimental — unclear rhyme scheme, rigid 9-line stanzas
What typical conventions of Plath does “Wuthering Heights” use?
Colour motif — orange — contrasts the typical vivid red — mundanity?
Eyes of the sheep
Which literary context is relevant to “Wuthering Heights”?
Confessionalism
Absurdism
Gothic imagery — graveyard
Which autobiographical context is relevant to “Wuthering Heights”?
Emily Bronte’s Victorian novel about a toxic relationship in which Heathcliff emotionally abuses his wife; set on the Yorkshire moors
Plath wrote this poem while Hughes and herself were living in Hughes’ parents’ house as newlyweds, on the same moors
Newman
“In many instances, it is nature who personifies Plath”
Analyse this poem. (4)
Setting
‘This house has been far out at sea all night.’
Demonstrative pronoun
Far out at sea = in a dangerous place = arguing
All night
House is a domestic metaphor for the relationship
Loud auditory imagery of the storm may replicate shouting in an argument eg the onomatopoeic verbs ‘crashing’ and ‘booming’
Anthropomorphised Metaphors
The speaker repeatedly projects human structures and forms onto differing aspects of nature.
Lightning compared to ‘the lens of a mad eye’ – perhaps like the phrase ‘staring daggers’
Hills = tents. Symbol of how the relationship is flimsy and breakable any second.
Symbol of a fire
Sitting around a fire has often been a symbol of comfort in media; however in this case it is a place of stagnant tension. May symbolise the passivity that the people in the relationship maintain despite a ‘fire blazing’ before them, despite ‘the roots’ of the house moving, despite the house threatening to crash down.
What collection is “Wind” from?
The Hawk in the Rain (1957)
Structural techniques in “Wind”
Enjambment — disarray?
Quatrains
What typical conventions of Hughes does “Wind” use?
Motif of violence
Eyes
Which literary context is relevant to “Wind”?
Romanticism — finding the sublime in nature
Which autobiographical context is relevant to “Wind”?
This was written amidst his relationship with Plath, which was known to be turbulent and fast – like a storm. Hughes’ guilt regarding this relationship was apparent in his work Birthday Letters (1998), and he is also known to have guarded and destroyed some of Plath’s work, had control over posthumous publishing, and refused (until Birthday Letters) to speak of their marriage publicly. This all indicates his guilt and perhaps troubles regarding romance (with Plath in this case) and control.
Wimbush
“The wind serves as a metaphor for stormy relationships, undoubtedly Hughes’ own.”
Clark
The wind “thwarts any human attempt to ‘experience’ its awesome force.”
How are the poems similar and different?
Both again project the poets’ inner world onto a landscape
Both attempt to find sublimity within nature — Hughes is successful while Plath is not
Both could be seen as metaphors for relationships and perhaps reveals their differing perspectives to their status as newlyweds