Week beginning Monday, 18th May 2020

4-5 hours
1. Before you complete the first activity, re-read/watch/listen to readings of
Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘Neutral Tones’.

2. To help you revise ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘Neutral Tones’, complete the
Comparing Poems activity on page 2 of this document.

Check your answers with those on page 3.

3. Write the heading Essay Planning Practice in your poetry exercise book.

Next, choose one of the following questions to plan and write:

OPTION 1
Q. Compare how the poets present different feelings towards the relationship
in ‘Porphyria's Lover’ and ‘Neutral Tones’.

OPTION 2
Q. Compare how Hardy and Browning present love as a destructive force in
their poems.

OPTION 3
Q. Compare how the poets present feelings of anger and bitterness in
‘Porphyria's Lover’ and ‘Neutral Tones’.

Play slides 2-7 to follow the planning steps.

If you are aiming for a Grade 7, you should apply each of these planning steps
to OPTION 2 or OPTION 3.

I have planned most of OPTION 1 for you. Those of you working at a Grade 5
or 6 should aim to write a response to OPTION 1, using the planning support
already on the slides.

You will see that it is not a completely ready-made plan and you will have to
plan part of it yourself. That is what will make the difference between
students achieving grade 4, 5 and 6.

Finally, have a look at the DOs and DON’Ts on slide 8.

 Comparing Poems: Porphyria’s Lover and Neutral Tones
Using a colour key, shade the following statements as follows:
 Porphyria’s Lover
 Neutral Tones
 Both
Euphemistic flower
metaphor (‘shut bud
that holds a bee’) to
downplay his lover’s
murder
Cynical attitude to love
Circular narrative structure:
final verse returns to the
image in the first verse
suggesting that romantic
relationships are inevitably
doomed
A man strangles his
lover in order to keep
her for himself
Poem’s tone shifts from one
of resentment that his lover
will not give herself to him
completely to a tone of
exultation when he realises
that his lover worships him.
The poem ends with a self-
satisfied tone.
Possessive love
Dramatic monologue
Tone of bitterness is
sustained throughout
the poem
Pathetic fallacy: the
miserable weather
reflects the narrators’
misery
Poem reflects Victorian
society’s rigid views
about social position
and female behaviour.
Regular ABABB rhyme
scheme to reflect the calm
heartbeat. Because of the
extra B rhyme at the end of
the pattern, this is known as
an asymmetrical rhyme
scheme: it is unbalanced.
This reflects the narrator’s
unbalanced mind.
Semantic field of death
and decay to reflect the
death of the
relationship
Poem based on poet’s
own disappointments in
love
Block form
Told from the viewpoint
of an embittered male
narrator whose lover
has disappointed him
Contrast between his
lover’s warmth and the
coldness of the
weather/narrator
Elegy – poetic form
concerned with loss
The rhyme scheme is
ABBA, a pattern that
encloses, entraps,
allows no way forward
Mainly past tense until
the ending where the
poems use the present
tense: a memory
returning to the present
day
The poem is concerned
with two people in a
now-failed relationship
Semantic field of the
body

Comparing Poems: Porphyria’s Lover and Neutral Tones
Using a colour key, shade the following statements as follows:
 Porphyria’s Lover
 Neutral Tones
 Both
Euphemistic flower
metaphor (‘shut bud
that holds a bee’) to
downplay his lover’s
murder
Cynical attitude to love
Circular narrative structure:
final verse returns to the
image in the first verse
suggesting that romantic
relationships are inevitably
doomed
A man strangles his
lover in order to keep
her for himself
Poem’s tone shifts from one
of resentment that his lover
will not give herself to him
completely to a tone of
exultation when he realises
that his lover worships him.
The poem ends with a self-
satisfied tone.
Possessive love
Dramatic monologue
Answers!
Tone of bitterness is
sustained throughout
the poem
Pathetic fallacy: the
miserable weather
reflects the narrators’
misery
Poem reflects Victorian
society’s rigid views
about social position
and female behaviour.
Regular ABABB rhyme
scheme to reflect the calm
heartbeat. Because of the
extra B rhyme at the end of
the pattern, this is known as
an asymmetrical rhyme
scheme: it is unbalanced.
This reflects the narrator’s
unbalanced mind.
Semantic field of death
and decay to reflect the
death of the
relationship
Poem based on poet’s
own disappointments in
love
Block form
Told from the viewpoint
of an embittered male
narrator whose lover
has disappointed him
Contrast between his
lover’s warmth and the
coldness of the
weather/narrator
Elegy – poetic form
concerned with loss
The rhyme scheme is
ABBA, a pattern that
encloses, entraps,
allows no way forward
Mainly past tense until
the ending where the
poems use the present
tense: a memory
returning to the present
day
The poem is concerned
with two people in a
now-failed relationship
Semantic field of the
body