EdExcel Literature: Poetry

Half Past Two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyDyiG6_b3E

Language Technique not identified above: compound words (made up for the poem) - e.g. 'gettinguptime' - highlighting his child-like nature
Themes: Childhood; affects of adults on children

Piano:

Themes: Love (between a mother and a child); childhood; power of senses

Hide and Seek:

Themes: Childhood

Telephone Conversation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zm3_cI7Myw

Other Language Techniques: irony to present the landlady
Themes: Prejudice and discrimination

Poem at Thirty-Nine

Themes: parent and child relationship; childhood

Sonnet 116

Translation:
Quatrain 1: Shakespeare starts by stating that true love will not change, according to his view.
Quatrain 2: This presents a nautical metaphor for true love, which is seen to steer a path through a stormy sea guided by a fixed beacon or star ("ever fixed mark" = a beacon to guide ships)
Quatrain 3: True love cannot be thrown off course by the passage of time or fading of beauty. It lasts forever, not changing even if we change figuratively
The final couplet: Shakespeare believes strongly in the truth of what he has written because if it is not true, he has never written anything, which, obviously he has just done, and no one has ever loved, which again many people clearly have done.