1. Hour Carol Ann Duffy To learn about the sonnet form.
Sunday, 11 November 2018
Hour Carol Ann Duffy
To learn about the sonnet form.
To analyse the poem “Hour” by Duffy

2. Analysing Poetry First step: Subject & message Second step: Language
What is the topic of the poem?
What is the message of the poem?
Second step: Language
What poetic techniques are used?
What type of lexis/semantic fields are used, and why?
Third Step: Structure
How many stanzas are there, and why?
What is the rhyming scheme?
What is the flow of the poem, and how does it impact the tone?

3. Sonnet A 14 line poem, traditionally about love.
Sonnets usually use a strict rhyme scheme and structure. The exact rhyme scheme depends on the type of sonnet.
Sonnets can usually be divided into three quatrains (four lines – ABAB) and a couplet (two lines – CC).
The couplet might also rhyme- if so this is called a rhyming couplet.
Last couplet might signal a “turn” in the poem, also known as volta.

4. Context Duffy is a feminist poet
She is well-known for poems that give a voice to the dispossessed (people excluded from society); she encourages the reader to put themselves in the shoes of people they might normally dismiss.
Her poetry often engages with the grittier and more disturbing side of life, using black humour like a weapon to make social and political points.
Hour was published in the collection Rapture which explores the highs and lows of a romantic relationship.

5. Duffy has chosen to write this poem using the sonnet form.
Hour
Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.
For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night
so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit
than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.
Duffy has chosen to write this poem using the sonnet form.
Highlight and annotate:
The rhyme scheme
The quatrains and rhyming couplet.
Why do you think Duffy has chosen to use the sonnet form in “Hour?”
Beggar = a person who begs for money
Ditch = area
Backhanding = slapping
Cuckoo spit = Insect eggs left on long grass

6. Step 1: Subject & message Semantic fields/lexis
Hour – Analysis
Step 1: Subject & message
Topic of poem
Message of poem
Step 2: Language
Poetic techniques
Semantic fields/lexis
Step 3: Structure
# of Stanzas
1 long stanza – Why?
Rhyming scheme
Sonnet rhyme scheme – Why?
Flow & tone
Use of enjambment & caesura – Why?

7. Similes & Metaphors
Highlight and label all the similes and metaphors in the poem. What initial impression do you have of this relationship?
Look for other poetic techniques and annotate:
Personification
Repetition
What is the effect on the reader?
Find and label these two poetic techniques:
Enjambment
Caesura
Why has Duffy used these techniques? What effect do they have?

8. How might these images be associated with love
How might these images be associated with love? What might they suggest about a relationship?
Time
Light
Gold/ Treasure

9. Imagery Gold/ Treasure/ Money Light/ Dark Time
“Bright as a dropped coin…”
“The Midas Light”
“Love’s time’s beggar…”

10. “Your hair/ like treasure on the ground”
Imagery
Choose one quote from each category analyse further:
“Your hair/ like treasure on the ground”
This could suggest that the hair is golden or shiny.
Connotations of “treasure” suggest that the hair is precious and important.
Simile

11. Allusions King Midas Rumpelstiltskin
Allusion: a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political importance. It does not describe in detail the person or thing to which it refers.
King Midas
Rumpelstiltskin
The use of these particular stories could suggest that underneath this infatuation, events perhaps might not end happily.

12. Fairy Tale & Myth Allusions
King Midas was a King in Greek Mythology. After having been granted a wish by the Satyr Silenus, King Midas his choice of whatever reward he wished for. Midas asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold.
Midas rejoiced in his new power, which he hastened to put to the test. He touched an oak twig and a stone; both turned to gold. Overjoyed, as soon as he got home, he ordered the servants to set a feast on the table. However, he could not eat or drink as everything turned to gold at his touch. Midas found that when he touched his daughter, she turned to gold as well. He then understood that this gift was actually a curse. He prayed to Dionysus, begging to be delivered from starvation. Dionysus heard his prayer, and consented; telling Midas to wash in the river Pactolus. Then, whatever he put into the water would be reversed of the touch.
The use of these particular stories could suggest that underneath this infatuation, events perhaps might not end happily.

13. Fairy Tale & Myth Allusions
In order to make himself appear superior, a miller lies to the king, telling him that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king calls for the girl, shuts her in a tower room filled with straw and a spinning wheel, and demands she spin the straw into gold by morning or he will cut off her head. When she has given up all hope, an imp-like creature appears in the room and spins the straw into gold in return for her necklace. When next morning the king takes the girl to a larger room filled with straw to repeat the feat, the imp spins in return for the girl's ring. On the third day, when the girl has been taken to an even larger room filled with straw and told by the king that he will marry her if she can fill this room with gold or execute her if she cannot, the girl has nothing left with which to pay the strange creature. He extracts from her a promise that she will give him her firstborn child and so he spins the straw into gold a final time.
The king keeps his promise to marry the miller's daughter. But when their first child is born, the imp returns to claim his payment: "Now give me what you promised." She offers him all the wealth she has to keep the child but the imp has no interest in her riches. He finally consents to give up his claim to the child if she can guess his name within three days. Her many guesses fail, but before the final night, she wanders into the woods searching for him and comes across his remote mountain cottage and watches, unseen, as he hops about his fire and sings. In his song's lyrics, "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll go to the king's house, nobody knows my name, I'm called 'Rumpelstiltskin'", he reveals his name.
When the imp comes to the queen on the third day, after first feigning ignorance, she reveals his name, Rumpelstiltskin, and he loses his temper and their bargain.
The use of these particular stories could suggest that underneath this infatuation, events perhaps might not end happily.

14. HOMEWORK: Creating a Sonnet
Choose a Fairy Tale from the list below or one of your own choosing, and write your own romantic poem referencing (alluding to) this story in some way.
Fairy Tale Ideas
Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Beauty and the Beast
Rapunzel
Cinderella
Sonnet
14 lines
ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyming scheme
Lines 1 + 3
Lines 2 + 4
Lines 5 + 7
Lines 6 + 8
Lines
Lines
Lines
Use at least 5 poetic techniques