Rhyme is a literary tool where the same or similar sounds are repeated at the end of a pair or group of words. It can occur with words that are next to each other (as a couplet) or in a… Continue Learning »
‘1st Date – She’ and ‘1st Date – He’ are poems by Wendy Cope, which are the two perspectives of the same first date, from both a man and woman. It is originally from her 2011 collection ‘Family Values’. The… Continue Learning »
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which deliberate and obvious exaggeration is used to emphasise a point. It is important not to confuse hyperbole with similes and metaphors. Those techniques are fundamentally comparative, whereas hyperbole are overstatements and exaggerations…. Continue Learning »
‘i wanna be yours’ is a humorous poem by John Cooper Clarke, which explores the infatuation of the narrator with their romantic interest. John Cooper Clarke is a performance poet who first released several albums in the 1970s and 1980s,… Continue Learning »
A cliché is a normal, everyday phrase or expression which has become overused, so much so that the original meaning or effect has been lost. As such, words and phrases that we see as clichéd today would not have been when they… Continue Learning »
‘Nettles’ by Vernon Scannell uses images from war and conflict to describe a patch of stinging nettles and how they hurt his son. Scannell is a former soldier whose work often includes representations and descriptions normally associated with war, using… Continue Learning »
A line of iambic pentameter is where there are five sets of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The term is derived from “iamb”, meaning a metrical foot used in poetry (a rhythmic unit), with the prefix “penta”… Continue Learning »
‘The Manhunt (Laura’s Poem)’ by Simon Armitage explores the impact of the experience of war on a soldier, and in turn his relationship with his wife, and his ability to connect with others. Armitage is a Yorkshire-born poet whose early… Continue Learning »
Use these John Keats context notes to help develop your understanding of Keats’s life and the way this influenced his work. As with any poet, life experiences and events undoubtedly shape their perspective of the world and therefore the work… Continue Learning »