The Wild Swans at Coole

The Wild Swans at Coole

·         Regular form. 5 X 6 line stanzas, roughly iambic meter, pattern of stressed syllables is 434353. ABCBBDD rhyme scheme

·         Original structure was stanzas 1, 2, then 5, then 3, 4. Instead of ending with a rhetorical question indicating loss, it ended with a description of the love of the swans.

·         Nature/Idylls

o   Autumn beauty/brilliant creatures- wonders at nature

o   October twilight/ mirror/ clamorous bell-beat of their wings/ brimming/mount/scatter- The landscape is richly described through the lexical fields of colour and light the sound and movement which provide a vivid experience of the landscape throughout the stanzas.

o   clamorous bell-beat of their wings/ brimming/mount/scatter – accumulation of plosives imitate the violent flapping of the swans’ wings.

o   Although pastoral, it is colder and less assured than ‘The Stolen Child’ in its descriptions of nature.

·         Nostalgia/passing of time/reflection

o   Nineteenth autumn- large quantities of time spent with the swans. Autumn is a period of change, reflects the sense of change/time passed in the poem

o   My heart is sore- unrequited love/heartbreak. Sense of longing for those years by the swans

o   clamorous/paddle/beat/scatter- Repetition of plosive letter – words of vivacity and energy ,are emphasized to convey his own frustration towards the swans and his own bad life choices

o   cold / Companionable streams or climb the air- The alliteration…