N&Q on the Ballad "Sir Patrick Spens"

1. This poem, also called "Sir Patrick Spence" in some books, exemplifies the "popular" or "folk" ballad: that is, an anonymous ballad originating with the people ("popular") or common folk ("folk"). As such, it has been sanded smooth by generations, which accounts for some abrupt omissions in grammar or connective material. (a) How is the grammar cryptically elliptical in lines 5-6, and 11-12? (b) How does the scene or setting jump in stanza 3, stanza 6, stanza 9, and stanza 11?

2. The popular or folk ballad is typically anti-upperclass, as exemplified in the motto of Robin Hood, whose story was first told, in fact, in the popular or folk ballad. How is this anti-upperclass feeling manifested in several places in the poem?

3. As mentioned in Ch. 5 of my Engl. 1102 Pamphlet, besides problems in the meaning in words (if not annotated, the meaning of Dumferline or braid ["broad"] in describing a letter), additional problems in reading comprehension can come from grammatical or syntactical problems, as well as problems in figurative language. Both of the latter problems occur for this poem.

First, in line 32 ("Their hats they swam aboon") -- pronoun ("Their") + noun-1/substantive ("hats") + noun-2/substantive ("they") + verb ("swam aboon") -- two questions arise: (a) to whom do "their" and "they" refer (antecedents of pronouns), and (b) in the pattern of N1 + N2 [+ N3, etc.] + V -- where N = noun or noun substitute, and V = verb -- does the line mean that the Scots nobles swam above their hats, or that the hats swam above the Scots nobles? The solution comes from both probability and the last stanza of the poem.

Second, a problem of figurative language emerges in stanza 7, with the reference of Sir Patrick Spens's crew to seeing "the new moon/ With the old moon in her arm" (lines 25-26). The figure of speech is personification, but what we have is mainly the "vehicle" (what something is compared to) rather than the tenor (what is being spoken about) part of a figure of speech (see the discussion of these components in Ch. 17 of R&J). (a) What did the crew actually see -- that is, what is the tenor part of their comparison? (b) How does this figure of speech relate to any of the main themes of the poem?

4. How does the poem divide into the following five parts: stanzas 1-3; stanzas 3-5; stanzas 6-8; stanzas 9-10; and stanza 11? (Hint: for help use the literary component of setting.) How does juxtaposition between immediately adjacent parts help convey any themes, ideas, or attitudes (irony, pity, etc.)?

5. (a) How is the king portrayed negatively in more than one way in stanza 1? (b) The popular or folk ballad usually makes use of "stock epithets" (e.g., white horses are always "milk-white horses"), but beyond this convention, how does the stock epithet describing the wine color in stanza 1 relate to any of the poem's themes or ideas? (c) The popular or folk ballad (and some other analogous kinds of literature) often makes use of what appears to be redundancy (look this term up in your composition handbook and collegiate dictionary) - as in lines 3-4, 7-8, 9-10, 13-14, and 17-18. (c1) How are the lines cited in (c) apparently redundant? (c2) Since generations have sanded the ballads down, why were these redundancies retained for thematic or characterizational reasons - that is, in each instance cited, how does the redundancy help convey something about theme or character? (One of the first redundancies is contained in the language God uses to Moses in the book of Exodus when ordering the latter to do something about footwear in the presence of the burning bush; again, the redundancy is expressive, not merely archaic.)

6. (a) How is the adjective braid -- meaning "broad" or "large" or "clear" -- in describing the King's letter ironic (stanza 3)? That is, how might the letter literally have large letters in the handwriting of the scribe or make an apparent statement, but really mean something else? (b) What is ironic about the description of the letter as being signed with the king's hand (stanza 3), given who other than the king has really composed the letter?

7. (a) How do stanzas 1-3 juxtapose and contrast happy sociability with contemplative isolation, town or court vs. external and non-urban nature? (b) How is sympathy for Sir Patrick Spens generated just by circumstances of setting in stanza 3?

8. How is human psychology or a human psychological process accurately portrayed or described in stanza 4?

9. How does stanza 5 reveal something about the eldern knight in stanza 2?

10. (a) How does the abrupt shift from stanza 5 to stanza 6 (with lack of transitional material) suggest Sir Patrick Spens's feeling about king and country? (b) How does stanza 6 reveal Sir Patrick Spens as a good manager or good leader? (c) Why does Spens call his men "merry," though he knows very well, as shown in stanzas 6-7, that they are not happy? (d) Why does Spens use the adjective "good" to describe the ship being sailed in the morn (stanza 6)?

11. What key adjective is repeated in stanzas 6-7 that reveals the emotion of the folk or common people felt toward Spens? How does this emotion set up a subject or theme that also includes (a) Sir Patrick Spens's relationship to king and country; (b) the eldern knight's relationship to Sir Patrick Spens; (c) the relationship of Sir Patrick Spens to his crew; (d) the relationship of the ladies of the Scots nobles to their husbands?

12. (a) How are both the Scots nobles and their ladies shown to be overly concerned with superficial matters in stanzas 8-10? (b) How are the Scots nobles revealed to be fools by their worry about their shoes, given stanzas 6-7 as well as the very nature of their transportation? (c) How does the abrupt juxtaposition in stanza 8 suggest an ironic by Nature on the Scots nobles? (d) How do at least two meanings of the word play (recreational activity; drama) apply not only in stanza 8 but relative to the rest of the poem?

13. (a) How does the repetition of a certain word in the first line of stanzas 9 and 10 help convey something about not only elapse of time but also about the ladies' feelings for their husbands? (b) How does the combined parallelism and contrast in the first line of stanzas 9 and 10 help convey something about not only elapse of time but also about the ladies' feelings for their husbands? (c) How does the second line of stanzas 9 and 10 reveal a parallelism between the ladies and their husbands? (d) What word in the third line of stanza 10 connects the ladies with Sir Patrick Spens and Spens's crew?

14. (a) How is true worth symbolically revealed in the underwater tableau in stanza 11? (b) How is the tableau in stanza 11 in some sense ironically wasted in being able to teach a lesson?

N & Q on Thomas Hardy's "The Man He Killed"

1.  Be sure to carefully read the demonstrative essay about this poem at the end of Ch. 13.

2.  (A) As regards what R&J note about the language in the poem, in the demonstrative essay about the poem, how could the usage be categorized or classified in the redundant "old ancient" (line 2) and in the phrase "off-hand like" (line 14)? (B) How are the brevity of the lines, as well as generally monosyllabic word choice,  appropriate to this particular speaker? (C) What faint symbolism or additional significance, with reference to the poem's ideas or themes, may be found in "in his place" (line 8) (i.e., the importance of a person's place -- in several senses of the word "place" -- as relevant to war) and "crown" in "help to half-a-crown" (line 20)? (For another plurisignificant use of the word "crown," see E. A. Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" in Ch. 13 of R&J.)  (D) How do the grammatical length and smoothness of the sentences underlying the lines in the first two stanzas contrast with these components in the last three stanzas? (E) How is one particular vowel sound (called assonance, and explained in Ch. 19 of R&J) awkwardly or clumsily repeated in stanza 3, and how does this effect contribute to the poem's ideas and characterization of the speaker?