N & Q on "Western Wind"

1. This poem is usually known as simply "Western Wind," though its title, from the first line, could be considered "Western Wind, When Will Thou Blow." The poem presents two of the three main general reading-comprehension problems that can be found in poetry: (a) meanings of words, and (b) relationship of grammatical parts in the sentences that underlie the lines of poetry (properly, poetry should be referred to by the word "lines" rather than the word "sentences," though the latter underlie the former). (a) Sometimes common words -- as in the word "braid" or "broad" used in the poem "Sir Patrick Spens" -- can be problematic, not just more esoteric words like "sages" or "occluded" or "serum" in Lisel Mueller's poem "Hope." Such a problematic common word is "small" in the second line of "Western Wind." In modern idiomatic English, someone being pelted by a downpour wouldn't hope for "small rain" but rather what kind of rain? (b) A word -- more specifically, a conjunction -- necessary for grammatical completeness is missing between the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2. The connection between the two lines must be understood in order to supply the conjunction; what is the conjunction that is elliptically implied (look up "elliptical" grammatical constructions in your composition handbook), revealing what the relationship is between line 1 and line 2?

2. Much can be inferred about both the speaker and setting, despite the cryptic brevity of this poem. (a) If the speaker is wishing for warm spring rains and a relatively gentle wind (lines 1-2), what season and climatic conditions might very well apply to the poem's present? (b) If the speaker wishes to be indoors (lines 3-4), where might the speaker very well be in the poem's present? (c) Adding the foregoing two questions together, what can be surmised about the speaker's (c1) occupation and (c2) gender, given the era of the fifteenth century or so CE? How might the speaker's profanity (line 3) help illuminate (c1)? (The word "profanity" is used in its basic sense, as relating to the Ten Commandments in the Bible.) (d) What can be surmised about the speaker from line 3 (and line 4, considered in relation to line 3)?

3. (a) In Ch. 17, one of the figures of speech discussed is apostrophe, which you should look up. This figure frequently is suggestive of the speaker's emotional, psychological, or social state or condition; when a speaker starts addressing an inanimate force of nature, in this poem, what is that speaker's emotional, psychological, and social state? For the social state, do not ignore line 3 (what the speaker hopes for). (b) How do the terminal marks of punctuation in lines 1 and 2, as well as the profanity in line 3, help reveal the speaker's emotional, psychological, and social state or condition?

4. This poem illustrates two of the difficult categories of poems to comprehend: the very short poem and the very long poem. The very short poem ends so quickly that a reader may be bewildered about getting some sort of handhold; the same problem can occur in a very long poem, which is so long that a reader might be bewildered about where to start. For the very short poem, a reader needs to slow down, in contrast to the hectic pace of everyday life or the rush of getting schoolwork done; then some relaxed time needs to be taken to look at each word and make any puzzlement explicit by writing out questions about exactly which word or line isn't being understood. A whole book in the Bible contains many very short poems: the book of Proverbs. Many of these need the very kind of relaxed but attentive slow motion analysis practiced on "Western Wind."

N & Q on "Bonny George Campbell"

1. Like "Sir Patrick Spens," "Bonny George Campbell" is a folk or popular ballad; based on these two examples, what would you guess about how most ballads turn out, and what would you guess about the underlying social and psychological state of the "folk" or common people who produced these ballads?

2. How might this poem be seen to have the two parts of stanzas 1-3 and stanzas 4-6? How does each part function as a unit?

3. As with "Western Wind," much can be inferred about the main character in the poem (though as R&J point out, the narrator is outside this poem). What can be inferred about why Bonny George Campbell ("Bonny" is used as a word rather than a proper name, incidentally: see line 11) rode out given: (a) the setting of Scotland in the late sixteenth century, (b) the repetitive emphasis on Campbell's equipment (saddle, mentioned four times; bridle, mentioned twice; "good" horse, mentioned twice; boots, mentioned twice), and (c) the extremely inappropriate timing of the departure (stanza 5)? What could have compelled Campbell to leave, considering all these factors?

4. (a) How is violence against Campbell implied in any of the poem's details? (b) Who committed this violence against Campbell, as implied in the poem? Two main possible explanations could identify the malefactors: (b1) who might be roaming the Highlands in search of illegal gain, or (b1) who might be an adversary of Campbell in some other way, given the details mentioned in question 3 of these study questions. What two categories of malefactors could there be? Which one is more likely, given the details cited in question 3, above, as well as the fact that the good horse returns, along with the saddle? (c) The identity of the category of Campbell's adversary or adversaries helps convey one of the poem's main themes: all of those who suffer as a result of the general activity that calls Campbell away from home. How might this theme be formulated?

5. R&J ask question 3a and then answer it in the paragraph explanation that follows the poem. Many students have come up with a plausible alternative to who the speaker is of stanza 5, if one accepts belief in the supernatural and a different interpretation, by gender, of what is meant by the repeated possessive pronoun my in stanza 5 (including in the stanza's last line, "And my babe is unborn"). What two different speakers could plausibly utter stanza 5, one living, and one supernatural? How does this ambiguity make the poem even more profound?

6. Besides the quite good demonstrative essay in Ch. 15 on Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess," another good reason for assigning this poem is that it makes a vivid contrast in setting to "Western Wind" and "Bonny George Campbell." Both of these latter poems are very much outdoors poems; what about Browning's "My Last Duchess"?