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Explore the dark and still Kensington Gardens through Alice Meynell's poem about dead leaves and barren beauty. Dive into the metaphor of a dying town as the poet reflects on life and death.
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A Dead Harvest in Kensington Gardens By Hannah Laffey & Amber Gunay
What Is The Poem About? I think the Poem was written in autumn/winter time as the poet talks about the dead leaves falling off the trees and gathering over the ground. The poet has written the poem based on what she has seen whilst walking through Kensington Gardens. The poet talks about the garden being very dark, very still and everything around it being dead. Although the poet writes about it being left alone, it also gives off the image of it being very peaceful and un touched.
About The Poet Alice Meynell was born in Barnes, London on the 22 September 1847 and died on the 27 November 1922. Although being born in London she lived most of her life in Italy. She was remembered mainly for being a very good poet but she was also an amazing writer, editor and critic. She married a man Called Wilfred Meynell and had 8 children. Her poems were more religious as she converted when she was 25 years old.
Terminology And Poem Over View Terminology • Muffled- something that muffles • Doth-Is a plural of do • Futile-something that will never grow (crops) • Pyre-A heap of wood used for cremating lots bodies with little remains • Smoulder- Burn with no flame Over view of the poem The poem is about a fire destroying the town metaphorically. But the real meaning behind the poem is that its not the fire that has destroyed the town, the town is destroying itself.
Structure & Form • Technique and Analysis • AABBB rhyming scheme is used to split the stanzas in the poem into two halves. This shows the difference between town and country. The rhyming lines connect and make sense reading them to sum up. First two words at the end of the line Town, Brown town represent that the town is brown, and the last three hay, grey away represents country.
Structure & Form Continued • Three stanzas, five lines each, three quintains. The three stanzas represents the beginning, middle and end of the poem and of the metaphoric fire in the town as the fire starts to ‘smoulder’ it burns with no flame so as it fizzles out so does the towns life. Each stanza tells a story about the metaphoric fire in the town in stages. The beginning stage of the fire (S1) shows what the surroundings, it shows how the town juxtaposes the country because of the lack of life, the middle stage (S2) shows how the fire spreads, so town life starts to affect everyone until ‘amid the mist the work is done.’ the end stage (S3) shows the dying out so the fire is over and so is the town, all three of these stages persuade the reader that country life is better than town life.
Language • Imagery such as dead leaves this portrays the town life as sterile and unproductive. • Juxtaposition colours such as red used to juxtapose true emotion. • Alliteration such as graceless grass because it shows that the grass is greener on the other side (country) and e.g.’bosom nor barn’ this emphasises the differences between town and country • Personification used to show the country is full of life “hay” (represents life in country) and the town is dead “leaves” (represent dead)
