Wonders of Wanda

Those Winter Sundays is based on the real-life experiences of Robert Hayden, its writer. It talks about how he took his foster parents' love for granted only to regret later, when he grew old enough to understand that they sacrificed to give him a good life. Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blue-black cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labour in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one. thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of the house. Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well, What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices? Analysis  In the first stanza, the persona recounts how his father woke up early just to prepare a fire in order to drive the cold out for the benefit of the persona and the rest of the family.  The ...

Reading through many sources both online and in print, you realize that drawing a line between theme and subject matter is difficult even to literary critics. Some definitions use many different words to differentiate these two terminologies but end up talking about the same thing.  This article, therefore, comes in handy. It seeks to alleviate this problem by demarcating a clear line between theme and subject matter. Theme Theme is the central idea not only in poetry but in all types of works of literature.  In the analysis of theme, literary critics must go deeper than merely looking and what the poem is about. They must look at the happenings in the poem and relate them to the society.  This, therefore, means that theme has to do with the significance of the occurrences in the poem to the society.  It should be noted that in K.C.S.E, the examiner expects the candidate to describe theme in one or several words (should not be too long) then illustrate it. For exampl...

Poetic devices are unique ways through which the poet presents the message to the audience. Some of them are usually figurative while others are related to the patterning of sounds. In K.C.S. E, figurative ones are mostly tested in paper 2 while sound patterns are tested in paper 1.  Below is a list of some of these poetic devices.  Alliteration -When initial consonant sounds are repeated in close proximity. Here, learners should pay attention to sounds (pronunciations of words) and not their spelling. Some words are spelt differently but have sounds that are pronounced the same. For example, "car" and "keep" have different letters at the beginning yet these letters produce sound /k/, meaning they alliterate.  Allusion -this is a reference to a well-known material. A good example is the poem The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats, which refers to the coming again of Jesus.  Apostrophe -happens when the persona talks to something that has no hearing ability. This may be a...

This article is the first in a series of analyses of poems to come. Each poem, as exemplified in this, will be carefully and thoroughly analyzed to help readers master the skill of poetic appreciation.  A. E Housman, a Victorian poet, had "To an Athlete Dying Young" first published in his anthology, "Shropshire Lad" in 1896. This poem talks about an athlete that dies while still very youthful. This death denies him the chance to witness the breaking of his record. The persona appears to praise this early death for it prevents him from joining the list of athletes who witnessed the death of their names before their own deaths.     To An Athlete Dying  Young      A.E. Housman The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high Today, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. S...

There is a myriad of words that can be used to describe both tone and attitude. Some of these words have positive connotations while others have negative ones. However, it is worth noting that learners are forbidden to merely describe tone or attitude as either positive or negative because these two terminologies are too wide.  This article has endeavoured to list a few adjectives that can be used to describe tone and attitude. It has gone ahead to give the meanings of the words in order to help K.C.S.E candidates know the exact word to pick in every situation they encounter.   accusatory-when the persona appears to accuse the subject of the poem apathetic-when the persona lacks interest, enthusiasm or concern for something indifferent-poems that use this tone have personas who are unconcerned or having no sympathy  bitter-showing extreme anger or hatred or resentment because of a past painful or unjust experience. cynical-a cynical persona lacks trust in human since...

Tone A good number of scholars give the same definition for tone and attitude. This is, however, very wrong because the two are different: tone is strictly about the voice used while attitude is about the meaning of that voice in terms of the feelings of the persona. Therefore, tone is the quality of the voice used by the persona in passing the message to the audience. In other words, it is how the persona sounds.  There is an overwhelmingly large number of words that can used to describe tone . Among them are: Formal Informal Optimistic Pessimistic Joyful  Sad Sincere Hypocritical Bitter Nostalgic Patronizing Condescending  Obsequious  Accusatory  indifferent  Sarcastic Ironic Satirical  Disapproval  Approval Romantic  There are very many descriptive words for tone . The poem My Papa's Waltz   uses a nostalgic tone to highlight the persona's condition of missing his old times with his father. Consider the second stanza quoted below....

Summaries are usually set in paper 2, one of the three examinable English papers in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education. It tests the ability of the candidate to reduce a long text to only a few sentences.  A summary must, therefore, be a shorter version of the original text. The process of shortening, however, must not lose any of the main ideas of the original text.  Summary is commonly set in question 1, comprehension , but can as well be set in question 2, extract from a compulsory text or even question 3, oral literature or poetry.  What to observe  1. Marks  allocated for the question i.e 6 marks imply that at least six responses (points)  are needed, each scoring a mark.  2. Prose -the responses must be combined to form a paragraph made of grammatical and sensible sentences. Do not write in point form because this is punishable. Any candidate writing in point form will score half the mark allocated for that answer.  3. Proper punct...