Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Hour
- known for poems that give a voice
to the dispossessed (people
excluded from society); she
encourages the reader to put
themselves in the shoes of people
they might normally dismiss.
- Subject
- About feeling that arise
when spending time with
loved ones
- Being with a loved one,
even for an hour is
precious
- Presents traditional idea of
time being an obstacle to
lovers
- Structure
- Sonnet - 14 lines
- Predicable rhyme scheme (a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g)
- Language
- Reference to money and riches, contrasting
concept of material wealth against love and
time spent with loved ones
- Line 3 puns on the word
"spend" theme love and
money
- "We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
Or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a
grass ditch."
- Replaced "flowers" and "wine" for a
"whole of the summer sky" and "grass
ditch"
- Rich in meaning, loving couple lying
down together and looking up
- Time is important "For thousands of seconds we kiss" - excess
"thousands" limited by available time, shows how precious time is
to the writer. Seen as a 'treasure' to be carefully counted.
- "Time slows, for here/we are millionaires,
backhanding the night" time is frozen. the hour
spent together has given a sense of power, they
can bribe the darkness to hold back, immense
joy and wealth
- Contrast between traditional
romantic and ordinary "flowers" and
"grass ditch", "gold" and "straw"
emphasise the romance of the lovers
time together
- Traditional romance
unimportant compared to
personal experience
- Frequent reference to images of light. E.g.
"Bright", "summer sky", "Midas light", "shining
hour", "candle", "chandelier or spotlight"
- "now" right now, only
thing that is important
- Attitudes, themes and ideas
- Love versus time "Time hates love"
- "love spins gold, gold, gold
from straw" - Rumpelstiltskin
- Love can find riches in
anything, straw or a grass
ditch
- Enjoying intimacy in the
moment rather about
thinking of other things
- Material possessions cannot
replace something as special
as time with loved ones
- Compare
- Sonnet 116
- To His Coy Mistress
- In Paris With You