hello everyone and welcome back to English with Kaylee and I'm really really happy to record this video for you today it is the highly requested analysis of anniversary by Ted Hughes so without further Ado let's get on into the video so as always I just want to point out that I've got resources for all 15 of the caie poems from Ted hughes's collection you can find them on my test account and my teacher's Pay Teachers account and links will be in the description below so without further Ado let's start reading anniversary my mother in her feathers of flame grows taller every May 13th I see her with her sister Miriam I left the torn off diary page where my brother jotted Mar died today and there they are she is now as tall as Miriam in the Perpetual Sunday morning of everlasting they're strolling together listening to the Larks ringing in their orbits the work of the cosmos creation and destruction of matter and of antimatter pulses and flares shudders and Fades like the northern lights in their feathers my mother is telling Miriam about her life which was mine her voice comes piping down a deep gorge of Woodland echoes this is the water line dark on my dress look where I dragged him from the reservoir and that is the horse on which I galloped through the brick wall and out over the heater simply to bring him a new pen this is the pen I laid on the altar and these are the mass marriages of him and his brother where I was not once a guest then suddenly she is scattering the red corals with her fingers to find where I had fallen for the third time she laughs helplessly till she Weeps Miriam who died at 18 is madonna-like with pure white to hear of all she missed now my mother shows her the rosary prayers of unending worry like pairs of shoes or one dress after another this is the sort of thing she is saying I liked to wear best and much of it you know was simply sitting at the window watching The Horizon truly wonderful it was day after day knowing they were somewhere it still is look and they pause on the brink of the starry Dew they are looking at me my mother darker with her life her red Indian hair her skin so strangely Olive and other worldly flame beside her their feathers throb softly iridescent my mother's face is glistening as if she held it into the skyline wind looking towards me I do this for her she is using me to tune finer her weeping love for my brother through mine as if I were the shadow cast by this approach as when I came a mile over fields and walls towards her and found her weeping for him able for all that distance to think of me him so it's an incredibly lengthy poem that's why I've left it until the very end do stick around for the entire analysis because I'll go through the semantic concerns a detailed analysis of each stanza and will also end with four meter rhyme and as always an essay question before we do that we've got to consider the the context of the poem and there's some key information that we need to know um in order to be able to to make sense um of of the poem as a whole so this poem was published towards the end of hughes's life um and we witnessed him reflecting on his life relationships and childhood memories so Edith Hughes this is Ted hughes's mother is the poem's focus and the poem is an allergy to her memory so she always supported his work as a writer and often encouraged him to write as a young boy and she was also like he was a believer in the afterlife she herself believed that her sister Miriam would appear as an angel in her bedroom at the foot of her bed and so the depiction of Edith and Miriam as these Angelic figures in the poem is is possibly a nod to his mother's psychic beliefs and as we know that's also true of of Ted Hughes as well and his own beliefs of the the Transcendent life Hughes and his first wife Sylvia Plath married without the presence of hughes's family and this was something that really upset his mother and we see reference to it in the in the poem and sadly she died in 1969 a year before Hughes married Carol Orchard so just some background information for you there and now let's just talk about the summary so what happens in anniversary so Hughes describes looking back at one of his brother's diary entries on the day that their mother passed away um and and a vision of his mother appears one that he says visits every year on the anniversary of her death so her image and that of her sister Miriam appeared to him in a string of dreamlike scenarios uh mixing hughes's memories with natural imagery and religious symbols so Edith is seen sharing memories of her life with her sister Miriam including the time that she dragged him being Hues from the reservoir and her sadness and not receiving an invite to hughes's wedding to Sylvia and then Hughes goes on to describe the sisters as Vivid Angelic figures and they begin to fade and we see that reflected in the stanza structure towards the end the poem ends with Hughes exploring Edith's feelings towards her son um and and it adds up it ends on almost a sour note um as we see this this kind of sibling rivalry and jealousy uh between Hughes and his brother Gerald uh believing that he lived in the shadow of his brother and his mother favoriteed him okay so in terms of of themes the semantic concerns um this is obviously a very complex and challenging elegy and it explores themes of childhood family and spirituality through hughes's memory of his mother so we encounter themes of family spirituality and again this transcendental the transcendental ideas um and finally and I think this is a beautiful statement in itself the landscape of memory we know how important nature is to use him growing up um in The Valleys of Yorkshire and and the importance it plays in a number of his of his poems and here we see the two come together this idea of Nature and memories and spirituality um and and how that that is interwoven into into this memory of who's of who's his mother okay um so this is a very this is going to be a very very detailed detailed analysis um I don't believe there's anything like this uh online so do stick around um and if there are things that you think of that you can add to it do feel free to pop them in the comments below um and especially when when the video goes live I'm going to be hanging around in comments um and answering questions so we start let's get straight into stanza one the first sentence here my mother in her flames in her feathers are Flames so from the offset we have this beautiful imagery we get this sense of these wings of an Angel um and this is really used to establish the motif of light and fire um and and we we get this Vivid and dynamic appearance of hughes's vision and this is of course emphasized by the the alliteration of the f all uh and this comparative adjective shows how the image strengthens um for for not only for the reader but for the speaker as well every May 13th and that's where we get the reference to the title of the poem which is the anniversary of hughes's mum's passing so throughout the first stanza we have quite a lot actually not just within the first stanza on John munters used throughout the poem at different points um and and here it's used as the story and the vision appear so as he lifts the torn off page of the Diary as he puts himself back into that moment and that's when when his mother appears and and the stanza ends with and there they are this very declarative affirmative sentence and that allows us to consider this is more than a passing memory it's they're almost tangible in front of him um which again gives us this idea of the vibrancy with full of life and movement okay so instead the two this is where we see Hughes using Cosmic imagery to describe his mother and her sister Miriam and this is where the lines start to become blurred between factual memories as we'll move on to see examples of in the next stanza and these spiritual visions of his mother and again that continues into stanza 3 also she is now as tall as Miriam so from the very offset of the second stanza we see this Clarity uh from from the speaker which also allows the reader to have a very clear image in their minds also in the Perpetual Sunday morning of everlasting with an interesting Paradox here because we have this this idea of the fixed day being Sunday and the Everlasting and and this goes to show how this memory is frozen eternally in hughes's mind um and this also starts to hint at the complexities um of of the poem in its entirety of the relationship that they shared um and and the complexity in in revisiting the life of somebody that we've lost in terms of the the happiness we feel in celebrating life but also the the regret and sadness that that comes with what if and what could have happened so throughout the poem Hughes uses a number of dynamic verbs in the present tense again this creates this idea of these active vigorous figures um that that are again almost tangible oh the work of the cosmos creation and destruction of matter and of antimatter so this is that first time where we start to see this Cosmic imagery at play um language that is usually associated with physics and astronomy um very much fact or fiction and this being this being fact um so so A beautiful weave Hue of Nature and Science and religion and spirituality which we'll we'll talk about a little bit later creation and destruction of matter so we've got these contrasting nouns here which could be used as a reference to the cycle of life and death or an idea that both his mother and Aunt are now in a place that's beyond the powers of our natural world something huge explosion a number of his poems including the ones tested in the caie syllabus so the stanza ends with a simile like the northern lights in their feathers um now the northern lights they are an atmospheric event that can be witnessed near to the North Pole if you don't know what it is um it's well worth looking up a few pictures and in this event the night sky seems to appear in in sheets of of changing colors very frequently greens and blues um it's known for having a huge spiritual impact on visitors and those that go to witness the event and this allows that connection with his mother's appearance to both that the natural world and also that that spiritual world and experience also okay so now we're going to get into the largest stanza stanza stanza 3. I've actually had to split this into three separate slides just because it's so incredibly long and so stick with me we'll get there together in the end so in the third stanza Hughes is Hughes describes his mother um and and we see her voice come to life actually as she speaks to to her sister so my mother is telling Miriam about her life which was mine um two possible interpretations here the first being that you know how a mother's life is dedicated to her family and Sons and how their lives overlapped um when Hughes was born um you know you the role of the mother and the importance of it or it can also be hughes's desire to to to own his mother through his memories of her or as a way to to hold on to something that they share down a deep gorge of Woodland Echoes now we see his reference the woodlands and The Valleys frequently in his Works um and and this almost seems to be a symbol of memory itself um you know we see the mother in his standing above the The Horizon looking out and observing um which which hints at the views from their Hilltop home um in Yorkshire in hempston stall and this is interestingly it's the same Viewpoint um in wind and football at slack if you haven't read my analysis of those um of those poems I'll link them just above for you and that consonance here of that plosive D and the assonance of O and E also shows the strength and the power not only of the vision um but of her words in them coming piping down and but also as an introduction to the actions that that she took throughout her life for her for her sons um and in particular Ted yeah so then we actually do see the mother's voice um so the mother's direct voice here allows for her perspective to be shared this is the waterline dark on my dress where I dragged him from the reservoir and that is the horse on which I galloped to take him the pen however there's a pattern here not only in this in this part of stanza 3 but later on also of demonstratives using this and that and these um and that creates almost a detached register and tone um to the mother's voice and that adds to to the dreamlike nature of the poem as a as a whole foreign to bring him a new pen this is the pen I laid on the altar um so we here we have an allusion to religious Faith um so here that the pen itself symbolizing hughes's Life as a writer um Edith who's supported and encouraged um hughes's work wholeheartedly um and even as a young child but but we see this section here where it says I laid on the Altar and here we have this very strong religious significance um you know the altar being where sacrifices made um and that could be to reference the one made by her mother to support her son and that's referenced earlier on this is the horse on which I galloped through the brick wall um this could very much be a metaphor for obstacles and things uh she she overcame in order to to support her support her son and these are the mass marriages of him and his brother where I was not once a guest um of course we we have that contextual knowledge um that when he was married Sylvia Plath his mum wasn't invited along with along with other members of his family and we get the sense of of disappointment um especially after all she had done and all she's she's listed um in the stanza but this could also be a hint at hughes's regret for not inviting her so again going back to that complexity of when we when we look back on someone's life we look at the enjoyment of their life but also our own regrets and sorrow so I think there's another layer to that one there then suddenly so we have a falter here but it's within the same stanza um she being um sorry Edith Hughes she is scattering the red coals with her fingers so once again we've got the multi for fire and the intensity of the vision but more importantly there's a Biblical reference here um it's from the the prophet Ezekiel so Ezekiel Saw an angel of God scattering burning calls over Jerusalem and this was an act of purification through destruction having Edith you scatter the calls we see her purify the sins and mistakes that Hughes has made for example in the previous sentence like not inviting her to his wedding to where I had fallen for the third time I haven't put this in I haven't included it but um if we do consider the marriage and we know that Hughes had three relationships two of them obviously very unsuccessful sadly ending ending in in the death of his first wife Sylvia Plath and his his second partner Asia Weevil as well there may be some link there that you could make she laughs helplessly till she weeps so it's just that contrast again so we spoke about Paradox and here we can see that emotional contrast um and it it mixes life's enjoyment and happiness with of course this you know sorrowful regret of what if um and not just from from either side and Miriam's but also Ted himself and this really captures the the conflicting and difficult emotion that one can encounter when looking back on the life of a lost loved one so the stanza goes on to describe Miriam so Miriam who died at 18 is Madonna Like with pure Wonder to hear of all she'd missed um so Madonna Like is a reference to the Virgin Mary who was of course the mother of Christ and a predominant figure of worship so we get this Association and connotation of Purity and innocence um and of course we we can we can extend this by saying that since Miriam died when she was 18 um it suggests how Edith is now showing her the parts of her life that she didn't get to witness sadly so in Edith moving to the afterlife we've seen Miriam Blossom and learn um also shows her the rosary prayers of unending worry so rosary beads are are used um in a place of worship so here again so we've got another religious um reference and illusion and and here we see that that a mother's love and care for their children never truly leave them in that unending worry it doesn't go away okay we're nearly at the understand the three we're we're getting there um so standard three continues um again with with Edith's voice this is the sort of thing she says I liked to wear best and much of it you know was simply sitting at the window watching The Horizon so we we find comfort in in the connection between the sisters and and this suggests that their reunion in the afterlife is one of love and happiness wonderful it was day after day knowing they were somewhere it still is look so we see a shift here from the past tense was to the present is um and and this is a really endearing Point within the poem because it highlights how Edith is going to continue to watch over um uh Ted um in the afterlife as she is seen looking towards him at the end of the next stanza and that Standalone word there with look really emphasizes that that that that protection um will always remain okay and now we move into standard four after the the detailed analysis we'll look at the form meter and rhyme so so stick around for that bit so at the beginning of stanza 4 we see Miriam and Edith pausing on the brink of the starry Dew they are looking at me so the standard length actually starts to do it decrease here as the two begin to fade from View and Hughes takes the poem in another Direction uh the syntactical field here of the starry do an iridescent lends itself to this idea of of fading my mother's face is glistening as if she held it into the skyline wind um and and once again we're brought back to this idea of Nature and how it serves as a backdrop to his mother's image and weaves in elements of of true memory into that spiritual experience and that's where that semantic concern of the landscape of memory comes in okay and let's just take a look at the final two stanzas the shortest stanzas uh made up of three lines each so two sets um so stanza five we see here um this the the poem takes a it takes a a tone um and now looks at the relationship between uh Hughes and his brother Gerald um and and his perceived their perceived relationship from From hughes's perspective so the final standards was a complex relationship between Hughes and his older brother Gerald um she is using me to find to tune finer her weeping love for my brother through mine so she's using my our relationship as a tool to to perfect the relationship that she has with with Gerald their order his older sibling as when I came a mile over fields and walls towards her and found her weeping for him able for all that distance to think me him so here we get a a possible real childhood memory in which hughes's mother mistook Hughes for Gerald um and and this obviously implies that Gerald was favored by hughes's mother um and and I haven't highlighted it but of course the the repetition of weeping for him shows that deep impact that it's had on Hughes um and his thoughts on their relationship um and then just to to wrap up on those those two stanzas there um we get the sense that Hughes felt like he lived in the shadow quotation of his brother and was seen as as inferior in the eyes of his mother so again it all comes back to that complexity of relationships familiar relationships at sibling relationships okay let's talk about form meter and rhyme so there are of course six stanzas of varying lengths that shift Focus uh the first stance of the poem explore descriptions of Edith and Miriam while stanza 3 focuses on the mother's voice and her experiences um and the poem's final stanzas add complexity to their relationship as it discusses who's his sibling relationship and that perceived favoritism of hughes's brother Gerald meter it's written in free verse so no set meter is used however Hughes uses techniques such as end stop lines and on John Mint interchangeably for effect and rhyme we know no rhyme scheme is used however the lack of regular structural features and rhyme patterns allows for this free-flowing stream of various memories and that incorporation of fragments of different images and ideas to be used very successfully and the last one as always I will leave you with an essay question which we can discuss down below so the essay question for this poem is how does Hughes present his feelings towards his family in anniversary so don't forget to leave a comment outlining some of your key Point sentences um and and we can get into a good discussion ahead of any upcoming exams um so thank you very much for watching I do hope this video helped you don't forget to like And subscribe especially as I start working on a mini series for essay writing um which will help you to get your a stars in your gcses so thanks very much for watching and I'll catch you in the next one bye guys foreign [Music]