Questions on W.E. Henley, "In
Hospital"
- For
each of the twenty-eight poems
in the sequence, please consider the following:
- What is its form and rhythm? How are these
chosen to reinforce the subject?
- Where does this poem fit in the sequence--i.
e. how does it relate to the poems directly before and after, and to the
sequence as a whole?
- What specific allusions are included, and
what is their meaning?
- Does it fit into a particular category of
poems? (i. e., the sonnets describing the staff, the ballads describing
patient cases, etc.
- What does this poem contribute to the mood
and tone of the whole?
- Please pay special attention to the opening
and closure. How are these emphasized?
- Is the use of twenty-eight poems
in a sequence more effective than the publication of separate poems would
have been? How does this change the reading process, or the final effect?