The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of English

Questions on W.E. Henley, "In Hospital"

 

  1. For each of the twenty-eight poems in the sequence, please consider the following:
  2. What is its form and rhythm? How are these chosen to reinforce the subject?
  3. 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?
  4. What specific allusions are included, and what is their meaning?
  5. Does it fit into a particular category of poems? (i. e., the sonnets describing the staff, the ballads describing patient cases, etc.
  6. What does this poem contribute to the mood and tone of the whole?
  7. Please pay special attention to the opening and closure. How are these emphasized?
  8. 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?



  Copyright © 2010 Florence S Boos, The University of Iowa. All rights reserved.
  Page updated: October 4, 2012 20:17