Which of these techniques can you see in the poem? Highlight them where you find them
- Assonance:repetition of the same vowel sounds in close proximity to one another
- Onomatopoeia: words that sound like their meaning
- sibilance: repeated use of ‘s’ or ‘sh’ sounds
- alliteration: repeated use of the same consonant in a phrase or line
- Sensory: appealing to the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight
Now discuss your ideas and annotate the effect that they have as you read the poem...
Key terms
- Unwontedly: against its usual practice/custom
- Willow-herb: a tall pink wildflower that grows particularly well in wasteland or areas that have been scorched/burnt
- Meadowsweet: cream-coloured wildflower that grows in damp meadows
- Haycocks: piles of cut grass left in the fields to dry into hay in the sun
- no whit: not a bit, not a jot
The poem was published in 1917, and describes an uneventful journey that Thomas took on 24 June 1914 on the Oxford to Worcester express; the train made an unscheduled stop at Adlestrop railway station. Thomas did not alight from the train, but describes a moment of calm pause in which he hears "all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire".
Why might the idea of calm and peace have been important to Thomas in 1914?
How might this have been read differently when the poem was published in 1917?
Adlestrop - Edward Thomas
Philip Edward Thomas (3 March 1878 – 9 April 1917) was a British poet, essayist, and novelist. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences, and his career in poetry only came after he had already been a successful writer and literary critic. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.
Memory
‘Only the name’ – the importance of names
Natural world – heat, oppression
Express train – travel/ war?
Unwontedly - serendipity
Late June – memory, summer, war
Sounds
Absence – of sight, people, of the face of the person clearing his throat
Power of a name
Significance of a name – here there is a name but an absence of further experience or knowledge
‘And’ – how does the position and stress on ‘And’ emphasise the description of the natural world that follows? Conjunctive.
The blackbird’s song – plaintive, sad, pure?
Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontendly. It was late June
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire
In his notebook, Thomas wrote: “Stopping outside Campden by banks of long grass, willowherb and meadowsweet, extraordinary silence between two periods of travel.”
What stops the silence being ordinary in this situation?
Geoffrey Palmer reads Adlestrop
Write down 5 questions you have about the poem.
Write down some adjectives/ideas that describe these images...