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Question: Literature essay on the poem ‘Childhood’ by Frances Cornford.
Answer: ‘Childhood’ by Frances Cornford is a lyric which captures the sadness of the ageing process from a child’s perspective. The poet describes the physical appearance of adults in first stanza of the poem, confusing the effects of the ageing process for choices made personally for illusions of ‘grandness’ and status which comes from being old. The loss of innocence is portrayed as this point of changes to one of sad realisation in the second stanza where the persona sees the difficulties of being old and their impaired physical functions.
The first stanza depicts the perception of a child who does not understand the ageing process and assumes adults choose to look old on purpose. This stanza starts with two lines of iambic pentameter to mimic regular human speech and the abundancy of monosyllabic words mimic the simplicity of a child’s expression. The stanza starts of with th...(short extract)
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- Subject: English Literature
- Course: English Literature
- Level: A-Level
- Year: Not applicable
- Mark: 71%
- Words: 752
- Date submitted: August 08, 2012
- Date written: Not available
- References: No
- Document type: Essay*
- Essay ID: 4239
