Talk:In Nunhead Cemetery

2015 Suggestion

Plot It begins with the man standing over his fiancée’s grave in the rain after her funeral. Everyone else has gone, but he won’t leave. Flowers were tossed into the grave by loved ones, and the man picks one of these up and muses that there is something terrible about a flower, and about a child, who smiled during the funeral. He then begins to recall memories of his fiancée, starting with a week prior to the funeral, suggesting the death occurred suddenly. He remembers her laughing at him as he tried to explain how she had made a better man of him. He briefly tells himself that none of this is real, that he might wake up and find it was all a dream. Then he goes back to thinking about the times they shared, waiting for Spring, most likely when their wedding date was set. “But still it was a lovely thing Through the grey months to wait for Spring With the birds that go a-gypsying In the parks till the blue seas call. And next to these, you used to care For the Lions in Trafalgar Square, Who'll stand and speak for London when her bell of Judgement tolls - And the gulls at Westminster that were The old sea-captains souls. To-day again the brown tide splashes step by step, the river stair,

And the gulls are there!” He remembers sight-seeing with her, looking at the lion statues in Trafalgar Square, and the seagulls along the river, which is likely the river Thames. His fiancée seems to have believed in or enjoyed folk tales, as she believes the seagulls to be the spirits of sea captains and the Lions to be watching over London. There is a legend that these statues will come to life when Big Ben strikes 13 times. This is likely the “bell” that she is referring to. The man returns to the present as he recalls how they missed their wedding day by a month. He begins to imagine what their honeymoon would have been like, musing that she had never kissed him back. ?? He remembers her as she lies dying in her bed, and how he let her go and now will do anything, no matter how damning, to have her back. ?? He remembers being a little boy at Christmas time, how happy he was and how he used to pray for God to keep him safe at night, but now he is afraid and he’s decided to stay with his fiancee in the graveyard, so she can help him sleep. He doesn’t want to go home without her. “I shall stay here: here you can see the sky; The houses in the street are much too high; There is no one left to speak to there; Here they are everywhere, And just above them fields and fields of roses lie - If he would dig it all up again they would not die.” He would be lonely at home, with no one to talk to. But here, in the graveyard, there are plenty of souls, including hers, to keep him company. So he stays there, imagining all of the people lying under their tombstones covered with flowers, and imagines that if they were all dug up again, they would not be dead.

Rhyme Scheme The rhyme scheme of the poem starts off fairly regular and changes with the 5th verse, which is also where the narrator’s tone changes as he tries to deny that any of this is really happening.

I want to spend more time on the rhyme scheme of the poem and the few passages I don’t really understand. I also want to look up when this poem was published and see if I can find anything else out about it. I also plan to add my citations before posting. SBloom123 (talk) 01:08, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I like what you have so far and I think it's a really great starting point. It's clear you have a lot of ideas to work with and I think that's going to help as you finish up the article. I think now is the time to start looking at specifics and elaborating on some of these themes. And if it gets to be a little difficult, maybe just focus on expanding one theme a lot. Kelnera (talk) 01:03, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks really good! I would add some critical analysis or history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcintyrl (talk • contribs) 06:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I like how in depth and descriptive the plot section is, but there is a lack of detail with the critical analysis and the other sections. You need to make sure to include all of your sources to provide credible information on the page. As of right now,I only see one source and there needs to be a lot more sources available with every section. If you add more information with sources, the page will improve a lot! Great start and good luck! Marwahaljilani (talk) 05:43, 1 June 2015 (UTC)