The great lords

Les Grands Seigneurs

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Things you should know

An allusion is when one text refers to another. This is shown when the poet in stanza one refers to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Stanza One

Buttress = support built on the outside of a wall to make them stronger Turrets and battlements like a castle

bowers = a ladys private room

Men were my buttresses, my castellated towers, the bowers where I took my rest. The best and worst of times were men: the peacocks and the cockatoos, the nightingales, the strutting pink flamingos. Metaphors that compare men to birds are used to show the different types of men the narrator recognises. See what types there are. This shows men to be decorative items.

Here the first line suggests that the woman speaker feels safe and protected by men this could refer to fatherly protection shown by men when she was younger. The second sentence alludes to A Tale of Two Cities. The poet is using metaphors to tell the reader about her opinions of men.

Stanza Two
A ballast is something used to weigh down a ship so that it doesnt topple over and capsize.

Again, metaphors are used to show that men are seen as entertainment and a form of pleasure. The personal pronoun my in the last line here suggests that the narrator is in control of these men.

Men were my dolphins, my performing seals; my sailing-ships, the ballast in my hold. They were the rocking-horses prancing down the promenade, the bandstand where the music played. My hurdy-gurdy monkey-men. A hurdy-gurdy is a music barrel

The alliteration of the p and the catchy rhythm of hurdy-gurdy men makes the men seem ridiculous

Stanza Three
This stanza sums up the narrators position I was their queen. She is treated with respect and adored.

Courtly love was a medieval tradition were men admired women: they would write love poems and songs in her honour and acted like a slave towards the woman. The whole point was that the man never got the woman.

I was their queen. I sat enthroned before them, out of reach. We played at courtly love: the troubadour, the damsel and the peach. A damsel is a woman (old fashioned word) A troubadour is a poet who wrote about courtly love Peach here means the best of its kind although it has also been used in the past to describe the female genitals!

Stanza Four
The use of brackets serves to highlight her surprise with the sudden change as though the reader is listening to her complain

The whole tone of the poem changes abruptly here as soon as she is wedded, bedded (internal rhyme) everything changes and she becomes reduced to demeaning roles (roles that show she isnt respected).

But after I was wedded, bedded, I became (yes, overnight) a toy, a plaything, little woman, wife, a bit of fluff. My husband clicked his fingers, called my bluff. The speaker shows how insignificant a woman becomes when she is a wife by mixing the Now that we have read the word in with bit of fluff and poem the title becomes toy. ironic/sarcastic men in the narrators opinion are not great lords

What should you notice?

Relationships are seen without love but instead with control. In the first 11 lines the speaker is in control As soon as the speaker marries the husband is in control Occasional rhyme is used to draw attention to stereotypes that the narrator is mocking: wedded/bedded, reach/peach

Also
The poem uses imagery from an early age of chivalry and romance to underline the reality of how women are treated once they are married. The poem looks at the relationships between men and women from a bitter and cynical point of view