the man with night sweats essay questions

Cambridge IGCSE Poetry Essay Questions 2023-2025, Part 2

These essay questions are all based on the Cambridge IGCSE Literature questions that you can find in specimen papers and past papers Songs of Ourselves, Volume 1, Part 4.

I have adapted the wording to suit a range of themes and focal points. I’d recommend planning as many of them as you can so that you get a lot of practise organising your thoughts. Aim to write at least 2-3 full essays before your exams, not including mock exams that are set in schools. If possible, get feedback on your essays too so that you know where you’re doing well and areas that can be improved.

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CAIE IGCSE Poetry, Songs of Ourselves, Volume 2, Part 4

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CIE IGCSE Poetry Essay Questions 2023-2025, Part 1

Essay Questions:

What do you think is the speaker’s attitude towards life in the poem ‘A Consumer’s Report’? Support your answers with evidence from the poem.
‘The modern world is shallow and disappointing.’ To what extent do you agree, in reference to the viewpoint presented in the poem ‘A Consumer’s Report’?
In what ways does Porter comment on capitalism in ‘A Consumer’s Report’?
Critically discuss the theme of religion as brought out in Stevie Smith’s poem, ‘Away, Melancholy’.
‘The speaker has achieved nothing by the end of the poem.’ Discuss to what extent you agree with this statement, in reference to ‘Away, Melancholy’.
Examine the way in which Smith portrays the relationship between humans, nature, and God in the poem ‘Away, Melancholy’.
Regarding the poem ‘from Long Distance II’ by Tony Harrison, do you think there is, or there should be, a specific way through which people should mourn beloved dead ones? Use evidence from the poem in your answer.
How does the speaker present his own attitudes to death in ‘from Long Distance II’?
To what extent does the poem’s conclusion contribute to its wider themes? Use evidence from the whole poem in your answer, exploring the presentation of its themes before and after the final stanza.
How does the speaker express his state of grief in ‘Funeral Blues’?
In what ways does the sadness in the poem serve as an expression of love and appreciation for the deceased in the poem ‘Funeral Blues’?
How does the writer explore the themes of pessimism and acceptance in his poem ‘He Never Expected Much’?
In what ways does Lowell powerfully portray the speaker’s anxieties in the poem ‘Night Sweat’?
What are the main challenges facing older adults in society, especially those with no close friends or relatives to help them? Use ‘Night Sweats’ by Robert Lowell as your point of reference.
To what extent does the poet present a positive portrayal of relationships in the poem ‘Night Sweat’?
‘Turner is able to convey his message through heavy reliance on metaphors.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? Use the poem ‘On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book’ as your point of reference.
Discuss the theme of life and death as brought out in, ‘On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book’, by Charles Tennyson Turner.
Examine the ways in which political power is presented in ‘Ozymandias’ and at least one other poem from the collection.
Compare what ways in which the poet presents attitudes to death in ‘Ozymandias’ and at least one other poem from the collection.
Discuss the presentation of leadership in ‘Ozymandias’ and at least one other poem from the collection.
Assume that Thomas referred to the war when writing the poem ‘Rain’. What do you think the broken reeds represent?
Why do you think the speaker thinks about the dead as being blessed when the rain rains upon them in the poem ‘Rain’?
Imagine that the poem ‘Rain’ was a poem which the speaker sent to you directly by post. Write a response which captures your own emotions and feelings about it. It could be in a form of a letter, a poem, a piece of prose, or a collage. Choose what works best for you.
Compare Edward Thomas’ vision about death in ‘Rain’ with Dylan Thomas’ vision in ‘Do Not Go Gentle in That Good Night’.
Explore the connection between water and death in Edward Thomas’ ‘Rain’.
To what extent does the speaker show love for others in the poem ‘Rain’?
Examine the way in which Thomas demonstrates the complexities of the human condition in the poem ‘Rain’.
How does the poem ‘Rain’ explore the themes of psychology and the mind?
Discuss Wright’s attitudes to memory and the past, as evidenced in the poem ‘Request to a Year’.
Discuss the role of parenting and the parent/guardian/children relationship as portrayed in the poem ‘Request to a Year’.
To what extent do you think that the subject of the poem ‘Request to a Year’ (the speaker’s great-great-grandmother) was a good role model for her children?
How does the poem ‘Rain’ explore deeper tension about history and colonialism, via the contrast between Wright’s Australian heritage and the European setting of the poem? (Advanced)
How does the poet explore the impact of city planning and the idea of a declining society in the poem ‘The City Planners’?
How far do you think the poem criticises urbanisation in the poem ‘The City Planners’?
In what ways does Gunn explore the theme of suffering in ‘The Man with Night Sweats’?
To what extent do we feel sympathy for the speaker in the poem ‘The Man with Night Sweats’?
In what ways does ‘The Planners’ reflect concerns about modernism and development?
Based on the poem ‘The Planners’ by Boey Kim Cheng, explain the tension between progress and history.
‘The speaker in ‘The Planners’ feels nothing for his city’’. To what extent do you agree?
Discuss the contradictory views the speaker echoes in regard to human nature in the poem ‘The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument’.
Write an essay describing the speaker’s attitude towards fellow human beings in the poem ‘The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument’.
In the poem ‘The Telephone Call,’ how does Fleur Adcock’s writing make the poem both amusing and serious at the same time?
What is the main theme in the poem ‘The Telephone Call’? Is this a common situation in our modern society?
Write a critical evolution of ‘The Telephone Call’ in which you show how effectively the poetic techniques have helped you to appreciate the central concern of the poem.

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The Man with Night Sweats Summary & Analysis by Thom Gunn

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
Poetic Devices
Vocabulary & References
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
Line-by-Line Explanations

"The Man with Night Sweats" appears in Thom Gunn's 1992 collection of the same title. Often acclaimed as his masterpiece, The Man with Night Sweats reflects on the HIV/AIDS epidemic (at a time when the disease was effectively untreatable) and elegizes its victims, including a number of the poet's loved ones. This title poem, a dramatic monologue , takes the perspective of a man suffering from night sweats as a result of acute HIV infection. The speaker reflects wistfully on his youth, the thrilling "risk[s]" he took, and his feelings of invulnerability before he became ill. Now terribly vulnerable, he confronts his own approaching death and the tragedy of mortality in general.

Read the full text of “The Man with Night Sweats”

The Full Text of “The Man with Night Sweats”

“the man with night sweats” summary, “the man with night sweats” themes.

Illness, Vulnerability, and Mortality

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “the man with night sweats”.

I wake up ... ... a clinging sheet.

My flesh was ... ... gashed, it healed.

I grew as ... ... to the skin.

Lines 13-16

I cannot but ... ... reduced and wrecked.

Lines 17-22

I have to ... ... go through me,

Lines 23-24

As if hands ... ... an avalanche off.

“The Man with Night Sweats” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Lines 1-2: “I who / Prospered through dreams of heat”
Lines 5-6: “My flesh was its own shield: / Where it was gashed, it healed.”
Lines 11-12: “A world of wonders in / Each challenge to the skin.”
Line 14: “The given shield was cracked,”
Line 24: “To hold an avalanche off.”
Lines 21-24: “As if to shield it from / The pains that will go through me, / As if hands were enough / To hold an avalanche off.”
Line 1: “wake,” “cold”
Line 5: “flesh,” “shield”
Line 6: “gashed,” “healed”
Line 10: “risk,” “robust”
Line 11: “world,” “wonders”
Line 13: “but be”
Line 14: “cracked”
Line 15: “My mind,” “reduced,” “hurry”
Line 16: “reduced,” “wrecked”
Line 17: “bed”
Line 18: “But,” “myself instead”
Line 19: “Stopped upright”
Line 23: “hands,” “enough”
Line 24: “hold,” “avalanche”
Lines 1-2: “who / Prospered”
Lines 2-3: “ heat / Wake”
Lines 7-8: “explored / The”
Lines 8-9: “trust / Even”
Lines 9-10: “adored / The”
Lines 11-12: “in / Each”
Lines 13-14: “sorry / The”
Lines 18-19: “instead / Stopped”
Lines 19-20: “am / Hugging”
Lines 20-21: “me / As”
Lines 21-22: “from / The”
Lines 23-24: “enough / To”
Line 1: “I wake,” “I”
Line 3: “Wake”
Line 5: “My flesh,” “shield”
Line 7: “I,” “I”
Line 8: “I”
Line 9: “I”
Line 13: “I”
Line 14: “shield”
Line 15: “My,” “reduced”
Line 16: “My flesh reduced”
Line 17: “I”
Line 20: “me”
Line 21: “As if,” “shield”
Line 22: “me”
Line 23: “As if”

“The Man with Night Sweats” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

Cannot but be
(Location in poem: Line 2: “Prospered through dreams of heat”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Man with Night Sweats”

Rhyme scheme, “the man with night sweats” speaker, “the man with night sweats” setting, literary and historical context of “the man with night sweats”, more “the man with night sweats” resources, external resources.

The Poet's Life and Work — Read a biography of Thom Gunn at the Poetry Foundation.

More on Gunn's Life — A biography of Gunn at Poets.org.

A Discussion of Gunn and Bishop — Watch author Colm Tóibín discussing the poetry of Thom Gunn and Elizabeth Bishop.

Gunn: A Retrospective — Read Gunn's 2004 obituary in the New York Times. (Registration required.)

The San Francisco Renaissance — Read an introduction to the San Francisco Renaissance, the post-WWII poetic movement with which Gunn is sometimes associated.

An HIV/AIDS Timeline — Historical context for the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S., courtesy of HIV.gov.

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The Man with Night Sweats

Thom Gunn gives form to fear in a time of crisis.

“When he wrote about the AIDS epidemic and the death of friends, Gunn… made art out of loss.” Edmund White, writing on Gunn’s death in 2004.

Thom Gunn was a British poet, born in Kent and educated at Cambridge, who moved to America to live with his partner Michael Kitay. He would live in California for the rest of his life, studying poetry and eventually teaching in two stints at Berkley University between 1958 and 2000. While in the US, Thom would live through the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s , a decade during which HIV and AIDS went from being virtually unknown to, by the mid-eighties, the most-feared disease on the planet, infecting150000 new victims each year. Little was known about either HIV or AIDS when these conditions emerged, and it was referred to as a ‘gay disease’ because gay men were one of the groups commonly affected. Thom was personally impacted by the disease through the death of many of his gay friends. He spoke and wrote about ‘the plague that cut them off so early’ and his published book of poetry, The Man with Night Sweats , from which this is the title poem, was in part a tribute to his fallen friends, as well as a way of personally coming to terms with the constant threat of infection and death. On top of this, the collection, written by a gay man and insider voice, would become an important way of engaging with wider society. People were afraid and, unfortunately, persecuted and marginalised the gay community who they believed was responsible for the spread of the virus:

Somewhat contrarily though, now that you’ve read the poem, I’m going to recommend that you don’t think about it solely as an ‘AIDS poem’. After all, words like ‘illness’, ‘disease’, or ‘AIDS’ never appear and the poem explores the way a sudden recognition of one’s own mortality can have dramatic psychological effects, regardless of context. In common with many young people, Thom lived his life fearlessly, with less inhibition than older folk with a little bit of experience under their belts – and why not? After all, when one is in the full vigour of health thoughts of ageing, illness, and death seem very far away. But as people get older and discover more about the world’s dangers, they tend to be more cautious, and regret reckless behaviour that might have had serious consequences. Written after realising he became sexually active in a world where AIDS was rampaging through young, otherwise-healthy young men, this poem reveals that no matter how invincible we may sometimes feel, we are helpless in the face of dangers that are too just big to avoid. Therefore, while the collected poems in The Man with Night Sweats are a response to the AIDS pandemic, in isolation I would argue that this poem’s central thematic concern is more simply the frightening realization of one’s own mortality.

To explore this idea Thom presents contrasting images of himself as a fearless young man compared with how he feels in the present day, after he has suffered a profound psychic reversal. You’ll probably not need me to point out that the first few verses switch from the present tense to the past tense and back again, a way of elegantly conveying ideas about the same person at two different stages of life. In the first two lines, the difference between his younger and older-self is expressed through the contrast between cold and heat . In the present day, older-Thom wakes up cold. Dig a little deeper into this word: negative connotations include fear (we shiver with fear, for example) and perhaps loneliness (one can be ‘left out in the cold’) an idea that surfaces later in the poem. The word residue is also an important link between the past and present. On one hand it directly refers to the residue of his sweat soaking into his bed sheet; on the other hand, residue means ‘traces of something left behind,’ much as his present-day self contains the regret-soaked memories of his past. Waking up suddenly, covered in sweat , heart beating fast, and tangled up in a bedsheet is something that most people have experienced at least once in their lives, so we should understand sweat as the central symbol of a chilling, mortal fear that paralyses one in the prime of life.

The fearless, uninhibited way he used to embrace life’s challenges can be seen through other examples of diction ; when he writes about his younger self, he tends to use positive diction such as prospered , meaning he felt like his ‘get up and go’ attitude to life was successful. The poem reveals his sexual journey of discovery without ever being explicit. The phrase I grew as I explored the body and the word adored suggest coming into his own sexual identity. Heat connotes passion, and a world of wonders describes a time when Thom was filled with confidence and curiosity. He used to be robust (strong), fearless and ignorant of dangerous consequences – in fact, when he says risk that made robust he admits that he lived life according to the maxim ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. Poetically, the confidence of youth is evoked through one or two regular sound patterns, most noticeably full rhymes such as who/residue, heat/sheet, and shield/healed, arranged in a strong and certain ABAB AA pattern. Complimenting the rhyme scheme is alliteration : a w orld of w onders and the r isk that made r obust use this technique to strengthen the feeling of self-assuredness Thom had in his own strength and infallibility.

Now, though, Thom has changed his outlook. He regrets his flagrant disregard for danger, directly using the word sorry in verse five. After all, several of his friends died during the AIDS pandemic and he has come to fear death, which he feels is shadowing him closely. It’s clear that where his younger self was fearless, he now lives in constant anxiety. Look at some of the words and images presented in the present tense to feel fear and desperation pulsing under the surface. Clinging , for example, has the connotation of hanging on desperately; is his clinging sheet protecting him or is it stifling him like a shroud? Of course, sweat is the defining symbolism of the poem; while night sweats are a symptom of AIDS, Thom himself remained HIV-negative, so this is not necessarily an image of infection. Rather, Thom’s poem reveals a young person who suddenly realises he has been exposed in some way to the danger of infection. Given the number of times he uses the word I and my ( I is the first word of the poem) it’s likely that Thom is using the personal voice . However, we should be mindful that the speaker of a poem is not always the poet himself; in this case, in an act of solidarity with those stricken by AIDS, Thom may be using the invented voice of a young man who has received a positive diagnosis.

His overwhelming fear derives from the understanding that his body, rather than being indestructible, was, all along, fragile and vulnerable to harm. His naïve belief in his own youthful infallibility has been stripped away by the reality of disease in the world around him. In his younger days, he metaphorically thought of his body as a shield , protecting his inner self from harm. Given this is not a long poem, it’s surprising how many different words he uses for his own body: shield, skin, flesh, hands and body itself all feature in the poem. A shield is tough and impenetrable, where skin and flesh are soft and easily damaged. As a young man, Thom felt like Wolverine, able to recover from any injury: where it was gashed, it healed . Now, however, Thom fears that his body is irreparably weakened, as AIDS weakens the immune system, making the body more vulnerable to other illnesses. He says: the given shield was cracked… my flesh reduced and wrecked . The more his fear overcomes him, the more Thom disrupts the established patterns of his poetry, forming the impression that something is wrong with his adult self. These disruptions are especially pronounced in verse five. While the poem rhymes regularly, notice that verse five subtly changes the quality of rhyming words, using half-rhymes instead of the full-rhymes we have come to expect: sorry/worry and cracked/wrecked . Also called slant-rhymes , half-rhymes are created when either the consonant or the vowel sound is the same – but not both. In the words cr ack ed/wr eck ed , for example, the consonant sound (CK) rhymes, but the vowel sounds (A and E) do not. Where full-rhymes could be said to characterise the confidence and fearlessness of youth, half-rhymes sound less assured and not at all confident. He does the same with rhythm and meter . The poem largely unfolds in lines of iambic trimeter , where each line features three pairs of syllables arranged in an unstressed-stressed pattern. The most obvious variation occurs in the two lines ending sorry and hurry where he employs a technique called catalexis to extend each line by a single, unstressed syllable. Here’s what verse five looks like with stressed beats marked and extra syllables bracketed:

Whereas up until now every line ended on a stressed beat (called rising rhyme ), you can see these two lines ending on a weaker, less assured note called falling rhyme . Moreover, the poem begins to employ harder, more painful alliterative sounds , such as plosive B in I cannot b ut b e sorry , and a series of strong gutturals (hard G, C and CK sounds) in the words c annot, g iven, c ra ck ed and wre ck ed . One of the poem’s most subtle effects is the depiction of emotional fear in physical concrete images : sweat-soaked sheets, a cracked shield, gashes and lesions on the skin. The formal elements of verse five blend well with the tactile images to evoke the fear of bodily harm that is undermining Thom’s confidence so profoundly.

Having established his overwhelming fear, the final three verses explore the effect of fear on Thom’s present and future self. The poem links our psychological strength with our physical strength very effectively, asking how much a healthy mind depends upon a healthy body. In verse five, this relationship is strongly implied through the juxtaposition of two lines with identical grammatical structures, creating a parallelism : My mind reduced to hurry, My flesh reduced and wrecked. While his flesh, his shield, is a physical object, its weakening affects his mind before his body begins to exhibit any symptoms. Where before he was an active participant in the world, now he seems incapable of completing simple tasks, such as dealing with his sweat-stained bedsheets: I have to change the bed, but catch myself instead . Fear has paralysed him. The seventh verse presents an extended image of himself frozen in time ( stopped upright ), ramrod straight, hugging my body to me as if to shield it . It’s not really his body that is failing, but his mind, his confidence and that feeling of infallibility. He’s become acutely aware of his own fragility, consumed by thoughts of the pains that will go through me. In another subtle change, this line employs future tense ( will ) for the first time; will is an example of a modal verb whose job is to express degrees of probability. A very strong-and-certain word, will expresses the certainty (less certain modals are ‘may,’ ‘might’ or ‘could’) of pain in his near future – whether physical, psychological or both. While Thom was to remain HIV-negative, he could not have known this at the time he was writing. Contracting HIV would result in considerable physical pain, and that’s on top of psychic trauma and the emotional pain of losing one’s closest friends to the virus. Consider how the phrase hugging my body to me implies that he is completely alone, as if his friends have already gone. In a wider sense, this also reminds us of how the gay community were abandoned by wider society during this time of need.

Thom ends the poem with an image of helplessness in the face of destructive forces that are simply too large to avoid and too strong to resist. The final line features an onrushing avalanche that stands in as a metaphor for the oncoming AIDS pandemic. Thom stands in front of the avalanche with only his hands to shield him, resigned to the knowledge that they are not, and have never been, enough to hold back the onrushing storm. Not only is the image pitiable, but his tone of voice is leaden and resigned, as if he’s had all the fight beaten out of him by the knowledge he’s acquired. Once again, sound plays a huge part in conveying the emotion of the scene. Where the second half of the poem has employed mostly half-rhymes, the final couplet returns to using full rhyme ( enough/off ), giving the end of the poem a sense of certainty and inevitability: the avalanche is coming and there’s no way to protect oneself. And Thom subtly alters his patterns of alliteration and consonance ( alliteration repeats letters at the beginning of words; consonance repeats letters anywhere in the words) too, dropping most of the gutturals that accompanied his images of pain and employing a mix of aspirant and fricative sounds instead. Made with the letters H, V, F and GH, these sounds suggest the avalanche is rumbling closer, and also transmit the strong emotions of the speaker, as his breath is either exhaled or forced out of the mouth. You can find aspirant in the words h ands and h old and fricatives in the words a v alanche, i f , enou gh and o ff .

In other literary genres, particularly tragedies on stage, anagnorisis describes the moment a hero realises the truth about himself, the people around him, or the world in which he lives. Tragedy happens when this moment of realisation arrives too late: thankfully, this was not the case for Thom – but it was for many of his friends. So his poem encourages us to consider how we might act in a world that contains lurking dangers, not always visible, but around us nevertheless.

Suggested poems for comparison:

Lament by Thom Gunn

Written after being with a friend in hospital as he died of AIDS, this poem is about how to cope and come to terms with the heartbreaking grief of this daily reality.

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

One of the defining protest poems of an era, Ginsberg’s poem is, quite literally, a howl of anger and grief at the injustices of the Beat generation. Dedicated to Carl Solomon, a friend who was placed in a mental asylum.

Hospital Writing Workshop by Rafael Campo

If you read literature to try to see the world through the eyes of others, you’ll love this poem by a writer who sees writing as a tool for empathy and healing. Set in a hospital ward for chronic and critical patients, the speaker reflects on a writing workshop he just gave, and what it means for the patients – and for himself.

Additional Resources

If you are teaching or studying The Man with Night Sweats at school or college, or if you simply enjoyed this analysis of the poem and would like to discover more, you might like to purchase our bespoke study bundle for this poem. It costs only £2 and includes:

Study Questions with guidance on how to answer in full paragraphs.
A sample ‘Point-Evidence-Explanation-Analysis’ paragraph to model analytical essay writing.
An interactive and editable powerpoint, giving line-by-line analysis of all the poetic and technical features of the poem.
An in-depth worksheet with a focus on explaining how Thom used rhyme in this poem.
A fun crossword quiz, perfect for a starter activity, revision or a recap – now with answers provided separately.
A four-page activity booklet that can be printed and folded into a handout – ideal for self study or revision.
4 practice Essay Questions – and one complete Model Essay for you to use as a style guide.

And… discuss!

Did you enjoy this breakdown of Thom Gunn’s poem? What was your take on the fear that seems so overwhelming in the poem? How did you interpret the avalanche at the end? Why not share your ideas, ask a question, or leave a comment for others to read below. For nuggets of analysis and all-new illustrations, find and follow Poetry Prof on Instagram.

The Man with Night Sweats

Thom Gunn has in an interview described himself as a cold poet and the scene in “The Man with Night Sweats” is cold, physically and also in the situation the persona finds himself in where he learns the cold truth that his body may not be as invincible as he thought it was.

” His body is becoming just a “residue”, of what it was before, or what he thought his body used to be. “My flesh was it’s own shield/ Where it gashed, it healed.” and for this reason, he failed to take care of it because he believed it could take care of itself regardless and so he became too careless with how he treated it.

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” He was unable to stop and “adored” being promiscuous so much and he thought, since he could still “trust” his body, why not take it a little further? He found a thrill in every “risk” taken and it became addictive with “Each challenge to the skin.” Like smoking a cigarette, knowing very well, or ignoring the fact that, by doing so he was increasing the risk of contracting what he ends up with now.

The irony is that he can barely take care of his body which can now barely take care of him and so they are both “reduced and wrecked.” He has now become less than he ever was – “reduced”.

Having enjoyed all that, he “cannot be sorry” over his experiences, but he does say this poem with a tone of regret as to how his body ends up. As he deteriorated, “[his] mind reduced to hurry” He realizes that he could be reaching the end of the road and he is living too fast. Something that happens as we approach the end. His “given shield was cracked.” He cannot contain “shield [his body] from/ The pains that will run through [him]” but even then, he is “Hugging [his] body to [himself]” as a defence mechanism from the pain that comes and then he realizes the “hands [are not] enough/ To hold an avalanche off.”

The persona uses the word “shield” a lot in the poem, emphasizing on protection and his need for protection. When he has it, he failed to take care of it or appreciate it and now he loses it and tries to give himself some protection but is unable to do so. The magnitude of the pain also is very high as attributes it to “an avalanche.”

The sixth stanza to part of the seventh stanza, “I have to change the bed/ But catch myself instead/ Stop upright where I am” could also imply his trying to stop himself from risking any further. Just as he is about to go sleep with another person – “change the bed”, he “catch[es] himself instead” before taking another risk.

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The Man with Night Sweats by Thom Gunn - Lesson and 1000 Word Model Essay - CIE Poetry iGCSE 2023-25

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

9 April 2024

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The PowerPoint includes: mindmapping the title, comprehension questions for every line, a variety of activities, line by line analysis, contextual information, rhyme scheme, essay questions, criteria, and an example colour-coded paragraph. Also, I have included a link to my YouTube analysis and a 1000 word essay. It is very thorough and detailed, easy to follow, and with logical animations. It will take between two and three hours to cover fully.

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Songs of Ourselves - Volume 1 Part 4 - CIE 2023-25 - All Poems Analysed

Here you will find a detailed PowerPoint presentation for every single poem in the new iGCSE syllabus. In addition, there is a selection of 1000-word model essays responding to a variety of the poems to share with students. In other lessons, there are model paragraphs, colour-coded for clarity. Some of the poems have a supplementary YouTube video where I have broken down the poems for students to revise at home (more videos to come soon). The lessons have a very wide range of activities to engage students, and most poems have either line by line questions or line by line annotations (or both). This is all you need to be prepared to teach these 15 poems. I have also included a 16th poem (The Bay) that could be used as an "unseen" exam example. I have also made a full anthology for easy printing. Poems covered here are: 1. The City Planners 2. The Planners 3. The Man With Night Sweats 4. Night Sweat 5. Rain 6. The Spirit Is Too Blunt An Instrument 7. From Long Distance 8. Funeral Blues 9. He Never Expected Much 10. The Telephone Call 11. A Consumer's Report 12. Request To A Year 13. On Finding A Small Fly Crushed In A Book 14. Ozymandias 15. Away, Melancholy 16. Bonus Poem (The Bay) 17. Full Printable Anthology (PDF)

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Avrilwellwood

Great resource. Thanks for sharing. Great resources, annotations & analysis. Clear examples given.

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Awesome SOW, excellent annotations and saved me a lot of time as a first time teacher of CIE! Thank you!

Clear, comprehensive and classroom ready. Excellent resource which can be used immediately or adapted into your own lessons. After this difficult year I do not have the time nor energy to prep all this before next term. This has saved me a ton of stress.

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The Man with Night Sweats

Critical Analysis and Interpretation of “The Man with Night Sweats” by Thom Gunn.

The persona is suffering from AIDS and as it can be seen, his body is slowly deteriorating. He “wake[s] up cold” in the middle of the night, unable to contain the pain and restlessness - “Night Sweats” - and begins remembering his past when “[he]…prospered through dreams of heat”, implying a past of promiscuity and how now he “Wake[s] to their residue/ Sweat, and a clinging sheet.” His body is becoming just a “residue”, of what it was before, or what he thought his body used to be. “My flesh was it’s own shield/ Where it gashed, it healed.” and for this reason, he failed to take care of it because he believed it could take care of itself regardless and so he became too careless with how he treated it.

This is a preview of the whole essay

While he was sure his body was invincible, he took the carelessness too far, he “grew as [he] explored/ The body [he] could trust/ All the while [he] adored/ The risk that made robust/ A world of wonders in/ Each challenge to the skin.” He was unable to stop and “adored” being promiscuous so much and he thought, since he could still “trust” his body, why not take it a little further? He found a thrill in every “risk” taken and it became addictive with “Each challenge to the skin.” Like smoking a cigarette, knowing very well, or ignoring the fact that, by doing so he was increasing the risk of contracting what he ends up with now.

The irony is that he can barely take care of his body which can now barely take care of him and so they are both “reduced and wrecked.” He has now become less than he ever was - “reduced”.

The sixth stanza to part of the seventh stanza, “I have to change the bed/ But catch myself instead/ Stop upright where I am” could also imply his trying to stop himself from risking any further. Just as he is about to go sleep with another person - “change the bed”, he “catch[es] himself instead” before taking another risk.

Document Details

Word Count 599
Page Count 1
Level AS and A Level
Subject English

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Night Sweat: Analysis and Poetic Devices

Robert Lowell

Line-by-Line Analysis and Literary Devices

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Night Sweat

The PDF has the following essays: 1. Explore some of the ways in which the poets use imagery to vivid effect in Night Sweats. (456 words) 2. In what ways does Lowell powerfully portray the speaker’s anxieties in the poem ‘Night Sweat’? (413 words) 3. To what extent does the poet present a positive portrayal of relationships in the poem ‘Night Sweat’? (505 words) 4. How does the poet use language and structure to enhance the emotional impact of “Night Sweat”? (440 words) 5. Ten probable questions with one essay outline.

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litter – papers on the floor suggesting the speaker’s frustration at his inability to write.

standing lamp – lamp might be a metaphor for inspiration and standing insinuates a lack of progress.

plain things – everyday objects.

my stalled equipment – an appliance or tool that has stopped working. It might refer to his pen or pencil that is lying still on the table as he is unable to write. As he stresses “my”, it might even be a metaphor for his mind that has stopped functioning.

old broom – “old” might suggest the inability of the broom to clean the stagnation or the “litter” of the speaker’s mind.

In the first three lines, the poetic persona gives us a glimpse of his private space where he writes and which might also function as his bedroom. The image is that of a modest workspace. There is a table where he writes; “litter” might refer to the pages that have been torn out of frustration; books, a lamp for his table, “stalled equipment” (might refer to his pen), and “the old broom”. After describing an assortment of things in his workspace he uses the conjunction “but” to state that he lives in a “tidied room”. This might mean that the workspace is symbolic of his cluttered mind while as a corporeal being, he exists in a neat and organized place.

ten nights – suggest that the speaker might be suffering from insomnia associated with anxiety creeping damp – sweat has been personified

wilted white – consonance

The speaker has been suffering from insomnia associated with the anxiety of literary ambition (as revealed in line 8). His mind is cluttered and his creative flow has come to a standstill. He can feel beads of sweat soaking and staining his white pajamas.

Sweet salt – consonance, oxymoron, refers to sweat.

embalms – anoint

The speaker is sweating profusely. He senses that not only his head has dampened but he too is suffused with sweat.

life’s fever – a metaphor for the speaker’s poetic ambition

wring us dry – squeezed out his vigor

The reason for anxiety-driven insomnia and sweating as the speaker reveals eventually is his overwhelming poetic ambition. The speaker believes in the identity of life and poetry, and “if the writing grew out of the life, so the life was consumed by the writing, as a fire eats up its fuel” (Kirsch 248). The speaker elucidates how the burden of time and struggle for existence has progressively enervated him and left him “dry” or without inspiration.

One has to brood a little over the above two lines as, though the child inside the speaker is dead yet his “will to die” prevails. Here, death is not literal but rather metaphorical standing for the speaker’s craving for maturity, wisdom, and knowledge.

Urn – a tall, rounded vase with a stem and base, especially one used for storing the ashes of a cremated person.

The body of the poet is one with the universe and it is symbolic of an urn that retains his spirit that burns with feverish literary ambition.

The second section begins with the exclamations “Behind me! You!” as the speaker is jolted out of his self-doubts by the sudden appearance of another person in the room. The volta is also marked by the night rolling into dawn. This marks a change in the speaker’s attitude as he salvages the vitality to open his fatigued eyes. The gloomy ruminations symbolized by the “gray skulled horses” seek shelter in the dark night.

dabble – immerse oneself

dapple – the spot of light

seamy – unpleasant

The use of the word “dapple” seems to be a conscious parody of Hopkins. Hopkins often used the imagery of “dappled things” in spiritual terms evoking god’s relationship to his creation, the world. The speaker of Pied Beauty (“Glory be to God for dappled things”) or the speaker of The Windhover (dapple dawn drawn) praises God’s glory as Hopkins believed nature to be an expression of God’s grandeur; but Lowell’s use of the word does not suggest any interrelation with the Divine, rather idle feelings of relief as the warm sunlight spills on his bed and damp clothes.

The comforting presence of his wife and daughter relieves his burden of creativity and brightens his day. While referring to his child’s untamed energy he uses the metaphor of exploding dynamite. But the evanescence of the explosion as well as the dappled sunlight scarcely grants any guarantee of steady light or creative renewal. The forlorn figure of the night is energized by his wife whose very presence in the room is enough to clean his psychic space of the spider’s webs.

In the very next line, he addresses her as “Poor turtle, tortoise” as he is ruefully aware of his wife’s suffering due to the neurotic episodes he manifests. Both turtle and tortoise are totem animals and potent symbols of endurance and protection; the turtle in Hindu mythology supports the earth on its back. The speaker addresses his wife as “Dear Heart” and surrenders to her entirely to draw him out of the bouts of melancholy.

Kirsch, Adam. “One Life, One Writing.” Poetry , vol. 186, no. 3, 2005, pp. 248–54. JSTOR , http://www.jstor.org/stable/20607040. Accessed 25 Jan. 2023 .
Axelrod, Steven Gould. “Robert Lowell and Hopkins.” Twentieth Century Literature , vol. 31, no. 1, 1985, pp. 55–72. JSTOR , https://doi.org/10.2307/441221. Accessed 29 Jan. 2023 .
Poetry Prof: https://poetryprof.com/night-sweat/
LitCharts: https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/robert-lowell/night-sweat
Poem Analysis: https://poemanalysis.com/robert-lowell/night-sweat/
English Summary: https://englishsummary.com/night-sweat-poem-by-robert-lowell-summary-notes-and-line-by-line-explanation-in-english-for-students/

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