Lesson video

Hi everyone, and welcome to today's lesson.

We're making really great progress through our highwayman unit so far, and today we're going to be looking at stanzas five and six.

In today's lesson, you will be able to analyse and understand the events in stanzas five and six of The Highwayman.

Here are some key words we are going to be using.

Narrative poem.

Buildup.

Stanza.

Analyse.

Well done.

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.

The buildup introduces the storyline for some main characters, and begins to set up a problem or situation that will build in tension.

A stanza is a part of a poem consisting of two or more lines grouped together.

To analyse is to study something in detail, to understand its meaning.

Today we're going to be analysing stanzas five and six of The Highwayman.

We're going to begin by analysing stanza five, and then we'll move on to analysing stanza six.

Throughout this unit, we've been basing our writing on Alfred Noyes' narrative poem, The Highwayman.

The Highwayman is set in rural England in the 18th century.

That means it's set in the countryside in England.

Here's a summary of what we've written so far.

So stanzas one and two describe the setting and the highwayman.

And these form the basis of our setting and character description in our narrative writing.

We've done that.

Then we moved on to stanza three and four.

Stanza three was all about Bess, and this formed part one of the buildup.

Stanza four was all about Tim the Ostler, and this formed part two of the buildup.

We've written both of these parts as well.

Now we're gonna be focusing on stanzas five and six.

Today we're analysing both stanzas, but let's start with stanza five.

Let's review stanzas one to four of The Highwayman.

Let's read it together.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

"The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

"The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.

"And the highwayman came riding, riding, riding.

"The highwayman came riding up to the old inn door.

"He'd a French-cocked hat on his forehead, "a bunch of lace at his chin.

"A coat of the claret velvet "and breeches of brown doe-skin.

"They fitted with never a wrinkle.

"His boots were up to the thigh.

"And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, "his pistol butts a-twinkle, "his rapier hilt a-twinkle under the jewelled sky.

"Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed "in the dark inn-yard.

"He tapped with his whip on the shutters, "but all was locked and barred.

"He whistled a tune to the window, "and who should be standing there, "but the landlord's black-eyed daughter, "Bess, the landlord's daughter, "plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"And dark in the dark old inn-yard, a stable wicked creaked.

"Where Tim the ostler listened, "his face was white and peaked.

"His eyes were hollows of madness, "his hair like mouldy hay, "but he loved the landlord's daughter, "the landlord's red lipped daughter, "dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say." Now before we move on to looking at stanza five, let's match the stanzas to their topics.

Pause the video while you do that.

Well done if you remembered that stanza one was all about the setting, stanza two was about the highwayman, stanza three was about Bess, and stanza four was about Tim.

Think back to the prediction you made about what the highwayman would say to Bess.

At the end of our lesson where we analysed stanza four, we made some predictions.

We used some of these sentence scaffolds, such as, "I predict that the highwayman will ask, "or that the highwayman will tell, "or that he will say," have a think back.

Can you remember what you thought he might say? Take a moment.

Okay, now we're going to read stanza five, and we can find out whether your predictions were correct.

Now we're going to read and analyse stanza five of The Highwayman.

Let's read it together.

"One kiss my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight, "but I shall be back with the yellow gold "before the morning light.

"Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, "then look for me by moonlight, "watch for me by moonlight, "I'll come to thee by moonlight, "though Hell should bar the way." Take a moment to really reread this stanza on your own.

and see if you can work out the gist of what the highwayman is saying to Bess.

Don't worry if you don't know all of the words, but if you were to summarise it in your own words, do you have a rough idea of what he's saying here? I'm going to read the stanza again.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, "I'm after a prize tonight.

"But I shall be back with the yellow gold "before the morning light.

"Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, "then look for me by moonlight.

"Watch for me by moonlight.

"I'll come to thee by moonlight, "though hell should bar the way." Now, let's analyse the language and break it down into language that we might use a little bit more in modern English.

So, "One kiss my bonny sweetheart." Bonny means beautiful, and sweetheart is like a pet name for someone that you love.

So we might say, in our own words, it would be "One kiss, my beautiful love." "I'm after a prize tonight," now remember, what is a highwayman? A highwayman is a robber who robs travellers when they're travelling across large, vast, empty spaces like moors.

So "I'm after a prize tonight" means I'm off to go and rob someone tonight, on the moor.

"But I shall be back with the yellow gold "before the morning light," so he's gonna go and steal yellow gold, money, from some travellers who are travelling across the moor, but I'll bring it back to you, before the morning light, when the morning, when the light starts to illuminate the sky in the morning, we would call that dawn, or daybreak.

"Yet if they press me sharply," so they here, he's referring to guards or the police.

So if they chase me, if the police or the guards chase me through the day, so if they're on to me and there's a chase.

"And harry me through the day," that means just chase me through the day.

"Then look for me by moonlight," now we know that the moon comes out at nighttime.

So if I don't come to you by dawn, because I'm being chased by these guards and I'm on the run, then watch out for me at nighttime tomorrow night.

I'll come to you at nighttime.

"Though Hell should bar the way." That just means no matter what.

A common or a modern way of saying "Though hell should bar the way" might be a phrase like "Come hell or high water," you might have heard that phrase before.

So it basically means "No matter what happens, "I will be back by tomorrow night "and I'll bring the yellow gold "that I have robbed from this traveller on the moor." Now, pause the video while you match the words to their definitions.

Well done if you spotted that bonny is beautiful.

Thee means you, I'll come to the by moonlight means I'll come to you by moonlight.

Though Hell should by the way means no matter what happens.

Before the morning light means before dawn.

And look for me by moonlight means look for me at nighttime.

Now throughout this narrative poem, Alfred Noyes uses a range of figurative language and poetic devices to create atmosphere, and paint vivid imagery for the reader.

So, here are all examples of things he's done.

Metaphor.

Simile.

Personification.

Repetition.

Rhyme.

Alliteration.

Match the linguistic features of poetry to their definitions for your task.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Well done if you spotted that rhyme is when word endings sound the same.

Repetition is the repeating of key words and phrases.

Alliteration is when many words begin with the same letter.

Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the sounds that is describing.

Simile compares two things using like or as.

And metaphor compares two things by saying that one thing is another.

Now it's time for the second part of your task.

Circle and label one example of each of the poetic devices in stanza five of The Highwayman.

This time you're just looking for rhyme.

Repetition.

You'll notice that there are actually not as many poetic devices in this stanza, so there's not simile, for example.

But this stanza is quite unique from the rest, because in all of the other stanzas in the poem, the narrator is speaking and telling a story.

But in this stanza, stanza five, the highwayman is speaking.

So this is a monologue, this is one character speaking.

So the structure and the style of this stanza is just a bit different to all of the others.

So for your task now, you're going to circle and label one example of rhyme and one example of repetition.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Brilliant work everyone.

Rhyme, words, again, the exact same style as the other stanzas, the final word of each line is a rhyme.

So tonight rhymes with light and day rhymes with way.

So if you found either of those two rhyming pairs, super well done you.

Repetition, remember repeating of key words or phrases.

So, "For me by moonlight" or just "By moonlight" are examples of repetition.

Well done if you spotted those.

What a brilliant start, everyone, now that we've analysed stanza five, we're gonna move on to analysing stanza six.

So.

We have written our character description and our setting description.

We've written part one and part two, the buildup.

We've not analysed stanza five, where we now know that the highwayman was talking to Bess and we now know what he said.

Now we're going to analyse stanza six and find out what happens next.

So let's read and analyse stanza six of The Highwayman.

Let's read it together.

"He rose upright in the stirrups.

"He scarce could reach her hand.

"But she loosened her hair in the casement, "his face burnt like a brand.

"As the black cascade of perfume "came tumbling over his breast, "and he kissed its waves in the moonlight, "oh sweet black waves in the moonlight.

"Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight "and galloped away to the west." Now some of the vocabulary in this stanza might be unfamiliar, there's lots and lots of words here that we might not know.

First of all, stirrups.

Here's a picture of someone riding a horse with their feet in the stirrups.

So, whenever somebody rides a horse, they often have a saddle, which is like the seat that goes on the horse's back.

And then we've got these sort of loops that go either side of the saddle, for a horse rider to put their feet in.

So "He rose upright in the stirrups" means he stood up in his stirrups.

If you've ever cycled a bicycle and you stand up on the pedals, it's kind of a similar idea, but obviously this time, the highwayman's not riding a bicycle, he's riding a horse.

"She loosened her hair in the casement." So, we know from stanza three that Bess was plaiting her hair into a plait with a ribbon.

At this point, she loosens her hair.

That means she takes her hair out of its plait, or its braid.

And she lets it down from the window.

It gives me an image of almost something like Rapunzel.

You know, whenever the prince says "Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair." It's almost that sort of image in my head, where she's got this really long, black, beautiful hair, and she lets it down.

So the casement is the window.

She let her hair down from the window.

"The black cascade of perfume." So we know her hair is black.

Alfred Noyes is saying it's perfume, it's not actually perfume, this is an example of a metaphor, where her hair isn't actually perfume, but it smells so sweet it's as if it's perfume.

And cascade means waterfall.

So her hair fell down like a beautiful black sweet-smelling waterfall from the window, the casement.

"His face burnt like a brand," his face went bright red, like a hot iron.

So he blushed when she let her hair fall down, so that he could smell it.

"He scarce could reach her hand," that means he could barely reach her hand.

So remember, she's up in the top window of the inn, he's on his horse, he's stood up in his stirrups.

He's reaching up to try and reach her hand before he turns and leaves again.

But he can't because she's too high up.

So that's why she lets her hair down.

"It cascaded over his breast," just means his chest, so her hair was so, so long, it came all the way down from the window, it was cascading, it was falling over his shoulders and over his chest.

"He tugged on the rein," it means the rain is the part of, there's the bridle which goes over the horse's face.

And the reins are the leather straps that a horse rider holds in their hands, and it's a way for them to communicate with the horse.

So if they can guide the horse to turn left or right or to move by putting pressure on the reins.

"And galloped away to the west." So, he's on his horse, he's pulled the reins, he's turned and he's galloped away, means that his horse is running quickly, 'cause he's off to go and get the yellow gold, do that robbery on the moor now.

Now there's a lot of language here, so pause the video now while you match the words from stanza six to their definitions.

Pause the video while you do that.

Great work if you remembered that stirrups were loops for a horse rider to put their feet in attached to the saddle.

A casement is a window.

A cascade is a waterfall.

A brand is a hot iron or a poker.

Scarce means barely.

Breast means chest.

Rein is a long, narrow strap for a horse rider to hold onto and guide the horse with.

And galloped is a horse running fast.

And now it's time for your task.

Now you're going to circle and label one example of each of the linguistic features in stanza six of The Highwayman.

Rhyme, repetition, metaphor, simile, and alliteration.

So, you'll see that stanza five really was a bit of an anomaly compared to the other stanzas, now we're back out of the monologue or the speech, and it's back to the narrator telling the story, we've got that similar sort of style in this stanza with all of these different poetic devices being used.

So pause the video now while you complete your task.

Well done everyone.

So, here are some examples of rhyme, hand and brand, and breast and west, with two pairs of rhyming words.

Again, the repetition is in these final three lines, so waves in the moonlight and in the moonlight was the phrase that kept on being repeated here.

"His face burnt like a brand" is an example of simile, when we compare two things using like or as.

The black cascade of perfume.

You might have noticed I actually gave this one away earlier, but Bess's hair is not a waterfall of perfume, it's a metaphor, Alfred Noyes compared Bess's hair to say it looked and smelled like a black waterfall of perfume, because, the way it tumbled down from the window, and the way it smelled really sweet like perfume.

But it wasn't actually a black cascade of perfume, this is a metaphor.

And finally, we've got some alliteration, "His face burnt like a brand," so two key words there beginning with the letter B.

Well done if you spotted all of those poetic devices.

Well done everyone, and that now brings us on to the end of our lesson, where today we have been analysing stanzas five and six of The Highwayman.

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.

Different stanzas of the poem can be used to form the basis of a piece of narrative writing.

Analysing each stanza in depth allows us to fully understand the storyline, characters and vocabulary.

I hope you've really enjoyed this lesson, I really, really enjoyed making it and teaching it.