Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

Thank you very much for joining me.

I'm Mr. Blackburn.

Today, we're going to be looking at how Charlotte Smith uses language in her poem "To A Nightingale." But before we start, you'll need to make sure that you have a pen and paper, that you've turned off any notifications or things which might distract you, and if you can, you'll need to try and find somewhere quiet to work.

And once you've done all that, let's get started.

And here's what we're going to be doing today.

We'll start off by recapping everything you already know about the poem.

Then we'll start to think about rhetorical questions and how Charlotte Smith uses them in her poem.

Then we'll look at a piece of figurative language called symbolism, before tying everything together at the end, so you can show off how much knowledge you've gained today.

Let's start off, though, by doing a little quiz.

On your screen, there are four statements, but only one of them is true.

Which one is it? Is it option one, that "To A Nightingale" was written by Charlotte Baxter.

Is it option two, that "To A Nightingale" was written by William Wordsworth.

Is it option three, that "To A Nightingale" was written by Elizabeth Morris? Or option four, that "To A Nightingale" was written by Charlotte Smith? Three, two, one.

Hopefully you said Charlotte Smith.

That's the right answer.

Okay.

Some more options.

Which of these statements is true? The poem is written in a ballad form.

The poem is written in the form of a sonnet.

The poem is written as an epic poem.

Or the form of the poem is a lyric poem.

Three, two, one.

Hopefully you said that it's written in the form of a sonnet.

If you remember, there are 14 lines.

It follows a rhyme scheme.

It's written in a particular metre.

We know that it's a sonnet.

Okay, four more statements.

Which of these is true? The poem has a happy tone.

Option two, the poem has an optimistic tone.

Option three, the poem has a sad tone.

Or option four, the poem has an angry tone.

Three, two, one.

It has a sad tone, and if you remember what I told you about Charlotte Smith already, lots of her writing was about how sad she felt.

Four more statements.

Which one's true? The poem is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet.

The poem is an example of a Shakespearean sonnet.

The poem is an example of a Spencerian sonnet.

Or the poem is an example of a modern sonnet.

Three, two, one.

The answer is it's a Petrarchan sonnet, but it follows the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet.

Charlotte Smith didn't really necessarily write in either a Petrarchan or Shakespearean way.

She kind of made her own hybrid version of a sonnet.

But for the purposes of this lesson, we're going to assume that it's a Petrarchan sonnet.

Four more statements.

Which one's true? Option one, the volta is at the beginning of a poem.

Option two, the volta is the point of change in a poem.

Option three, the volta is the ending of the poem.

Or option four, the volta is part of the rhyme scheme.

Three, two, one.

If you said that it was the point of change in the poem, then excellent work.

Give yourself a point.

Excellent work.

I hope you got all of those answers right.

It doesn't matter if you didn't.

I'm sure we'll have another chance to revisit them.

Now we're going to look at rhetorical questions and the way that Charlotte Smith uses them in her poem.

First of all, we need to know what a rhetorical question is, and a rhetorical question is one which doesn't necessarily require an answer.

It's something that a poet or a writer might ask and they already know the answer.

So why are they asking it at all? It doesn't make any sense.

Well, of course, actually it's purposeful.

The poet and the writer have chosen to use it, and that's because a rhetorical question often emphasises a point that they're trying to make.

It draws our attention to a particular idea that they are putting forward in their writing, and it makes us think about it.

Here are some examples.

Is rain wet? Can birds fly? What's the point? I'm sure you've asked one of those at some point before.

Now we know the answer to them.

Is rain wet? Yes.

Can birds fly? Most of them.

What's the point? Well, we want to learn about poetry.

That's the point of this lesson.

We already know the answer to those questions.

So they're making us think about things.

I would probably argue that is rain wet is a slightly sarcastic answer to a question.

But when Charlotte Smith uses them in her poem, she's not using them for a sarcastic purpose.

She's using them to try and make us think about one thing in particular.

So let's have a look at this four-question quiz.

Which of these is a rhetorical question? Is that really the best you can do? How many vowels are in the alphabet? Which direction will take me to the city? Or who wrote "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"? One of them is a rhetorical question.

Which one? Three, two, one.

Hopefully you knew it was this one.

Is that really the best you can do? Now, you might have had that from your teachers or a football coach, or someone else before, when they're looking at a piece of work and they say, "Is that really the best you can do?" And the reason they ask a rhetorical question is because they know that, actually, there's room for improvement, and perhaps you can do something better.

So if you identified that as a rhetorical question, well done.

Next time you hear it, you can tell the person asking you that it's a rhetorical question.

And here's "To A Nightingale" again.

I'll read it to you, and as I do, I want you to see how many rhetorical questions you can find.

"Poor melancholy bird, that all night long tell'st to the moon thy tale of tender woe; from what sad cause can what sweet sorrow flow, and whence this mournful melody of song? Thy poet's musing fancy would translate what mean the sounds that swell thy little breast, when still at dewy eve thou leav'st thy little nest, thus to the listening night to sing thy fate.

Pale Sorrow's victims wery thou once among, though now released in woodlands wild to rove; say, hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong, or diedst thou, martyr of disastrous love? Ah, songstress sad, that such my lot might be; to sigh and sing at liberty, like thee!" How many rhetorical questions did you find? Well, I think there are two.

"From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow, and whence this mournful melody of song?" And, "Hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong, or diedst thou, martyr of disastrous love?" So let's have a closer look at these rhetorical questions.

"From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow, and whence this mournful melody of song?" Well, I think this is a really interesting rhetorical question, because there are two parts to it.

The first is this.

"Such sweet sorrow." And I think that Charlotte Smith is showing us a contrast between the sweet and happy sound of the bird's song and the sorrow it feels at not having its song answered.

So if you remember the poem, it's singing to the moon, but the moon can't talk back.

If it was talking to another nightingale, perhaps the nightingale could talk back to it, but it doesn't.

So this sweetness is the bird's song.

The sorrow is the bird's sadness at not being answered.

And then, this half of the question.

"Whence this mournful melody of song?" Now, whence means from where, and I think this part of the poem is Charlotte Smith asking why the bird, which has freedom, the bird, which is part of nature, the bird, which has none of the baggage that Charlotte Smith has to deal with might be so sad.

What could be making this nightingale so sad that, rather than flying away from its problems, it sits and sings to the moon? Charlotte Smith uses this rhetorical question to point out to us and maybe the nightingale that really the nightingale should be happy.

It has a carefree life.

She wonders why it's sad, to point out the fact it should be happy.

So we see another level of contrast here.

"Hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong, or diedst thou, martyr of disastrous love?" Now, what is Smith asking the nightingale here? She asks what made it sad, and she offers these reasons.

"Hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong." Have you friends being mean to you? "Or diedst thou, martyr of disastrous love?" A martyr is someone who dies for their beliefs.

Now, Charlotte Smith is saying to the nightingale, perhaps you're sad because your friends have been mean or you've fallen out of love with someone.

That's essentially what she's saying, without the poetic language.

I wonder if Charlotte Smith included this rhetorical question in her poem, because she's really asking it of herself.

If we remember what we know about Charlotte Smith and the fact that she was in a marriage which broke down, she had 10 children to look after, she had to support herself and her family through her writing, all the while she was living in a time period where many women had fewer rights than they do today.

So perhaps she's asking herself if these are some of the things that make her sad.

She's identifying with the nightingale and thinking of reasons for her own sadness.

All right.

What I'd like you to do here is pause the video and answer these three questions in full, grammatically correct sentences on your piece of paper.

What is a rhetorical question? Give an example of a rhetorical question, which Charlotte Smith asks in the Nightingale.

And what is Charlotte Smith asking when she writes, "Hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong?" Pause the video and come back when you're finished.

And here are my answers.

What's a rhetorical question? A rhetorical question is one which doesn't need an answer.

Give an example of a rhetorical question which Charlotte Smith asks the Nightingale.

An example of a rhetorical question which Smith asks is, "And whence this mournful melody of song?" What is Charlotte Smith asking when she writes, "Hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong?" Charlotte Smith is asking whether the bird has had its feelings hurt by its friends, in an attempt to understand why it is sad.

Your answers might look slightly different, and that's okay, but if you think there's some information in my answers which you'd like to add to your own, now is your chance to do it.

Excellent work, everyone.

I love thinking about what rhetorical questions might mean in poetry.

So you've done really well there.

Now we're going to move on to think about ideas of symbolism.

What is symbolism, you may well be asking.

Like metaphors and similes and personification, symbolism is a type of figurative language.

Figurative language is the type of language poets use to express their feelings and emotions, which is different to the type of language that you or I might use in everyday conversation.

Symbolism specifically is when a picture or an image represents a bigger idea, and we go through our lives surrounded by symbols, whether you realise it or not.

Here's what I'd like you to think about, an example of a symbol.

What does a red cross symbolise? I think it symbolises healthcare.

You see a red cross, you know that it's going to have something to do with healthcare.

So first aid kids generally have a red cross on the front.

And if you've been lucky enough to go abroad to a different country, you'll probably have noticed that this symbol means the same in most countries.

It makes it easy to identify where to seek healthcare, even if you don't speak the language of that country.

Let's put your symbol recognising skills to the test.

Here's a symbol.

What do you think it means? You can write it down or you can shout it out.

If you shout it out, I wouldn't be able to hear.

Three, two, one.

Well, obviously this symbol means there's a telephone.

It looks like a telephone.

It means there's a phone.

What about this symbol? What does this mean? Three, two, one.

This means no entry.

You'll probably have seen this on signs in lots of different buildings.

This means no entry.

But because there's one symbol which means no entry, we all recognise that.

What about this symbol? What does this mean? Three, two, one.

Well, it means happiness, doesn't it? You might use an emoji which represents happiness, and that is an example of a symbol.

Now, in "To A Nightingale," the nightingale itself is the symbol.

It's symbolic of Charlotte Smith.

It represents the way that she feels trapped, but wants to be free.

So when she's addressing the nightingale, she's actually addressing a symbolic version of herself.

We'll read the poem again, and I want you to see if you can spot where the nightingale becomes a symbol, and think about why Charlotte Smith views herself as this small, fragile, helpless bird.

So remember, as I read, see if you can spot examples of the nightingale symbolising Charlotte Smith.

"Poor melancholy bird, that all night long tell'st to the moon thy tale of tender woe; from what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow, and whence this mournful melody of song? Thy poet's musing fancy would translate what mean the sounds that swell thy little breast, when still at dewy eve thou leav'st thy nest, thus to the listening moon to sing thy fate.

Pale Sorrow's victims wert thou once among, though now released in woodlands wild to rove; say, hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong, or diedst thou, martyr of disastrous love? Ah, songstress sad, that such my lot might be; to sing and sigh at liberty, like thee!" Well, where do you think you found examples of symbolism? I'll show you what I think I found examples of symbolism.

Firstly, in the first two lines.

Two lines of poetry are called a couplet.

"Poor melancholy bird, that all night long tell'st to the moon thy tale tender of woe." What do I think that's symbolic of, though? Well, here, I think the bird, the nightingale represents the way which Charlotte Smith is feeling.

The symbolism is that Smith feels small, fragile, and melancholy.

So when she's describing the nightingale, she's really describing to us the way that she feels.

The next example of symbolism I think I found is in the final couplet.

"Ah, songstress sad, that such my lot might be; to sigh and sing at liberty, like thee!" Now, you'll notice the pause icon has popped up just there, and I want you to take a minute to think about what Charlotte Smith is saying in that couplet.

What does the nightingale symbolise that Smith wants, that she doesn't have? Pause the video.

Come back when you've got an answer.

Here's what I think that couplet symbolises.

The symbolism of being fragile is repeated and Smith reveals to us that she wants to be able to fly away and sing and be carefree, just like the nightingale is, but we know that she will never get her wish.

Excellent work so far.

You're doing really well.

And here's what I'd like you to do now.

I'd like you to answer these two questions on your piece of paper, in full sentences.

Come back once you finished.

Welcome back.

Here are my answers.

The first question, what is a symbol? A symbol is when an image represents an idea.

And the second question I asked, what does the nightingale symbolise for Charlotte Smith? My answer was, in her poem, Charlotte Smith imagines that the nightingale represents freedom and liberty, something which she feels she doesn't have.

You could also have written about the frigidity of the nightingale, or the fact that the nightingale feels trapped somehow.

Your answers might look different to mine, and that's okay.

If you think there's something in my answer, which is really good, you haven't included in yours, then now is the time to do it.

Excellent work, everyone.

Well done.

So today, we've looked at rhetorical questions and symbolism in Charlotte Smith's poem, and we've thought about the way that the symbolism of the nightingale reflects the way that Charlotte Smith feels about herself.

The last thing I'd like you to do today is take the quiz to prove to yourself how much you know about this poem now.

Well done for all of your hard work today.

Goodbye.