One Flesh edexcel 4-The-Poetry-Anthology

One Flesh

The Edexcel GCSE English Literature Relationships Anthology contains 15 poems. In your exam question, you will be given one poem – printed in full – and asked to compare this printed poem to another poem you have studied. You will not have access to the second poem in the exam. 

Rather than trying to remember every line of the comparison poem, you just need to revise and recall the key aspects of the poem. To get a top grade, focus on developing your understanding of:

• The meaning of the poem

• The ideas and messages of the poet 

• How the poet conveys these ideas through their methods

• How these ideas compare and contrast with the ideas of other poets in the anthology

Below is a guide to Elizabeth Jennings’s poem ‘One Flesh’, from the Edexcel Poetry Anthology. It includes:

• Overview: a breakdown of the poem, including its possible meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of the poet’s techniques and methods

• Context: an exploration of the context of the poem, relevant to its themes

• What to compare it to: ideas about which poems to compare it to in the exam

Overview

In order to answer an essay question on any poem, it is important to understand what it is about. This section includes:

• The poem in a nutshell

• A “translation” of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Elizabeth Jennings’s intention and message

‘Our Flesh’ in a nutshell

‘Our Flesh’, written by the poet Elizabeth Jennings, explores intimate romantic relationships. The poem also examines how familiarity in long relationships can create distances and divisions. 

‘Our Flesh’ breakdown

Lines 1–3

“Lying apart now, each in a separate bed, 

He with a book, keeping the light on late, 

She like a girl dreaming of childhood,”

Translation

• The poem describes a couple in their bedroom, but they are in their own beds

• The scene is intimate though; a light is on and the couple appear relaxed

Jennings’s intention

• Jennings’s poem explores a romantic relationship by depicting a private moment

• The use of third-person pronouns, though, creates a sense of detachment 

Lines 4–6

“All men elsewhere – it is as if they wait

Some new event: the book he holds unread,

Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.”

Translation

• The couple are isolated and distant from each other as “All men” are “elsewhere”:

  • This may suggest they feel alone or highlight the private nature of the scene

• They appear to be waiting for something to happen and are distracted

Jennings’s intention

• Jennings describes a couple who seem uneasy in their relationship:

  • They are each in their own world

• They seem isolated even though they are together

• The mention of “shadows overhead” creates an ominous tone

Lines 7–8

“Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,

How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,”

Translation

• These lines describe the way the relationship used to be, full of “passion”:

  • Their “former passion” has been “Tossed up”, implying it has been disturbed

• The speaker describes how “cool” the room is and that they are not close 

Jennings’s intention

• Jennings describes their earlier passion and intimacy to present a loving relationship 

• She shows how it has changed with contrasting words “passion” and “cool” and an ugly simile “like flotsam” (unwanted rubbish)

• The lines emphasise the distance between the couple with two short phrases in one line:

  • The speaker sounds saddened by the situation

Lines 9–10

“Or if they do it is like a confession

Of having little feeling – or too much.”

Translation

• These lines suggest that when the couple do touch it is uncomfortable:

  • This is implied with the contrasting ideas: “little” and “too much”

• The couple’s intimacy is compared to a “confession”:

  • This may suggest how intimacy makes each partner feel the “truth” about their love; perhaps it makes them see that their relationship has changed

Jennings’s intention

• Jennings uses religious imagery to connote, perhaps, to the disciplined, ritual-like way they touch each other

• The dash in the second line unsettles the mood and conveys imbalance 

Lines 11–12

“Chastity faces them, a destination

For which their whole lives were a preparation.”

Translation

• These lines refer to a future that is chaste, without sexual intimacy (“Chastity”)

• The speaker suggests that not only is it inevitable their relationship will become this way, but also that they prepared for it

Jennings’s intention

• Here, Jennings appears to imply the couple’s past has led to this moment

• There are various interpretations for this reference:

  • Perhaps Jennings is referring to marriage, or to the the cycle of life, or commenting on the couple’s lack of care for their relationship 

Lines 13–14

“Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,

Silence between them like a thread to hold”

Translation

• The speaker says that it is strange that their relationship has led them apart

• Referring to “Silence” implies a lack of communication

• The “thread” simile suggests their connection is thin

Jennings’s intention

• Here, Jennings highlights the poem’s message about loneliness in relationships

• These lines convey, with the repetition of “strangely”, the dichotomies of love

• Comparing their bond to a “thread” implies it is fragile

Lines 15–16

“And not wind in. And time itself’s a feather

Touching them gently. Do they know they’re old,”

Translation

• Here, the poet describes time metaphorically as a feather to suggest to its soft and ephemeral qualities

• This implies the process of ageing is barely noticeable (time is “Touching them gently”)

• The poet seems to question whether the couple have noticed the changes

Jennings’s intention

• Jennings comments on the process of getting old to describe the way the relationship changes without the couple’s knowledge, and to explore the way love alters over time

Line 17–18

“These two who are my father and my mother

 Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?”

Translation

• The speaker tells readers that the poem is describing their parents

• The speaker asks how a passionate “fire” that creates life can become “cold”:

  • This means that the speaker (their child) was born from their love

Jennings’s intention

• Jennings uses the symbolism of “fire” to reflect the parents’ past passion 

• This is contrasted with “cold” to show the changes in the relationship 

• The poem’s ending raises questions about changing relationships, especially marriage

Writer’s methods

Although this section is organised into three separate sections – form, structure and language – it is important to take an integrated approach, focusing on the main themes and ideas of the poem and then evaluating how Jennings’s choices of language, structure and form contribute to these ideas. In essence, how and why the poet has made the choices they have, in relation to their intentions and message. 

Focusing on the poet’s main ideas, rather than individual poetic techniques, will gain you far more marks. In the below sections, all analysis is arranged by theme, and includes Jennings’s intentions behind her choices in terms of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

The form of ‘One Flesh’ conveys ideas about close and constant romantic relationships. However, Jennings presents an established relationship that seems distant and cold. 

Structure

The structure of the poem represents the conventional and constant nature of marriage. However, it is the speaker’s voice that conveys the emotion that is missing in the parents’ relationship. 

Language

The poem combines contrasting imagery with phrases that mirror each other to examine the contradictory nature of marriage. Its title alludes to religious ideals of marriage. 

Context

The best way to understand and comment on context in this poem is to explore the ideas and perspectives Jennings explores in ‘One Flesh’: 

• Complex love

• Romantic relationships

Complex love 

• Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001) was a prolific and celebrated twentieth-century English poet who published twenty-six collections of poetry and won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1955

• Jennings was inspired by Victorian poet Gerald Manley Hopkins:

  • Both were strict Catholics and suffered from mental illness and depression 

  • This may have contributed to the spiritual themes and religious imagery in Jennings’s poems

  • One of her poetry collections, The Mind Has Mountains, published in 1966, contains a line from Hopkins’s mournful poem ‘No worst, there is none’

  • ‘One Flesh’ appears in this 1966 collection and has a similarly melancholic tone 

  • Its gloomy rhetorical question in the last line presents a desperate speaker who finds little comfort in the inevitability of the distance in their parent’s marriage 

• Elizabeth Jennings was the only female poet to be included in The Movement, a group of English poets whose work took on anti-romantic ideas using traditional conventions: 

  • The poem ‘One Flesh’ uses a regular structure and traditional conventions such as iambic pentameter, and it uses archaic references like “Chastity”

  • However, this is juxtaposed with more banal, everyday references such as “He with a book”

• Jennings’s poetry often conveys darker undercurrents in traditional relationships: 

  • ‘One Flesh’ acknowledges how “strangely” their relationship has evolved 

Romantic relationships 

• While Elizabeth Jennings grew up during World War II, her poetry reflects the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s (when most of her poetry, including this poem, was written)

• In this way, Jennings’s poetry may reflect the changing landscape in post-war Britain, a time of rebellion from the establishment and the rise of popular culture

• Experimental poets of the time advocated for civil rights and feminism using unconventional styles to deviate from tradition

• However, it has been argued that Jennings reflects a portion of society that looked for constancy instead, in a bid to restore their faith in established ideas:

  • The poem ‘One Flesh’ presents a disillusioned speaker who seems to question their parents’ marriage

• Although the 1960s brought new freedom regarding female sexuality, traditional members of