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    Elizabeth Jennings The Enemies

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    Jeffery Edosa Ize-Iyamu
    The poem describes an invasion of strangers entering a city at night. In the morning, the townspeople are filled with stories of the invasion but the strangers did not provide a reason for their arrival. While peace remains, the city feels haunted and the people speak cautiously to each other and old friends, with no warmth, as each wonders if the strangers have infiltrated their minds.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Elizabeth Jennings The Enemies

    Uploaded by

    Jeffery Edosa Ize-Iyamu
    1K views20 pages
    The poem describes an invasion of strangers entering a city at night. In the morning, the townspeople are filled with stories of the invasion but the strangers did not provide a reason for their arrival. While peace remains, the city feels haunted and the people speak cautiously to each other and old friends, with no warmth, as each wonders if the strangers have infiltrated their minds.

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    English Literature - Poetry

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    Elizabeth-Jennings-The-Enemies

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    The poem describes an invasion of strangers entering a city at night. In the morning, the townspeople are filled with stories of the invasion but the strangers did not provide a reason for their arrival. While peace remains, the city feels haunted and the people speak cautiously to each other and old friends, with no warmth, as each wonders if the strangers have infiltrated their minds.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    1K views20 pages

    Elizabeth Jennings The Enemies

    Uploaded by

    Jeffery Edosa Ize-Iyamu
    The poem describes an invasion of strangers entering a city at night. In the morning, the townspeople are filled with stories of the invasion but the strangers did not provide a reason for their arrival. While peace remains, the city feels haunted and the people speak cautiously to each other and old friends, with no warmth, as each wonders if the strangers have infiltrated their minds.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 20

    The Enemies

    Elizabeth Jennings
    1955
    Read the poem

    • First read silently to yourself


    • Then read the poem aloud around the class, stopping at
    each punctuation mark.
    • Notice where the pauses are, and where the pace
    changes.
    First
    impressions
    Share your first responses to the
    poem.
    The Enemies

    • Last night they came across the river and


    Entered the city. Women were awake
    With lights and food. They entertained the band,
    Not asking what the men had come to take
    Or what strange tongue they spoke
    Or why they came so suddenly through the land
    • Now in the morning all the town is filled
    With stories of the swift and dark invasion;
    The women say that not one stranger told
    A reason for his coming. The intrusion
    Was not for devastation:
    Peace is apparent still on hearth and field.
    • Yet all the city is a haunted place.
    Man meeting man speaks cautiously. Old friends
    Close up the candid looks upon their face.
    There is no warmth in hands accepting hands;
    Each ponders, 'Better hide myself in case
    Those strangers have set up their homes in minds
    I used to walk in. Better draw the blinds
    Even if the strangers haunt in my own house'.
    Delving deeper

    • Read the poem again, annotating anything you find


    • Interesting
    • Puzzling
    • Incomprehensible
    • Share with your neighbour
    Exploring themes
    • Watch the following videos and note down themes that characterise the
    1950s

    • How do you think these relate to the title?


    Sci-Fi: Fears in the Fifties
    It’s a Deadly world
    …with Deadly enemies!

    • Watch the James Bond Trailer: 1954

    • What made this so popular? What kinds of


    Enemies feature in the Ian Fleming’s work?
    Why?
    Fear of Communism
    The nuclear Threat
    Threat to the hearth and home
    Analytical tasks: in small groups explore the link
    with the theme of fear in the following devices:
    a) Pronouns and subjects
    b) Form, rhyme scheme and meter
    c) Structure and contrasts
    d) Settings and Imagery
    e) Diction (choice of words) and Title
    Look
    carefully at
    The Enemies subjects and
    pronouns:
    What do you
    • Last night they came across the river and notice?
    Entered the city. Women were awake
    Rhyme:The
    With lights and food. entertained the band, rhyme scheme
    follows loose
    Not asking what the men had come to take rhyme ababba:
    What is the
    Or what strange tongue they spoke effect of this
    Or why they came so suddenly through the land form?
    The poem is
    syllabic:each
    stanza follows
    the pattern:
    10/10/10/10/6
    /11: effect?
    • Now in the morning all the town is filled
    With stories of the swift and dark invasion;
    The women say that not one stranger told :Notice the
    A reason for his coming. The intrusion contrast between
    the latinate words
    Was not for devastation: and the
    Anglosaxon words:
    Peace is apparent still on hearth and field. effect?
    The final stanza is an Octave,
    while the first two are Sestets- is
    she playing with the Petrarchan
    sonnet form- upside down?

    • Yet all the city is a haunted place.


    Man meeting man speaks cautiously. Old friends
    Close up the candid looks upon their face.
    There is no warmth in hands accepting hands; The rhyme
    scheme here
    Each ponders, 'Better hide myself in case changes to
    abababb
    Those strangers have set up their homes in minds With the last line
    I used to walk in. Better draw the blinds c stands out: why?
    Even if the strangers haunt in my own house'.
    Interpretations
    • Who are the enemies in the poem?
    • Women? Feminists?
    • Windrush immigrants? Or Refugees after WWII? Immigrants in general?
    • A generic fear of change?

    • Find evidence to support these interpretations


    Your turn!

    • Make a video trailer using the poem.

    • Be creative!

    • In your video, try to bring out the themes in the poem.


    Elizabeth Jennings
    1926-2001

    • Born in Boston, Lincolnshire: UK


    • Moved to Oxford aged 6
    • Spent the rest of her life in Oxford
    • Worked briefly in advertising and
    publishing in London
    • Initially linked to The Movement
    with Larkin and Amis
    • Catholicism

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