Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson four, of five lessons on Claude McKay's poem "If We Must Die".

In today's lesson, we're going to be focusing on the form and the structure of the poem.

But as ever, before we begin, you need to get yourself a pen, a paper, clear the room of distractions and put away that pesky mobile phone.

Alright, when you're ready to start, let's get going.

Right, in today's lesson, we're going to start off with a bit of a recap.

So we'll go over what we learnt about language in the poem, "If We Must Die" then we are going to look at the form of the poem, which means the type of poem it is, and this poem is a sonnet, so we are going to learn about what that means.

We'll then learn about metre and that describes the way that rhythm is structured in the poem.

Then we'll look at rhyme, what kind of rhymes can we see and what effect do they have? And finally, we'll look at the Volta, which means the turning points of the poem.

So let's start off with a bit of a recap, going back, actually all the way to lesson two, think about the context of the poem.

So these are three statements, about three areas of context.

We've got a statement about the Harlem Renaissance, about Claude McKay about the Red Summer.

I want you to fill in the gaps.

So pause the video now, and see if you can do this one.

Great, so you should have got that Harlem Renaissance was a cultural and intellectual movement led by African American artists in the 1920s and 1930s.

Claude McKay is of course a poet, writer and activist.

And the Red Summer was a time of mass violence in America, in 1919, and there were a series of racist riots and murders.

So now let's recap the language of "If We Must Die".

Remember we talked about these three areas, racial oppression, the humane versus bestial imagery, and these images of bloods and fire.

And there were quotations of one with each of these areas, I want you to try and remember what those quotations were.

So again, fill in the gaps from your memory.

Have a go now, and you should have got these quotations.

So for racial oppression, we might say hunted and penned or pressed the wall, the humane versus bestial, we might say kinsmen versus dogs and monsters and for bloods and fire.

We might talk about precious blood and fighting back.

I also want to, just to recap the voice of the poem, what we've been talking about the poem we've been talking about the oppressors and the oppressed And when we say the oppressed, we mean the people, the kinsmen who were described in the poem and the poet, Claude McKay, addresses this to the we of the poem, so he is speaking to his community.

So these are some different ways we can also talk about that group.

We can say the speaker and his community.

The speaker means the voice of the poet.

You can call them Kinsmen or Men because that's how they described the poem.

We can actually talk about McKay his crew, because we know that he was directly talking to members of his community.

We can call them the African American community, because again, we understand about the context or we can stick with calling them the oppressed.

All of these, describe the voice of the poem.

Okay, we're now going to look at the sonnet form, so what type of poem this is.

So what is a sonnet? Well, a sonnet is a traditional form of poetry.

Traditional type of poetry.

It's been written for many years.

It was traditionally written about love.

So quite often, sonnets were love poems, but that's not always the case.

Something that sonnets always also have in them is an inner conflict, some kind of argument, often a question and answer within the poem.

It's only a very small poem.

It's 14 lines.

So it's all quite tight and controlled, or has a tight rhyme-scheme, which we'll look at in a moment, a strict metre and this Volta, this turning point, again we'll focus on all of these areas in a moment, so don't worry if you're not quite sure what it means, but what's important to remember is the sonnet is this traditional form of poetry, a short 14 line poem, often associated with love, but something that always has a bit of an inner conflict.

Who are these guys? I think you might recognise them.

Well, we've got Claude McKay, obviously the fantastic poet of the poem "If We Must Die".

And we've also got William Shakespeare, I'm sure you recognise him from your other studies in English.

So what has William Shakespeare got to do with Claude McKay? Well, William Shakespeare was one of the people who made the sonnet really, really famous.

He loved using the sonnet and he actually changed it slightly.

So his rhyme-scheme that he used meant that people started calling it the Shakespearean sonnet.

So there are two forms of sonnet and his was called the the Shakespearean sonnet.

And this is the sonnet that Claude McKay uses for the poem, "If We Must Die".

So in "If We Must Die", Claude McKay uses this traditional form, the Shakespearean sonnet.

And that's the connection these two writers have.

So let's check what we've learnt so far, which of these are true about sonnets? Option one, they are always about love.

Option two, they are thirteen lines.

Option three, they have a tight rhyme-scheme.

Option four, they have a strict metre.

You might want to have a think about this, in which case you can pause the video, but if you know, you can shout out the answer now.

Actually, it's the last two.

So they have a tight rhyme-scheme and they have a strict metre.

Option one, I know we said that often they were about love, but they're not always about love.

So you might say instead, they were traditionally written about love.

So they were known for being written about love, but not always.

And then of course, something in two is not right.

They're not 13 lines, they're very deliberately 14 lines.

So why did McKay use a sonnet form? I want you to have a think about what might be the reason that he decided to use a sonnet for this poem.

I've given you two sentence starters, McKay used a sonnet form because and I want you to use the words traditional, dignified, and noble in your answer.

You don't have to use all of them, but those words would be really great.

And then I want you to write a sentence saying McKay used a sonnet form, but I want you to think about these words: played and external racial conflict.

So in this second sentence, what you might be thinking about is, well I know a sonnet usually has internal conflict, how might McKay have played with this to show the external racial conflict? So I want you to have a go at writing those two sentences now and then we'll check your answers.

Okay, so hopefully you've got sentences a little bit like this.

Don't worry if you couldn't quite do this, it was quite tricky.

It was the first time we've met the sonnet form, but let's go over these now.

It's the first thing you could have said, and you might have worded this slightly differently, which is fine, but you could have said something like McKay used a sonnet form because it was a traditional poem and could be seen as a dignified and noble response to oppression.

I'll read that again because I stumbled slightly McKay used a sonnet form because it was a traditional poem and could be seen as a dignified and noble response to oppression.

So perhaps he wrote this using a sonnet form because the tradition was important and actually showed that you could give a really dignified, noble voice to the people in the poem.

McKay used a sonnet form, but played with some of the rules to show the external racial conflict in America.

So in that second sentence, we're talking about the fact that rather than to have an inner conflict, he played around to show the external conflict, which is really interesting, it tells us about the context.

So if you've written something like this, great, if you weren't sure, perhaps jot down some of these ideas now.

Right, so what's the metre? I know you were asking that question, don't worry, I'm going to answer it.

The metre is the pattern of rhythm in the poem and sonnets have a particular metre that's called iambic pentameter.

And what that means is it's five pairs, unstressed and stressed syllables.

The syllables are the sounds in a word.

So we're going to have a look at that in this line of poetry, this is actually from one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

When I do count the clock that tells the time that each of these words is actually a one syllable word.

So we've got five pairs of syllables in this line and where I've underlined, that's where the stress, that's where you emphasise the word.

When I do count the clock that tells the time.

And I've got that image of the heart there because some people say that the iambic pentameter metre is a little bit like a heartbeat.

When I do count the clock that tells the time.

Can you hear that? It's a little bit of a beat that goes along.

So that's it, iambic pentameter and sonnets always use this metre.

Let's have a look at it.

Okay, this is the poem "If We Must Die".

Now, what I've done is look at what it might look like, if we broke it down into the syllables and into these unstressed and stressed pairs.

Now it doesn't mean it looks exactly like this or that it should be read exactly like this, but it's just a bit of an idea of how we might apply this metre.

So the words in bold, the words that we might stress, if we were following the metre really, really closely.

So I'm going to read out, and emphasise those.

Again, it's not exactly how McKay would want us to read it, but it gives us an idea for types of words that might be stressed in this poem.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs, hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, while round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, making their mock at our accursèd lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honour us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! Now, as I said, you won't want to read it like that, because it sounds a bit silly, but you can see that that is definitely a beat to the iambic pentameter metre that runs through this poem.

So even though we're not supposed to read it exactly like that, why does he use this metre? Obviously he uses it because it's part of the sonnet, but I think we can think about why he uses it other than that.

So why might you use iambic pentameter? Well, first of all, we've talked already about the fact that the sonnet is quite controlled, that it's quite tight.

And iambic pentameter gives a very controlled rhythm and as we are reading it, we could see it really follows that da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, style.

That means that his message can be quite controlled and we know his actions would have been quite a complicated and sensitive message.

So perhaps the control was useful.

It also gives the sonnet a bit of power.

There's that rhythm to it, which makes it feel like a very strong and powerful message.

And perhaps that's because he wanted to inspire, he wanted it to be an inspiration to his community.

Remember, this sonnet is a bit like a bit of a call to action.

He's trying to encourage his community to stand up against oppression.

He also gets to emphasise certain words.

He puts an emphasis on certain words.

And so he might deliberately use this metre to emphasise the things he wants everyone to focus on.

So these are some of the things he might be doing with this metre.

Here are some of the interesting words which are emphasised.

I want you to read them through and then I want you to tell me what you think these words suggest.

So think about what do they have in common? Why might these be the words that McKay wanted us to think about? So, I've given you the sentence starter, I think these words suggest that, so I want you to pause the video and complete that sentence.

Okay, you might have written something like this.

I think these words suggest that McKay wants to emphasise or draw attention to the violence faced by his community.

Now, I've written that sentence because if you look at the words emphasised, we've got things like bark and blood and monsters and murderous and fights.

And all of those words to me, suggest violence.

Now, not all of the words mean that, but I think we can see that a lot of them do.

So I think it's possible that he wanted to emphasise those, he wanted to draw attention to those words to show that violence.

You might have written something slightly different and that's fine too.

So why does McKay use iambic pentameter? Well, we don't know exactly because he's not around for us to ask, unfortunately, but we can think about potential reasons that he might use it.

So I've given you a sentence starter here.

McKay might use iambic pentameter because as well as being part of the sonnet form, the metre allows him to.

I want you to finish that sentence.

There are some words in green which you could include in your sentence.

I want you to think back to what we've talked about already.

When we've talked about iambic pentameter.

So have a go at doing that sentence now, pause the video, then we'll check back in.

Okay, so perhaps you wrote something like this, McKay might use iambic pentameter, because as well as being part of the sonnet form, the metre allows him to deliver his message with control and power.

The metre acts as a pulse or a heartbeat through the poem to inspire action and to emphasise how the community can stand up to the violence.

Now, you won't have phrased it exactly like this, which is fine, but you might have used some of these words and got this kind of message, which is great.

If you weren't sure, obviously then, just write this down now.

Okay? And now it's time to rhyme.

Yeah, we're going to focus on the rhyme-scheme.

So rhyme is when two or more words sound the same.

So I did that at the start, though, with time and rhyme, they also run with sublime.

You could say cool, school, fool, or look, book, cook.

Those words rhyme, they sound the same.

They don't always look the same, but they do sound the same.

So what's a rhyme-scheme? Well, a rhyme-scheme is the pattern of rhymes in the poems. So, how the rhyme is organised in the poem.

We're going to learn about the Shakespearean sonnet rhyme-scheme.

There's Shakespeare again, look at him looking very pleased with himself.

Well, that's because he created this rhyme-scheme.

So he came up with a rhyme-scheme that has alternate lines rhyme.

Which means that every other line rhymes.

And that happens in the first 12 lines of the poem.

And then the last two lines of the poem rhyme.

So they're a rhyming couplet because they rhyme together.

And this is the rhyme-scheme that Claude McKay uses in his sonnet.

So if we have a look at it now, we can see the rhyme-scheme.

The letters tell us what the rhyme-scheme is.

So where it says hogs, that's the first rhyme of the poem.

So, when I look along the home and see, is there another word that rhymes with hogs? Well spot, the next line, that doesn't rhyme.

So that gets a different letter that gets labelled B, but dogs, that does rhyme with hogs.

So that gets an A.

Now, lot, well that rhymes with spot.

So that becomes B.

And we do that all the way through the poem, a new letter for a new rhyme and a matching letter if it matches the rhyme.

So you can see with this, we've got the first 12 lines of alternate rhymes and the last two lines rhyme together, they're a rhyming couplet.

Cowardly pack, fighting back.

So this is the rhyme-scheme, A B, A B, C D, C D, E F, E F, G G.

And that's a rhyme-scheme of a Shakespearian sonnet.

And of the poem, "If We Must Die".

I've emphasised some of the interesting rhymes here.

So, he's paired some rhymes.

Die and defy, brave and grave, pack and back.

Why do you think Claude McKay might have chosen these pairings of rhymes? Remember, he could put whichever words he wanted to in here and he's chosen to rhyme the word die and defy.

The word brave and grave and the words pack and back.

Now I want you to think about what is it about those words would make him want to rhyme them.

So, we're looking at those pairs now.

I think that we can look at the two ideas in the poem, the ideas of death and oppression and the idea of fighting back against this.

So Claude McKay wants to end the society of oppression and the potential death that is happening.

But he also wants to encourage people to fight back.

Let's look at these words, die, defy, brave, grave, pack and back.

I want you to sort them put them in the correct box.

Do you think the word suggests death and oppression or do you think the words suggest fighting back? You have a go at sorting those and then have a think about why we might have some words in the death and depression, and oppression box and some words in the fighting back box.

Okay, have a go now.

Okay, so we should have sorted them like this.

In the death and oppression box, We have die, grave and pack.

And in the fighting back box, we have defy, brave and back.

So we can see those paired rhymes are split into those two boxes, one in the death and oppression box and one in the fighting back box.

So it could be that McKay paired these to show the fight back against death and oppression.

Every time you have a word that is about death or oppression, you also have a word to suggest that they should fight back.

So that perhaps might be a deliberate pairing.

Okay, we're now going to talk about the Volta.

And I've said let the Volta take its turn, because the Volta is about a turning point.

So the Volta is a turn of thought or argument in the poem.

It's a moment the speaker changes their mind about something or perhaps argue something slightly different.

In Shakespearian sonnet it usually happens in line 12, but in "If We Must Die" it happens in line nine with the line O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! It is at this point, that McKay really focuses on building solidarity in his community, bringing everyone together and encouraging them to stand up against this oppression.

And that's why it's a slight turn and slight change.

He's described the kind of horror and the bestiality of the oppression and he's now focusing on what they can do as a community to fight back against it.

So why does it matter? Well, I've emphasised here some points that are really useful to think about.

We think about why McKay uses the Volta.

So as I've said, it's a bit of a change, a turning point for him in the poem.

And I've written this out here just to explain it even further.

So McKay uses the Volta in line nine to show resistance against oppression and give hope and inspiration to his community.

So we changed from just talking about the negative images of oppression, to starting to build hope and inspiration.

What else about this line suggests a change in mood? I want you to have a look at that line and think about what about it might suggest that McKay is changing the mood slightly of the poem? Have a think, then we'll go through it.

So, what else about this line suggested change in mood? He says "O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!" You'll notice that he uses exclamation marks and a command, an imperative, 'must'.

So by using those exclamation marks and telling his community they must meet the common foe, must meet the enemy, this is change of mood.

It's becoming very rousing and encouraging, telling them that there is hope.

Inspiring them, a call to action.

Okay, I want you to now put some of this together as in sentence work.

So you're going to look at these three sentences and you're going to try to complete them.

They're all about the form and structure of the poem, they're all about things we've learnt in today's lesson.

So number one, McKay uses the traditional Shakespearian sonnet form and structure to show.

And you can use the words dignified, challenge and oppression in your answer.

Number two, the sonnet form is most commonly known as a love poem with a tight structure and an inner conflict.

McKay turns this on it's head by.

And you could use the words external racial conflict in your answer.

And number three, The use of the traditional rhyme-scheme and Volta also allows McKay to.

And you could use the words, pair, resistance and hope in you answer.

So if you're happy to get on with those, then pause the video and get started now.

If you feel like you need a bit more help, then hang on and I'm going to give you a bit more support to finish these sentences.

So, if you're ready to go pause the video, off you go.

If you'd like a bit more help, then let's wait and I'll go through something.

Okay, so if you wanted a bit more extra support to do this, I've given you a bit more detail here.

I know we've learned quite a lot of tricky information today, so it's all right if you need a little bit more help.

So number one, McKay uses the traditional Shakespearian sonnet form and structure to show that his community can remain.

And there's three words I want you to put in that.

You should be able to find them in the bottom.

The three words will be words that are in pink at the bottom.

Number two, the sonnet form is most commonly known as a love poem with a tight structure and an inner conflict.

McKay urns this on its head by, with the, form and using it to show the external, in.

Again, fill in the gaps there with the words in pink.

And finally, the use of the traditional rhyme-scheme and Volta also allows McKay to pair images of, and, to give, and, to his community.

So again, look at the words in pink and see what you can fill in to help you answer these questions.

Okay, pause the video now, have a go and then we'll check in together.

Right, let's check your work.

So you might've written something like this: McKay uses the traditional Shakespearian sonnet form and structure to show that his community can remain dignified and challenge oppression.

Number two, the sonnet form is most commonly known as a love poem with a tight structure and an inner conflict.

McKay turns this on its head by playing with the sonnet and using it to show the external racial conflict in America.

And number three, The us of the traditional rhyme-scheme and Volta also allows McKay to pair images of death and resistance to give hope and inspiration to his community.

So as I've hoped for, your sentences don't look exactly like this, but hopefully you got some of those messages and some of those key words across in your answers.

Again, if you weren't sure, and you want to copy this down now, you can pause the video and do that.

Brilliant work.

You've now done four out of five lessons.

You should be really proud of yourself.

I definitely am.

Give yourself a little pat on the back and we'll be going on to our last lesson, lesson five.

In that lesson, we're going to put everything we've learned together to do an essay.

I know you can do it.

I'm really excited to see what you do.

So remember to tune in for lesson five.

And in the meantime, don't forget to do your quiz so you can show off everything that you've learned today.

Okay, bye.