Complete Study Guide for Easter Monday - Eleanor Farjeon

Easter Monday (In Memoriam E.T.) - Eleanor Farjeon

This comprehensive study pack offers a multi-layered approach to teaching Eleanor Farjeon’s poignant domestic elegy. Designed specifically for the GCSE English Literature specification, it explores the poem’s core tensions between the regenerative cycles of nature and the absolute finality of human loss in wartime

WATCH THE ENTIRE VIDEO TO SEE WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE PACK!

What’s Included:

• Detailed Video Analysis: A deep-dive exploration into the "heartbreaking conversation" between Farjeon and her friend Edward Thomas, breaking down the tragic irony of the "unsent replies" and the contrast between her peaceful English garden and the trenches of France.
• Quote & Theme Analysis PDF: Detailed annotations focusing on the "broken" sonnet form and Farjeon’s use of specific time-markers to ground a general holiday into a personal anniversary of loss.
• Visual Revision Poster: A high-impact graphic deconstructing The Meaning in the Words (nature’s rebirth vs. war’s finality, the "broken" sonnet) and The Story Behind the Poem (correspondence with E.T., the silver Easter egg).
• Engaging Slide Deck: An 11-page visual journey through the poem's "anatomy of grief," comparing Farjeon's quiet, personal perspective with the nationalistic "public" war poems of Tennyson or Pope.
• Comprehensive Study Guide: Includes a glossary of 17 literary terms (from Caesura to Trochaic Meter), a 10-question knowledge review quiz with a full answer key, and high-level essay prompts.
• Poem Comparison Grid: A synthesis of Farjeon’s central messages, offering a framework to contrast her "domestic impact" with other key conflict poems like Jane Weir’s Poppies.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the Historical Context: Analyse how the deep friendship between Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Frost, and Edward Thomas spurred Thomas's transition to poetry before his death at the Battle of Arras on Easter Monday, 1917.
• Analyse Subversive Form: Evaluate how Farjeon uses the traditional 14-line sonnet structure but breaks the rules of rhyme and verse division to mirror the "brokenness" of grief.
• Master Symbolism and Imagery: Identify how symbols like the "silver Easter egg" and "ripe apple-buds" represent innocent friendship and the endurance of the natural world against the "cold finality" of death.

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