Who Is Speaking? Persona in a Poem, and the Sounds /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ – My Secondary School (Senior 1 English) | Ganzaa

My Secondary School

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Senior 1 · English

My Secondary School

5 lessons

Lesson 5 of 5

Who Is Speaking? Persona in a Poem, and the Sounds /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

25 min

Let's begin

When a poem says "I", who is talking? Not always the poet. In 1794 the English poet William Blake, then a grown man of 36, published a poem in the voice of a small schoolboy. In this lesson you read that poem and a new one spoken by a school bell, and you learn to tell the poet from the speaker. The second half trains six consonant sounds that you use in almost every English sentence.

Poem 1: The School Boy by William Blake (stanzas 1 to 4)

I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.

Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?

In the last two stanzas the boy turns to his father and mother and asks how a child can grow well if his joy is taken away. Read the whole poem on Wikisource.

Blake printed and hand-coloured this page of "The School Boy" himself. Look at the pictures around the words: boys playing a game on the ground at the bottom, and children climbing and reading in the vine on the right. They show the outdoor freedom the speaker longs for. Image: William Blake, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Poem 2: The Bell

I hang on a post by the refectory door;
I woke up your teachers when they were S4.
At half past five I'm the first voice you hear,
and you pull up your blanket and wish I weren't near.
I call you to lessons, to porridge, to prayer,
to Monday assembly in cold morning air.
Nobody thanks me, and nobody sings,
but where would you be without someone who rings?

Glossary for The School Boy

Word	Meaning	Example sentence
morn	morning (a word used in old poems)	The birds sing on a summer morn.
huntsman	a man who hunts animals	The huntsman walked into the forest.
winds his horn	blows his hunting horn	We heard the huntsman wind his horn.
skylark	a small brown bird that sings while flying high	A skylark sang above the field.
dismay	a feeling of worry and sadness	The students heard the news with dismay.
outworn	worn out, tired from long use	The teacher's eye was cruel and outworn.
drooping	bending or hanging down because of tiredness or sadness	He sat drooping at his desk.
dreary	dull and sad	It was a dreary, rainy afternoon.
bower	a pleasant, shady place under trees	They rested in a green bower.

Understanding the poems

In stanza 1, what does the speaker love to do, and who "sings with" him?
Which line shows that his feelings change when he thinks of school?
Who do you think the "cruel eye outworn" belongs to?
In stanza 4, what is the "bird", and what is the "cage"?
Is the speaker of The School Boy William Blake himself? Give a reason.
Who or what is the speaker of The Bell? Which two lines tell you?
How does the bell feel about its work? Give evidence.

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He loves to get up early on a summer morning; the skylark sings with him.
"O it drives all joy away!"
A strict, tired teacher who watches the children all day.
The bird is the child (the speaker); the cage is the school or classroom.
No. Blake was an adult of about 36 in 1794. The speaker is a young schoolboy, a persona Blake created: "How can a child…", "my book".
The school bell: "I hang on a post by the refectory door" and "without someone who rings".
Proud of its long service but a little hurt that nobody thanks it: "Nobody thanks me, and nobody sings." The last line shows it knows it is important.

Definition

Poet: the real person who wrote the poem.

Speaker or persona: the "I" who talks in the poem. The poet may invent a persona that is very different from himself or herself: a child, an animal, even an object such as a bell.

Voice: how the speaker sounds, their personality and feelings, shown by the words they choose. A voice can be joyful, angry, proud, tired or sad.

Example: in The School Boy, the poet is William Blake, the persona is a young schoolboy, and the voice is joyful outdoors but sad and trapped at school.

Comparing the two speakers

	The School Boy	The Bell
Poet	William Blake (1757–1827), an adult English poet and painter	Ganzaa
Speaker (persona)	A young schoolboy	The school bell
Clues	"go to school", "my book", "How can a child…"	"I hang on a post", "someone who rings"
Voice	Joyful about summer mornings, then sad, anxious and trapped	Proud, humorous, a little hurt that nobody thanks it
Who is addressed	First anyone; later "father and mother"	The students ("you")

Worked example

Analyse two lines: How can the bird that is born for joy / Sit in a cage and sing?

Read the literal meaning. A bird that is made to be happy cannot sing happily inside a cage.
Find the comparison. The next lines talk about "a child", so the bird stands for the child, the speaker himself.
Find what the cage stands for. The boy is shut indoors all day, so the cage stands for the school.
Describe the voice. The speaker asks a question he does not expect anyone to answer. He sounds sad and trapped, and a little angry with the adults.
Conclusion. The persona is a child who needs freedom to be happy and to learn; Blake uses his voice to question how children are taught.

Definition

Plosive consonant: a consonant made by stopping the air completely in the mouth and then letting it out suddenly, like a tiny explosion. English has six: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/.

Voiced sound: the vocal cords in your throat vibrate (/b/, /d/, /g/). Voiceless sound: they do not vibrate (/p/, /t/, /k/).

Sounds and spelling: the six plosives

Where the air is stopped	Voiceless	Voiced	Minimal pairs (words that differ by one sound)
Both lips close	/p/ pen	/b/ Ben	pin, bin; pat, bat; cap, cab
Tip of the tongue behind the top teeth	/t/ ten	/d/ den	tie, die; town, down; bet, bed
Back of the tongue against the roof of the mouth	/k/ coat	/g/ goat	cold, gold; card, guard; back, bag

One sound, several spellings

Sound	Spellings	Examples
/k/	c, k, ck, ch, qu	cage, kit, back, school, chemistry, queen
/g/	g, gu, gh	go, guard, ghost
/t/	t, tt, and -ed after a voiceless sound	ten, better, walked
/d/	d, dd, and -ed after a voiced sound	day, ladder, played

Tip

Two quick tests

The throat test: put your fingers on your throat and say /b/, /d/, /g/: you feel a buzz. Say /p/, /t/, /k/: no buzz.
The paper test: hold a strip of paper in front of your lips. Pin and tin make it jump, because English /p/, /t/ and /k/ at the start of a word come with a puff of air. Bin and din hardly move it.

Spelling: some plosive letters are silent. Don't pronounce the b in doubt, climb, thumb, the k in knife, know, the t in listen, castle, or the g in sign.

English Pronunciation Tips: the voiceless consonant /p/, BBC Learning English (2 minutes). Watch the presenter's lips and copy the puff of air; at the end the video compares /p/ with /b/.

Speaking

Read stanzas 1 and 2 of The School Boy aloud to a partner. Make your voice bright in stanza 1 and heavy in stanza 2, so the listener hears the speaker's change of feeling. Then read the minimal pairs in the table; your partner points to the word they hear.

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Stanza 1: smile, read a little faster, stress love, birds, sings, sweet. Stanza 2: slow down after "But", pause after "O", and stress drives, joy, cruel, dismay. Make the /b/ in But and birds voiced, and give the /k/ in school and company a clear stop.

Writing: a persona poem

Write a poem of 6–8 lines in the voice of an object at your school: your school shoes, the blackboard, the matron's whistle, a mosquito net or the school gate. Use "I" or "we", and let the reader guess the speaker from the clues.

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We are the black shoes you polished on Sunday,
proud as two soldiers lined up for Monday.
We march you to class through the dust and the rain;
we wait by your bed while you study again.
You kick us off fast when the whistle blows nine;
we stand in the dark, but we still like to shine.

Persona: a pair of school shoes. Voice: loyal and proud.

✦

Practice

Who is the poet of The School Boy, and who is the speaker?
Name the speaker of this line: "Every night I hang over your bed and keep the mosquitoes away."
Choose one word to describe the voice in this line, and give a reason: "O it drives all joy away!"
Voiced or voiceless? Write V or VL for the first sound: bat, cold, dance, pen, goat, tie.
Write the other word in each minimal pair: pin (/b/), gold (/k/), town (/d/).
Circle the letter that is silent: doubt, knife, listen, sign.
Find three words in stanza 1 of The School Boy that contain a /b/, /t/ or /k/ sound.

Show answersHide answers

The poet is William Blake; the speaker is a young schoolboy.
A mosquito net.
Unhappy, sad or upset: the word O and the phrase drives all joy away show strong sadness about school.
bat V, cold VL, dance V, pen VL, goat V, tie VL
bin, cold, down
doubt (b), knife (k), listen (t), sign (g)
For example: birds (/b/), distant (/d/, /t/), skylark (/k/), company (/k/, /p/), tree (/t/).

1Poem 1: The School Boy by William Blake (stanzas 1 to 4)

2Poem 2: The Bell

3Glossary for The School Boy

4Understanding the poems

5Comparing the two speakers

6Sounds and spelling: the six plosives