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Stevenson uses a number of poetic devices to depict the movement of the train. The important figures of speech used in the poem are exemplified below: Simile
You can encourage your learners to think more deeply about word choice in Stevenson’s poem with this ‘From a Railway Carriage’ Missing words Activity, which lets pupils provide some of their own words and see how it changes the meaning From a Railway Carriage’ is a very useful poem to use with children who aren’t particularly familiar with poetry. You can use this resource to provide students with an understanding of the use of rhyme schemes and other principle of poetry such as simile and metaphor. If you’re using this resource with older children, it has plenty of space around the text to allow learners to annotate their copy if they choose to. It’s also a great way to spark a class discussion - what is Stevenson trying to tell us in this poem? How does the period it was written in affect our understanding of the poem? More resources on ‘From a Railway Carriage’The poem is written in iambic tetrameter with a number of variations. Each line more or less contains four iambs; an unstressed foot is followed by a stressed foot. The implementation of trochees (stressed-unstressed) and long anapests (unstressed-unstressed-stresses) imitates the rising and falling rhythm of a train. For instance, the first line can be read as “ Fast-er/ than fai- ries,/ fast-er/ than witch(e)s.” It begins with a trochee followed by an anapest. Then another trochee is followed by an iamb. This fusion of can be seen throughout the text: The final two programmes focus on classic poetry and include a selection of well-known poems often taught at Key Stage 2. These poems are read by the actors Maxine Peake and Julian Rhind-Tutt. Using the audio Stevenson uses several personal metaphors in the poem. For instance, there is a personal metaphor in the phrase, “the green for stringing the daisies!” The “green,” representing grass, is portrayed as a thread to string daisies. To be specific, there is only one instance of metaphor, and it occurs in the last two lines: Robert Louis Stevenson is an incredibly famous writer, and learners are sure to come across his writing as they move through school. Because he’s most famous for his novels, poems like ‘From a Railway Carriage’ give us an idea of another side of the writer - he really was multi-talented!
The poem “From a Railway Carriage” was first published in Robert Louis Stevenson’s collection of children’s poetry, A Child’s Garden of Verses, in 1885. It is one of the most popular children’s works. This poem is inspired by Stevenson’s extensive traveling experience across Europe. Due to his ill health, he occasionally had to move to warmer climates to recover. His experience of traveling by train is captured in this poem from the perspective of a child speaker. This piece also describes how it felt while traveling in a railway carriage car in the 19th-century. At last, the speaker describes each piece of scenery as a “glimpse” that stays for a short period and then fades forever. While traveling by train, none can notice a particular scene next time. Thus, each journey becomes unique, unraveling newer scenes against the changing canvas of nature. According to the speaker, the train is not faster than them. Instead, the bridges, houses, hedges, and ditches, that move past his carriage showcase such swiftness. In the following line, he metaphorically describes the train as an army marching forward for a battle. The preparedness of the troops and their unhindered motion is comparable to that of the train. From the carriage, he can notice the horses and cattle grazing through the meadows. Up-Hill” by Christina Rossetti — It’s one of the best-loved poems of Christina Rossetti that describes one speaker’s hesitations on the uphill journey of life.In the last two lines of the first stanza, the speaker informs readers that he has been riding before the narration has begun. Thus, the painted stations “again” slid past his carriage. Stevenson uses an auditory image of the whistling sound coming from the stations when the train crosses them. In the first example, the moving train is compared to troops marching for a battle, and the sights of apparently moving “hill” and “plain” are compared to “driving rain.” Metaphor The “mill” and “river” are compared to a “glimpse”. They are liked small clips of the motion picture seen from the railway carriage. Alliteration Stevenson’s “From a Railway Carriage” is written from the perspective of a child who is traveling by train and capturing the external world from his carriage. He is quite amazed to experience the speed with which the train marches forward like troops in a battle. It moves faster than the fairies and witches collectively. From his carriage, he sees how the sights of the hill and plain fly past. The painted stations whistle by in a wink. The repetition of a similar sound at the beginning of neighboring words is called alliteration. It is used to create internal rhyming. This device is used in the following instances:
Night Journey” by Theodore Roethke — Read how it feels while traveling by train at midnight. Roethke beautifully describes the nocturnal beauty of nature in this poem. This device is used in two instances in the last stanza: “And there is the green for stringing the daisies!” and “Each a glimpse and gone for ever!” These lines convey the speaker’s amazement at the scenes.Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “From a Railway Carriage” begins with the description of the train’s speed. The reference to “fairies” and “witches” signifies the speaker is a child, familiar with the characters of fairy tales. He rejects the fact quite straightforwardly that this train he is riding is way faster than the winged fairies and magical witches. You’ve read his poetry, but what about the man himself? Our Robert Louis Stevenson Information Sheet provides the story of the great man’s life along with some surprising and fascinating facts Apart from that, readers can also find the use of consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds in closely placed words. For instance, there is a repetition of the “z” sound at the end of “fairie s,” “witche s,” “Bridge s,” “house s,” “hedge s,” and “ditche s” in lines 1 and 2. Personification The poem “From a Railway Carriage” begins with a simile: “Faster than fairies” and “faster than witches.” Stevenson describes how the fairies and witches are not as fast as the train. This device is also used in lines 3 and 6: