 Hello and welcome to a summary of what you need to know about the poem Piano by D. H. Lawrence. I'll explain the meaning related to this poem as it appears in part 3 of the Pearson-Edexcel International GCSE anthology. Now do bear in mind that in contrast to part 1 of the anthology which featured only nonfiction texts and part 2 which was a mix of fiction short stories and poems, part 3 of this anthology exclusively features poems alone so in this video I'll highlight key language and literary devices used in this poem and you'll learn how to analyse it. So let's get started. Now what I'll do is I'll read through this poem and then I'll stop afterwards and highlight important techniques that you need to annotate when studying this poem. Softly in the dusk a woman is singing to me, taking me back down the vista of years till I see a child sitting under the piano in the boom of the tingling strings and pressing the small poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song betrays me back till the heart of me weeps to belong to the old Sunday evenings at home with winter outside and hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour with the great black piano at Pascianato. The glamour of childish days is upon me, my manhood has cast down the flood of remembrance a weep like a child for the past. Now this poem is brief but it's very powerful because it's essentially a recollection of this person's childhood which is triggered by the sound of a piano hence the title piano. Now in the opening stanza initially after Softly there's Cesura used which shows already and alerts us as readers that something is shifting slowly. Then we learn that it is dusk. Now the pathetic fallacy here is used because it's really powerful in showing this dark space between night and day this dark transient space and again sometimes music can do this. It takes us into a transient place and nostalgia is also that it's quite transient. Now we learn that the speaker is stating that a woman is singing to me and this present continuous verb shows that music is triggering this narrator's nostalgia. Now the mention of me shows that this is written of course in first person narrative and we focus on the narrative voice and then this person is taken back down the vista of years and the repetition of me here focuses on this person's intensely personal experience. Now do bear in mind that in this short poem there's a very regular predictable rhyme scheme so as you can see here there's the A, A, B, B rhyme scheme in stanza 1 then in stanza 2 it's also A, A, B, B and in stanza 3 it's A, A, B, B. Now what this regular predictable rhyme scheme does is it shows that perhaps in nostalgia this memory is coming to him in a wave and it's taking him back perhaps a predictable route that he was well familiar with as a child however of course it also triggers perhaps what can be a very bittersweet memory for him. Now the reference to the vista of years, this is metaphor and hyperbole and what this shows is the narrator is about to begin recalling a succession of past events. Now it's really interesting that the narrator reflects on their past however they state a child sitting under the piano. Now the indefinite article A makes this child anonymous and the speaker in many ways is shown that they don't really recognise their younger self which again is interesting from a nostalgic perspective but also it's a little bit poignant we feel perhaps a sense of pathos because they've become so disassociated with their past. Now there's onomatopoeia that's used here in the boom of the tingling strings and again this is highlighting just how powerful music is in triggering nostalgia. On the fourth line this child presses the small poised feet of their mother and the pre-modifier small and poised show this very intimate detail of the mother they can remember this one encounter as they listen to the mother singing. And on top of that the mother smiles as she sings and the sibilants here is quite soft and comforting showing that the speaker really yearns for this comfort of the past. Now on line five the speaker states in spite of myself and this shows that they are feeling quite melancholic they're trying to repress this memory and repress the emotions that go with this memory and are somehow failing at doing this. Furthermore the Caesarea hair arguably is the Volta, the turning point because in spite of trying to repress their emotions this wavered nostalgia comes and carries them away. And then there's this reference to the insidious mastery of a song now insidious mastery shows the power of music to trigger such vivid memories from the narrator's perspective. Now the music betrays me back so it's interesting use of what betrays is the illiteration here shows that the narrator is drawn back to memories that they don't want to consider that's why they feel it's almost a betrayal. Moreover the narrator states the heart of me weeps and the speaker's heart is personified showing just how intense this nostalgia is and the emotions that accompany this nostalgia. Moreover we learn that this memory is based at home Sunday evenings at home and it's in a cozy parlor so there's a lot of domestic language used here what this shows again is a speaker yearning for this comfort yearning for this regular routine perhaps that happened at the end of the evening before they went to sleep they would sit by the mother's feet and listen as they sang. Now the illiteration with winter is used here to show in some ways rather than have pathetic fallacy which is quite sad it's again creating and adding to this very strong sense of comfort for the speaker. The narrator also mentions the tinkling piano our guide. Now onomatopoeia is used here and onomatopoeia is used throughout the poem to show the powerful effect that music can have not only intriguing nostalgia but also to show just how vivid this recollection is for the narrator. Moreover the piano is our guide and once more the piano is personified here music is personified as guiding this narrator. Now in the final stanza the narrator says so now it is vain so the adverbial phrase so now signals a shift in the person's feelings and how perhaps angry they are at how this music has really forcefully taken them back to something that they've repressed and the speaker says it is vain and what this shows is a sense of anger and irritation at the person who's causing this nostalgic feeling. Now there's the reference to the singer bursting into a clamour and this is dramatic verb to show the dramatic action of this performer or singer who started singing really loudly and the narrator is somewhat irritated by this. Moreover the reference to the apparsionato shows this is a very emotional and very emotive piece of music that they can hear. Moreover in line 11 of Childish Days Upon Me now this is a really diminutive description it shows the narrator in some ways feels really silly for remembering the childlike days their childhood and they're almost trying to downplay it by calling it Childish and the narrator then says upon me my manhood and the literation here is quite powerful they've been quite forceful in reminding themselves that they now should be a man and it's really childish and silly to remember and feel sad at missing their childhood. Moreover the caesura in between me and my it brings us back to the present and the narrator seems to be quite wistful that the good times that the childhood had are over and now they face the pressures and expectations of manhood and adulthood they're trying to in many ways man up but they're finding it quite difficult to repress this nostalgia and this yearning to be a child again. Now in the final line down the flood of remembrance now this is a metaphor of how strong and vivid nostalgia can be it's unlocked and it's almost like a flood of memories that are unleashed upon the person then this really triggers the narrator to weep are wepluck a child and this simile shows just how much he misses being a child how much he misses the innocence of childhood perhaps also the freedom of childhood that they no longer are accorded as a man so that's all if you found this video useful do you know that we have an in-depth extensive course covering all the texts and poems in Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the anthology so make sure you sign up for the course for explanations on all the texts as well as model answers also do check out our website www.firstreadtutors.com where you can find plenty of English revision worksheets model answers and online courses covering all major English syllabuses including Edexcel, AQA and IGCSE thanks so much for watching