Diction. Diction, when applied to writing, refers to word choice. As you read, make a list of the verbs and adjectives associated with the rough children and one of the verbs and adjectives associated with the speaker.
Simile. A simile is a comparison using like or as. This figure of speech invites the reader to make a comparison between the two things. The two “things” involved are the writer’s actual subject, the tenor of the simile, and another thing to which the subject is likened, the vehicle of the simile.
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Spender is part of the generation of British writers who grew up between the two world wars, during the political upheavals of the 1930s in Europe. His “new poetry” was a bridge between the work of earlier modern poets such as Eliot and that of poets who began to write after World War II. Rapid changes in technology and politics made the interwar years an edgy, uneasy period, as did the worldwide economic depression. Many writers of this period turned to private, personal subjects. “Rough” is a highly personal poem in which the speaker deals from an adult perspective with an issue that confronted him in childhood. The poem appears in Spender’s Selected Poems.
As you read, make a chart listing the tenor and vehicle for each simile in the poem. One example has been done for you.
Write about a time when you were bullied.
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