Drunk

Quiz — Drunk by D. H. Lawrence

1. Recall – Form & Setting: What type of literary tradition does Drunk belong to, and in what setting does the poem take place?

1. Recall – Speaker & Situation: Who is the speaker of Drunk, and what is his emotional and physical state as the poem begins?

1. Recall – Key Images: Name the three specific flowering trees that Lawrence features in the poem. What do these trees have in common in terms of season and geography?

1. Recall – Symbolism: What role do the arc-lamps play in the poem, and what broader force do they symbolise according to the analysis?

1. Comprehension – Hallucination: As the poem progresses, into what do the flowering trees transform in the speaker's imagination? What triggers this transformation?

1. Comprehension – Tone Shift: Describe how the tone of Drunk changes across its three broad movements (opening, middle, final stanza). What emotional effect does this arc create?

1. Comprehension – The Couples: What do the real couples walking along the pavement represent, and how do they contrast with what the speaker experiences in the trees above?

1. Analysis – The Red Hawthorn: The red hawthorn blossoms are compared to flags in blood. What does this symbol suggest about the speaker's experience of love, and how does it connect to the poem's wider emotional conflict?

1. Analysis – The Mantilla/Veil: The white and purple lilacs are imagined as wearing veils. What tension does this image capture, and how does it reflect the speaker's state of mind?

1. Analysis – The Pledge: How does the final stanza reframe the drunken visions that have preceded it? What does the speaker's use of the old word "troth" reveal about the nature of his commitment to his absent lover?

Answer Key

1. Drunk belongs to the tradition of the nocturne (a night-piece featuring a solitary walker reflecting on emotion through landscape); it is set on a suburban English street at night.

1. The speaker is a man who is physically drunk and emotionally vulnerable, addressing an absent lover. He is aware from the outset that without her nearby he is in a kind of trouble.

1. The three trees are hawthorn, lilac, and laburnum — all English trees that bloom in spring, anchoring the poem in a recognisable suburban English landscape.

1. The arc-lamps bleach and multiply the blossoms, igniting the speaker's hallucinations and turning the road into a "phantom show." They symbolise the distorting power of desire — how longing illuminates and transfigures everything it touches.

1. The blossoms transform into ghostly female figures — girls, veiled ladies, and undressed women. The transformation is driven by the speaker's intoxication combined with his intense longing for his absent lover.

1. The tone opens with woozy tenderness, shifts to a feverish, erotic desperation in the middle as hallucinations intensify, then resolves into a quiet, dignified faithfulness in the final stanza — creating an arc from vulnerability through crisis to unexpected emotional clarity.

1. The couples represent the tangible reality of companionship the speaker is denied. They contrast sharply with his fantasy: while he projects love onto flowers and phantoms above, real intimacy walks past him below, underlining his loneliness.

1. The comparison suggests that love feels like a battlefield — a "noiseless fight" where life and love vie for dominance. It introduces a darker, more violent undercurrent beneath the poem's romantic longing, showing that desire carries real emotional cost.

1. The veil traditionally signals modesty, yet simultaneously draws attention to what it conceals. For the intoxicated speaker, this tension — between restraint and revelation — mirrors the conflict between his desperate desire and his underlying fidelity to his real lover.

1. The final stanza reframes all the drunken visions as expressions of genuine, enduring love rather than mere inebriated fantasy. The archaic word "troth" (a solemn pledge of fidelity) signals that his loyalty is not dependent on sobriety or logic — it is a deep, unconditional commitment that survives even a night of hallucination and longing.