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English Literature - Power and Conflict Poetry Anthology (Ozymandias…
English Literature - Power and Conflict Poetry Anthology
Ozymandias
Context
Shelley was a Romantic Poet.
Disagreed with the monarchy
The poem is about how power is always lost.
Structure and Form
Sonnet form creates irony
In pentameter
Quotations
"I met a traveller from an antique land who said [...]" - distances self from the statue.
"Half sunk, a shattered visage lies." - semantic field of deterioration.
"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!'" - There is arrogant declaration as well as imperative to other rulers which shows arrogance.
"The lone and level sands stretch far away" - Alliteration creates contrasting image of the longevity and boundlessness of nature, making Ozymandias' short rule and ruins even more obsolete.
London
Context
Massive class divide
Industrial Revolution.
Comes from Blake's harsher collection of poems called 'Songs of Experience'.
Structure and Form
Regular iambic pentameter mimics natural speech.
Regular rhyme scheme used to represent inevitability of everyday life.
Quotations
"Mark in every face I meet marks of weakness marks of woe" - repetition of word mark with multiple meanings, e.g. notice, sign/scar. Emphasises the effect on speaker and the people he observes.
"In every cry of every man, in every infants cry of fear, in every [...]" Repetition of every highlights universal effects of oppression.
"The hapless soldier's sigh runs in blood down palace walls." - represents the way people fight for the benefit of the wealthy. Use of sibilanse.
My Last Duchess
Context
Set in Italy, and based on a real duchess who died under suspicious circumstances.
Structure and Form
Dramatic monologue form - gives it a feel of immediacy.
Heavy use of enjambment throughout making the Duke sound as if he cannot control his words.
Quotations
"That's my last duchess" - possessive pronoun, acting as if he owns her.
"None puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I" - Duke portraying a sense of ownership/control over the duchess. Ironic as he could not control her when she was alive.
"I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together." - ambiguous. Implies he killed the duchess. Very sinister.
"My gift of a nine-hundred years old name" - Obsessed with his social hierarchy and heritage.
The Charge of The Light Brigade
Context
Light Brigade famously charged directly towards Russian guns during Crimean War.
It happened because of a mistake in leadership which lead to a disaster.
Form and Structure
Follows a pentameter which mimics horses' hooves.
Regular rhyme scheme and repetition.
Quotations
Repetition of "Rode the six hundred" makes the poem memorable.
"Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs [...]" - shows the lack of power and control the soldiers have over the situation.
"Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon [...]" repetition shows how soldiers are surrounded on all sides.
"Honour the charge they made!" - Imperative directs audience's response to the Light Brigade.
Exposure
Context
Wilfred Owen actually fought in war.
About experiences suffering PTSD
Structure and Form
43 Lines long - quite long poem, adds to the effect of slowness and nothing happening
Nature is portrayed as the enemy throughout.
Quotations
"The merciless iced east winds that knive us" - Present tense contributes to the sense of it never ending. Sibilance creates hissing effect. Nature is portrayed as the enemy and also very dangerous.
"What are we doing here?" - rhetorical question, shows the pointlessness of war.
"Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army" - Nature seen as the enemy. Contrast to how dawn is usually protrayed, beautiful.
"Slowly our ghosts drag home" - assonance emphasises sluggishness of movement.
"But nothing happens" - Repeated throughout, shows the feeling of monotony the soldiers are going through.
Storm On the Island
Context
Northern Ireland Assembly's parliament buildings are commonly known as Stormont.
Written at the start of the "Irish Troubles"
Structure and Form
Free Verse
Lots of caesura and enjambment, mimicking natural speech.
Quotations
"We are prepared, we build our houses squat" - present tense, "we" represents group viewpoint. Confident.
"Spits like a tame cat turned savage" - simile evokes sense of something being trusted becoming unpredictable.
"We are bombarded by the empty air" - "bombarded" provides connotations of war.
"It is a huge nothing that we fear."
Bayonet Charge
Context
Poem set in world war 1.
Hughes had no experience of war.
Structure and Form
Uneven rhythm and uneven rhyme lengths represent soldier's struggle.
Quotations
In bewilderment then he almost stopped -" - Soldier suddenly questions what he is doing, reflected by abrupt line ending.
"King, honour, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxuries" - soldier is now prioritizing survival over patriotism.
"Bullets smacking the belly out of the air" shows effects on environment.
Remains
Context
Part of a collection of poetry called "The Not Dead", for which Simon Armitage interviewed many soldiers.
This poem is based off of a soldier's real experiences that were described to Armitage in an interview
Structure and Form
Very colloquial throughout.
Irregular rhythm and pace of natural speech created by sentence structures.
Enjambment may represent that there is no break from the memories.
Quotations
"Myself and somebody else and somebody else", "all three of us", "Three of a kind" - Insistence on three people, trying to make himself feel less responsible. Doesn't work.
"Sort of inside out" - euphemism for man's intestines being spilled by gunfire. Showing reluctance for speaker to face up to the reality.
"End of story, except not really" - Volta, creates Irony
"His bloody life in my bloody hands" - "bloody" used as a curse to show anger, also shows responsibility for actions.
War Photographer
Structure and Form
Regular rhyming couplets echo photographers control when in public.
Quotations
"Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows" - Metaphorical, sibilance used to show danger. Emotions are locked into images.
"Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass." Plosives, plus a reference to the bible, which reminds us that human life is brief.
"A hundred agonies in black and white"
"The reader's eyeballs prick with tears beneath the bath and pre-lunch beers." - Rhyme trivialises the tears.
Kamikaze
Context
'Kamikaze' refers to the Japanese practise of flying an aeroplane into a target, during World War 2.
The families of Kamikaze pilots were given very high status as successfully completing a Kamikaze mission made you very noble.
Structure and Form
The first part of the poem is a very long sentence, representing the flowing unstoppability of the train of thought of the Kamikaze Pilot.
Quotations
"A shaven head full of powerful incantations" - representation of propaganda.
"Shoals of fishes flashing silver" - harmonious, power of nature.
"He must have wondered which had been the better way to die."
"They treated him as though he no longer existed."