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Poetry Anthology: Power & Conflict - Coggle Diagram
Poetry Anthology: Power & Conflict
London
William Blake Powerlessness Legacy
Language selection
Chartered Thames
The river is used by everyone, but it is owned by someone, who doesn't care about Cholera or the people living on the
Chartered Streets
Semantic field of manufacture -
Blasts
,
Forged
. Shows how important the industrial period is to every person in Britain - whether they are gaining from it or being forced to work in it.
Plagues the marriage hearse
Marriage should be happy, but the juxtaposition makes it very negative - pointing out the ciphillis that is going around due to lots of sex work for money
Context
Written in 1794, during the Industrial Revolution. Shows how corrupt the Victorian society is, and the problems the general population faces
Change across the poem
Starts with
I wander through each chartered street
to
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse
. Shows that despite everything is owned by someone and mapped, everyone is aimed towards death, and that it's a cycle or a
chartered Thames
Repetition
of marks show how permanently scarring Victorian society is on people, and how it is impossible to be seen as anything other than class, shows how people are singled out -
Marks of weakness, marks of woe
Structure
Regular ABAB structure - Quatrain stanzas, like a nursery rhyme but very distressing and talking about adult-topics. First person helps hammer home just how common all of the problems are, but he does not class himself - like an onlooker or a tourist, rather than a contributor
Images
How the chimney-sweeper's cry every black'ning church appalls
. The alliteration between the church and the chimney-sweeper shows that they are linked, and that the Church is using Chimney-sweepers, but it is still black'ning because it is not looking after the children it is employing, and it is going against God to employ them in the first place.
And the hapless soldier's sigh runs in blood down palace walls
. The onomatopoeia of sigh helps us hear how tired they are, but they are unable to do anything about it. Furthermore, it
runs in blood down palace walls
showing that they are also taking the brunt of colonialism but not being looked after at all.
In every cry of every man, in every infant's cry of fear
. There is no getting away from the dreadful place that London is - the cry carries on throughout the life cycle - inherited.
In every ban, the mind-forged manacles I hear
. Everyone is trapped in their own place, unable to explore, trapped in manacles. The bans/laws make things worse and every time the manacles and debts get bigger and bigger.
Storm on the Island
Seamus Heaney Nature's Power Changeability of power
Structure.
It is dense - one stanza. Bombarding with words, no break. Conversational, informal tone - all in this together. Iambic pentameter - heartbeat. We -> you -> we, focusses in and out of the whole photo, telling a story, like the troubles.
Context
Written in 1966 - during the Irish troubles. Stormont in the title. Wish for pacifism in the troubles - everyone in the same boat
Repetition
of we and no shows that it has lots of negative energy - they are alone, without the help of nature, but at least there are lots of humans. Build up as a force or storm and creates power. -
We are prepared
,
Nor are there trees...there are no trees
Language selection
Attacking words from the semantic field of the military -
Exploding...We are bombarded by the empty air...salvo...wind dives
Exploding comfortably
- juxtaposition between harsh and soft sounds, shows how nature can be, and how things can change in a moment's notice.
You might think that the sea is company...but no:
- starts with a therapeutic idea - sea waves, but ends in a very powerful, forceful no, showing that things can be alright, and then suddenly not - the empty air
Images
Space is a salvo. We are bombarded by the empty air.
Shows that they are getting attacked by nothing - silence is deadly, just the anticipation for the next strike.
build our houses squat, sink walls in rock...there are no stacks or stooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees.
The smaller and the stronger it is, the more it can withstand - takes lots of care when trying not to lose to a supernatural power. A cynical look, there has never been anything to lose.
The flung spray hits the very windows, spits like a tame cat turned savage.
Everything can turn on us, even human made ones like a tame cat - nature wants to get in the windows and conquer the rest of the house.
Leaves and branches can raise a tragic chorus in a gale.
Personification shows how nature turns everything alive. Tragic chorus is a greek group which commiserates with the humans.
Change across the poem
Starts from before the storm to the revelation in the storm.
We are prepared...Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear
. Shows that fear is a noise (pacifism). Also, changes from we to you to we. Shows that he is first-person, talking about his country - then attacking the reader (
You might think that the sea is company
) - then talking about what they do during the storm.
Bayonet Charge
Ted Hughes War's Power
Images
The Patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest
. Shows how patrioticity leaves the mind as soon as it gets more serious and the heat turns up - like his soul is leaving him.
He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm
Suggests that it is a deformity from the battlefield is normal, that he is struggling and the gun is amoral but that he does not have a choice.
In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second?
Shows that he is just realising that he is just a puppet in this world - depersonifying the soldiers,
clockwork
suggests that his experiences as a soldier are 'normal' and 'unseen'.
Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame and crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide open silent, its eyes standing out.
Signifying the dead people all around him.
Threw up
suggests that the damage of nature is unstomachable.
In a raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy, stumbling across a field of clods
Shows that he has not yet had a break - everything is hurting and finding it hard, but he is unable to stop - running through nature, but
clods
shows that the nature has been destroyed by mankind.
Khaki
blends in with nature, suggesting that he has also already been destroyed.
Language selection
He plunged past
Shows that he wants to escape the war, the moment of no return, but cannot hesitate for a second.
His terror's touchy dynamite
Harsh Ts signify PTSD - that it could go off at any time, and touchy is a human, coloquial word showing that the soldiers are humans. Dynamite is spitting fear through the air
Shot-slashed furrows
Gives a feeling of harsh, quick, gun-like sounds - straight after
Statuary in mid-stride
, shows that they could never have a break.
Semantic field of the army -
Khaki...Rifle fire...bayonet...Yelling alarm...Dynamite
Change across the poem
Starts talking about running + pain -> Questioning + running -> Survival and questioning. A journey across the poem to the reason as to why he signed up -
King, honour, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxuries
- and that it is a bunch of nonesense
Repetition
Focus on running for the first two stanzas, then not another running repetition in the 3rd stanza -
Suddenly he awoke and was running
. Repetition of body parts -
It's mouth wide open silent, its eyes standing out
. Shows the viscerality of the nightmare
Context
Written by Ted Hughes about his father's PTSD Nightmares - very abrupt and distressing, with lots of feelings, the worst bits of the war
Structure
No rhyme scheme - he is running too fast - lots of syllables in each sentence and long sentences (enjambement). Unbreaking sentences except for body parts - the enemy never stops
as a smashed arm;
. Very few pauses in the whole poem, just small pauses which break the chain of thought.
Ozymandias
Percy Shelley Power of Time Legacy
Context
Written around 1810, at a similar time to Frankenstein. Based on narcissistic pharoah Rameses II
Change across the poem
Starts with
I met a traveller from an antique land
to
The lone and level sands stretch far away
. The change from
met
to
lone
shows how we all end up on our own, and remembered individually, rather than as a group
Repetition
Not much repetition, but the repetition of
sands
, for example,
Near them on the sand
shows how it is important that everything is just ground and in the end, everyone is equal on the ground - but that it is barren and deserted so no-one cares that much about the past.
Structure
Traditional, old sonnet. Split into an octet and a sestet which helps show how power is broken and degraded over time. Iambic Pentameter shows the unbreakable power of the poetic form and the heart beat of an individual. Written in multiple perspectives showing that history is told from multiple perspectives - but over all, it is told by the narrator, who comes afterwards.
Images
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip
. Shows that although he may once have been a person, now only a small amount of him remains - his
shattered visage
and we can only see a small amount of him - census details rather than person - and he has aged despite the statue -
wrinkled lip
- also showing how some things that were alright then are not alright now.
Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away
. Shows that although he was once the ruler of a large kingdom, all that is left is him, he is alone and has no control over anything anymore.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Shows that even the traveller's birthplace is old, not new, and this is already a history, that is told by another person. Stories are told by people other than ourselves in the end.
Language selection
Colossal wreck
Shows just how vast something can be, but it can only tell one story - in the end, it is just broken down to nothing
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in a desert
Shows how history strips people down to the bare minimum, only some stories are told.
Use of size and alliteration shows just how large items can be, but how little they can tell a story about. Such as
boundless and bare
.
My Last Duchess
Robert Browning Legacy Individual's power
Speech changes
He asks lots of questions, but then never gives them a chance to answer - showing that he doesn't really care, but its good to seem like he gives a chance. He says
How shall I say?
to make it seem like he does not know everything in his head or to give it a bit of a change in speech, but he actually continues to control it, and just needs to take a moment to let the reader envelop what he says.
Images
If she let herself be lessoned so
Shows that he believes that a woman should do exactly what he says, and that marriage is a way of controlling her, and that she can control her own flushes and blushes, which is a stupid assumption
Notice Neptune, though, taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity
Shows that he just wants it to sink into the reader, that he is the best person, but he is also the strongest person, and will argue with those who do not do what he tells them to do.
Paint must never hope to reproduce the faint half-flush that dies along her throat
Shows that he has had the plan to kill her for a long time, since Fra Pandolf, but has been unable to find a way to do it until now.
Context
Written by a Victorian 77 year old. Based on the possible story of the Duke of Ferrara who married a 15 year old girl, who later disappeared. Written in the style of him telling someone why he should be given the hand of marriage of their daughter
Change across the poem
Starts by saying
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive
to
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
. Change between something that could have been alive, to something that definitely wasn't but was made to seem alive. Art collections tell lots of stories.
Structure
Written as a Dramatic Monologue to give a slow reveal of his personal identity, and never lets anyone else speak. No other structures necessary, as it is not being spoken by someone else at all.
Language selection
Repeated use of
she
, such as in
and if she let herself be lessoned so
dehumanises the Duchess - making it obvious that the Count didn't value her in the first place, and that he just wanted an object rather than a person
The consistent use of body parts, such as
throat
shows that the Count doesn't really care about the person of the Duchess, just what she looks like.
The use of special and sophisticated words such as
munificence
shows that the Count cares about how he is portrayed, and that the person whom he is speaking to knows that he is very grand and will be the right choice
Checking Out Me History
John Agard
Identity Power of childhood stories
Language selection
Repeated use of vernacular language, such as
Dem tell me
highlights how important Agard thinks regaining identity and celebrating all cultures is, and how he is breaking the traditional stereotypes of writing poetry in received pronunciation
The use of injury terms such as
Bandage me up
helps to amplify how alone people can feel if they don't learn about their own heritage and culture from a young age, and how long it can take them to regain it
Use of fiery imagery such as
hopeful stream
and
Toussaint de beacon
shows how everyone has their own identity - every one is different, just like nature, so only showing a couple of different identities is not helpful for anybody
Context
Written by Caribbean author who moved to the UK in the 1970s. Challenges racism, prejudice. This poem highlights the Eurocentric History curriculum the UK uses - rather than celebrating the diversity of the world
Change across the poem
Starts by saying
Bandage up me eye with me own history
to
I checking out me own history I carving out me identity
. Shows that from a young age - we only learn what people tell us, which is not a lot of diverse history, but when we get older, we can discover our own identities and histories
Speech changes/Repetition
of
dem tell me
shows how embedded our childhood stories are in our lives - we remember them forever. Change between regular rhyme to free verse
Mary Seacole -> From Jamaica
shows how its breaking tradition and normality to teach something new, or talk about these amazing people who escaped stereotypes
Structure
Lots of paragraphs showing the range of history we cover, and don't cover. Opposing well known British icons
Lord Nelson
to very little known Black icons
Shaka de great Zulu
Takes away importance from British icon, and places it on the Black icon
Images
Change from a nursery rhyme to a very unknown person such as
Nanny de maroon
reduces the emphasis on the nursery rhyme to put it on the lack of knowledge of Nanny the maroon
A healing star among the wounded, a yellow sunrise to the dying
shows how each person's identity can be different to different people, but they all have a common factor - the person
I carving out me identity
highlights how one can re-shape their own knowledge, but it takes a long time and can be hard and painful
Kamikaze
Beatrice Garland
Shame/Honour Destruction of Identity
Structure
6 lines in each stanza. Speaker is 3rd person, showing distance between their family. 1st full stop is when he decides to turn back, final two stanzas are in italics showing the rejection from society
Change across the poem
Starts with
Her father embarked at sunrise
to
which had been the better way to die
. Shows how within just a day, he was dead either way - socially or if he'd carried out his mission, how quick someone's life can change
Repetition
Repeated use of
him
and
he
shows that no-one was allowed to use his name, as what he had done was so wrong, despite talking about so many other people
Context
Based on a WW2 pilot's experience where they were sent on a Kamikaze suicide mission and decided to not carry out his task. Cowardice like this led to social rejection for you and your family
Imagery
Cairns of pearl-grey pebbles
gives an image of dead eyes stacking up - he has caused this death by not following his orders, and yet he needed to
withstand longest the turbulent inrush of breakers
which represent his family in society.
A shaven head full of powerful incantations
suggests how he was manipulated and forced into doing something he didn't want to do, but was able to overcome the magic
safe to the shore, salt-sodden
shows how what he needs to have most is safety, and to be safe on the ground again - not dead in the ground
Language Selection
They treated him as though he no longer existed,
shows how Japanese society needed everyone to do as they were expected to - there was no point in him having turned around, as he was socially dead as soon as he had arrived back
Brothers waiting
indicates how he let down his brotherhood of soldiers by not following through - but he was actually showing loyalty to his family, rather than his country
Kamikaze
means divine wind that scattered an invading fleet in 1250 - showing how just one divine thought could scatter a family into oblivion in WW2