Power and conflict poetry

• Ozymandias form / structure

  Sonnet ( 14 lines ) - usually written about love, shows ozymandias love for power

  8 lines - octave - problem

  6 lines - sestet - solution

  Iambic pentameter - insignificance of human power versus inevitable passing of time

  inconsistent rhyme scheme - lack of power of the ruler where the single stanza suggests order
• ozymandias descriptive words

  tyrannical

  megalomaniac

  hostile

  hubris

  deteriorated statue
• ozymandias context

  poem based on Ramesses II, an Egyptian pharaoh , who had one of the greatest empires but it crumbled, fading into the sands of time. Slaves suffered under the pharoahs control

  Percey Shelley was a radical romantic poet ( response to industrial revolution ). He was vegetarian, strongly anti-monarchy, pacifist, atheist, supported social justice
• ozymandias quotes


  half sunk a shattered visage lied - imagery creates a sense of irony

  Nothing besides remains - Volta, abstract noun ( nothing )

  whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command - polysyndeton, guttural alliteration, pejoratives, caesura ( slows down the line

  my name is ozymandias, king of kings ; look on my works, ye mighty and despair! - possessive pronoun , third person, declarative statement, imperative, hyperbole, repetition

  of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away - oxymonoron, sibilants, alliteration
• my last duchess structure / form

  rhyming couplets ( AABB )

  dramatic monologue

  iambic pentameter - tight control of the duke

  enjambment - never-ending control

  caesura - stuttering effect shows frustration / anger

  focus - the painting

  Opens in media res
• my last duchess themes

  pride and power of man

  decline

  oppression
• my last duchess context

  based on real Italian noblemen, Duke of Ferrara. his wife died of suspicious circumstances and it was rumoured that shed been poisoned

  Browning was a romantic poet who voiced it

  poem is set during the renaissance era, a period where art was highly valued and made as seen through the portrait of the duchess

  patriarchal society
• my last duchess quotes

  ( since none puts by the curtain i have drawn for you but i ) - brackets, personal pronoun

  this grew ; i gave commands and all smiles stopped together - sibilance, euphemism, ambiguous language

  notice Neptune, though, taming a seahorse - reference to Neptune who was God of the sea , sees himself as Neptune, imperative, metaphor

  as if she ranked my gift of nine-hundred-year-old name with any bodies gift - juxtaposes the controlled nature of the poem

  will’t please you sit and look at her

  too easily impressed - intensifier

  white mule - colour imagery
• London form/structure

  iambic tetrameter - sounds like a warped and horrific nursery rhyme heightening motif of oppression

  dramatic monologue

  quatrains

  regular ABAB rhyme scheme
• London context

  inspired by the French Revolution, wanted everyone to fight against the corrupt government . the corrupt french monarchy was overthrown by peasants

  Blake was a romantic poet, critical of the romantic movement. he was anti-establishment

  Blake denounces the corruption of youth, reinforcing its direct link with authoritarian abuse of power and oppression

  he wrote two other poetry collections called songs of innocence and songs of experience
• London quotes

  and mark in every face i meet … marks of weakness , marks of woe - anaphora, alliteration

  mind-forged manacles - metaphor ( no autonomy ), alliteration

  near where the chartered Thames does flow

  every black‘ning church appals -colour imagery has connotations of evil

  the hapless soldier sigh runs in blood down palace walls - sibilance, enjambment
• the charge of the light brigade form/structure

  six stanzas - 600 soldiers

  enjambment - continuous flow of battle

  focus - light brigade

  repetition

  ballad

  dactylic dimeter
• the charge of the light brigade quotes

  horse and hero fell - alliteration

  when can their glory fade? - rhetorical question

  honour the light brigade

  half a league, half a league onwards

  all in the value of death, rode the six hundred - biblical reference , hyperbolic metaphor

  volleyd and thundered ; stormed at with shot and shell - onomatopeic, sibilants, pathetic fallacy

  into the jaws of death into the mouths of hell - religious imagery, animal imagery, metaphor
• bayone charge form/structure

  written in third person

  enjambment

  caesura

  opens in media res

  repetition
• Bayonet charge context

  Ted Hughes’s was a famous war poet. He was a child during WW2 and never fought in it So he grew up in post war era. He had a rural upbringing. Hughes father fought in WW1 leaving him emotionally traumatised. Bayonet charge highlights the brutality of trench warfare as a tribute to his father’s suffering. Greatly inspired by Wilfred Owen
• bayonet charge quotes

  hearing the bullets smacking the belly out of the air - sensory language, alliteration, personification

  king, honour, human dignity, etcetera - listing

  the patriotic tear that brimmed his eyes sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest - metaphor, simile

  in what cold clockworks of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second? - guttural alliteration, rhetorical question

  a yellow hare that rolled like a flame and crawled in a threshing circle - colour imagery, smile
• war photographer form/structure

  rigid form

  6 lines per stanza

  constant ABBCDD rhyme scheme

  cyclical structure

  enjambment
• war photographer context


  Duffy was poet laureate. she was inspired by her friendship with two famous war photographer. published 10 years after the Vietnam war.
• War photographer quotes


  Spools of suffering set out in ordered rows - sibilance, metaphor

  as though this were a church and he a priest preparing to intone a mass - religious simile, biblabial plosive alliteration

  Belfast, Beirut, Phnom, Penh. All flesh is grass - biblical allusion, plosive alliteration, metaphor, rule of three

  he has a job to do

  running children in a nightmare heat - emotive imagery with connotations of hell

  he earns a living and they do not care
• remains structure/form

  eight stanzas ( 7 quatrains and one 2 line stanza )

  monologue

  opens in media res

  enjambment

  volta
• remains context

  published in ‘the not dead’ series based on testimonies of ex soldiers

  could be describing the Iraq war

  soldiers experienced PTSD
• remains quotes

  on another occasion we got sent out to tackle looters raiding a bank - opens in media res

  i see every round as it rips through his life

  well myself and somebody else and somebody else are all of the same mind - repetition

  so all three of us open fire - religious imagery

  but i blink and he bursts again through the door - alliteration

  the drinks and drugs wont flush him out - alliteration

  his blood-shadow stays on the street, and out on patrol i walk right over it week after week - sibilance, alliteration, metaphor

  end of story except not really - Volta
• kamikaze structure/form

  shift in narrative perspective - daughters perspective in 3rd person

  detached tone

  sesets

  free-verse

  enjambment
• kamikaze context

  during WW2, Japanese kamikaze pilots flew manned suicide missions into military target, using planes filled with explosives- seen as honourable.

  collection ‘ the invention of fireworks ‘

  cowardice or surrender was a great shame in wartime Japan
• kamikaze quotes

  one-way journey into history

  strung out like bunting on a green-blue translucent sea - colour imagery

  figure of eight - symbol of infinity

  The father embarked at sunrise with a flask of water, a samurai sword in the cockpit - sibilance

  my mother never spoke again in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes and the neighbours too, they treated him as though he no longer existed - possessive pronoun, polysyndeton, simile

  which had been the better way to die
• poppies form/structure

  elegy - mourning poem

  dramatic monolgue

  free verse ( no rhyme scheme )

  enjambment

  caesura
• poppies context

  Weir lived in Northern Island during the troubles in the 1980s

  she has two sons which may have influenced to desire to explore what caused young boys to go to war and fight

  textile designer - used related imagery

  comes from the ‘ exit wound ‘ collection
• poppies quote

  Before you left i pinned one onto your lapel, crumpled petals, spasms of paper red disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer - asyndetic listing, biblabial plosive alliteration, colour imagery

  sellotape bandaged around my hand … smoothed down your shirts upturned collar … steeled the softening of my face - sibilance, metaphor

  i was brave as i walked with you, to the front door, threw it open like, the world overflowing like a treasure chest - simile

  later a single dove flew from the pear tree … skirting the church yard walls - religious imagery
• the emigree structure / form

  free verse

  repetition

  enjambment - conveys freedom

  caesura - she is now trapped
• the emigree context

  born in London . travelled widely throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. reflected in her writing about culture

  ’thinking of skins’ collections
• the emigree quotes

  but my memory of its sunlight clear for it seems i never saw it in that November which i am told comes to the mildest city - metaphor

  it may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but i am branded by an impression of sunlight -repetition of modal verb ‘ may ‘, metaphor, personification

  they accuse me of a sense, they circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city - pronoun, rule of three. Tyrants, tanks, frontiers - semantic field of conflict
• The emigree personification quote

  I comb its hair and love its shining eyes

  my city takes me dancing

  my city hides behind me
• Checking out me history form/ structure


  Dual structure

  repetition

  irregular rhyme scheme

  each stanza ends with a reference to a black historical figure

  enjambment

  volta
• checking out me history context

  Agard born in Guyana and received a British education due to the country being colonised, given Eurocentric view of history

  guyana - Dutch country. africans were sold as slaves to America and the Carribean

  collection ‘ half caste and other poems ‘
• checking out me history quotes 


  dem tell me dem tell me - written phonetically , juxtaposition

  bandage up me eye with me own history blind me to my own identity - biblabial plosive alliteration , hyperbolic metaphor

  mountain dream, fire-woman struggle hopeful stream to freedom river - natural imagery

  i carving out me own identity - metaphor
• Storm on the island form/structure

  One stanza

  volta

  iambic pentameter

  free verse

  enjambment
• storm on the island context

  Northern Irish poet

  published at the start of the troubles ( conflict between thone wanting to remain in England or Ireland )

  first eight letter of title spell stormont - Norther Irish parliament

  poem may be a political storm that was building in the country at the time
• storm on the island quotes

  spits like a tame cat turned savage - enjambment, simile, zoomorphism , sibilance

  strange it is a huge nothing we fear - oxymoron

  we are prepared - begins in media res

  the wizened earth has never troubled us - the premodifier adjective

  nor are there trees which might prove company when it blows full blast - onomatopoeia, biblabial plosive alliteration, personification

  we just sit tight while wind dives and strafes invisibly - juxtaposition, personification, assonance
• the prelude structure / form

  autobiographical poem

  epic poem

  parallelism

  cyclical structure

  enjambment

  free verse
• the prelude context

  difficult childhood

  both his parents died

  he considered suicide

  romantic poet