English Lit - Poetry - Everything Needed to Know

• Ozymandias


  A ruler/pharaoh who had a statue built to show off his power
• Ozymandias


  • His empire and statue have decayed over time, showing that nature will defeat even the most powerful rulers
  • The poem explores the idea that nothing lasts forever and that all human power and achievements are ultimately insignificant in the face of time and nature
• The poem's Volta (turning point)

  "Nothing beside remains"
• Ozymandias: '"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"'
• Ozymandias: '"a shattered visage lies"'
• London


  A poem that explores the dark side of London, the capital of the British Empire, and the suffering of its people
• Enjambment in London


  "the soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls"
• London: '"mind-forg'd manacles I hear"'
• London: '"marks in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe"'
• When analysing markets, a range of assumptions are made about the rationality of economic agents involved in the transactions
• The Wealth of Nations was written


  1776
• Rational

  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits
• Producers act rationally by

  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by

  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by

  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Marginal utility

  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• The poem is about a group of soldiers waiting for a battle to begin, but before the battle nothing happens, yet so much happens as they fight a war against nature that ultimately destroys them
• Poem

  • Narrative poem that tells the story of the soldiers' experience
  • Symbolic of the problems in Northern Ireland and the divide that existed at the time
  • Reflects the idea of propaganda and how people were told to prepare for a war, but the focus was incorrect
• Our brains ache in the merciless iced East Winds that knife us: 'Personification, sibilance, and imagery of the soldiers being destroyed by nature before the battle even begins'
• The Mad gusts tugging on The Wire: 'Personification of the wind, simile of the wind tearing at the soldiers like "twitching agonies of men on brambles"'
• Nothing happens

  Yet so much is happening as the soldiers are being battered by nature, foreshadowing their ultimate downfall
• We just sit tight while wind Dives and strafes invisibly: 'Juxtaposition between the initial confidence of being "prepared" and the realization that they are helpless against the forces of nature'
• It's a huge nothing that we fear: 'Personification and foreshadowing of the soldiers' realization that their focus and preparation was incorrect'
• Listening to the thing you fear

  Forgetting that it pummels your house too
• use too that point in the poem is very powerful these people guys pummeling is attacking the house and it foreshadows their downfall
• Why does it foreshadow the downfall

  Because at this moment in the text it realizes that as human beings they spend so much time looking out following the news doing what they've been told hate that person forget that person never realizing that the same people that have taught you to hate the same people that have taught you to live a certain way when the time is right they will attack you as well
• Nobody is safe from this attack
• When the war with nature begins what can you do nothing you just sit tight and wait to hope and pray to God that it doesn't destroy you completely
• Suddenly he awoke and was running raw in raw themed hockey he sweat heavy stumbling across the field of clothes towards a Green Hedge that dazzling with rifle fire
• Hearing bullets smacking the belly out of the air he lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm
• The Patriotic tear that had bring in his eye sweating like molting iron from the center of his chest in bewilderment
• Then he almost stopped in what called Clockwork the stars of the Nations was he the hand pointing at that second he was running like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs listening between his footfalls for the reason of his still running
• And his foot hung like statutory in mysteried then the shot slashed forwards threw up a yellow hair that roll like a fling and crawl in a threshing Circle his mouth opened silent his eyes standing out
• He plunged path with his bayonet towards the Green Hedge King on a human dignity Etc dropped like luxuries and yelling alarm to get out of that blue crackling ear his terrorist touchy Dynamite
• This poem is about a soldier who wakes up and he is in the middle of a battle and he runs and as he's running he's thinking what am I doing here why am I even here and then by the end of the poem he realizes that everything he's been sold is a lie everything he's been fighting for is a lie
• Quotes to remember: 'smacking the belly out of the air', 'jumped up in the dark and runs', 'dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm'
• This poem is a narrative poem because it tells the story of the realization that this man has watched on the battlefield