English literature poetry

• Ozymandias


  Poem by Percy Shelley, narrator meets a traveler who tells him about a statue he saw in the desert
• The once vast and impressive empire the statue represented is now crumbled and isolated in the desert
• London


  Poem by William Blake, narrator describes a walk through the city of London in 1794
• The poem suggests the suffering is caused by those in power - the church, landowners, monarchy, and government
• The Prelude


  Poem by William Wordsworth, describes a true story from Wordsworth's childhood in the Lake District
• My Last Duchess


  Dramatic monologue by Robert Browning, Duke of Ferrara shows a painting of his former wife to a guest
• There is evidence the Duke is not as powerful and in control as he thinks
• The Charge of the Light Brigade


  Poem by Alfred Tennyson, focuses on part of the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War
• The poem praises the bravery and honor of the soldiers, but also questions the leadership blunder that led to the unnecessary deaths
• Exposure


  Poem by Wilfred Owen, describes the poet's World War I experience in trench warfare
• Storm on the Island


  Poem by Seamus Heaney, set in the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland
• Bayonet Charge


  Poem by Ted Hughes, an imagined account of a World War I soldier
• Remains


  Poem by Simon Armitage, based on the true story of a soldier in the Iraq War
• Poppies


  Dramatic monologue by Jane Weir, from the perspective of a mother and her relationship with her son who has joined the army
• War Photographer


  Poem by Carol Ann Duffy, about a photographer who comes home from a war zone
• Tissue


  Poem by Imtiaz Dharker, explores how paper can have power and control, but is ultimately fragile like human life
• The Emigree


  Poem by Carol Rumens, about a narrator who left her country as a child but still remembers it positively
• Checking Out Me History

  Poem by John Agard, about identity and how education has a Eurocentric view of history
• Kamikaze


  Poem by Beatrice Garland, about a mother talking to her children about her father, a kamikaze pilot in World War II
• Storm on The Island - Quotes


  "Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear"

  
  

  "We just sit tight while wind dives and strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo." (Personification, metaphor, sibilance)

  
  

  "Like a tame cat turned savage" (simile)

  
  

  "Exploding comfortably" (oxymoron)

  
  

  "When it blows full blast:" (enjambment then caesura)

  
  

  "We are prepared" (confident tone and inclusive pronoun)

  
  

  "Leaves and branches can raise a tragic chorus in a gale so that you can listen to the thing you fear" (personification)

  
  

  "You know what I mean-" (conversational tone)
• Storm on The Island - Structure


  - Blank verse

  - Friendly and conversational tone (draw reader in)

  - Narrative poem

  - Present tense
• Storm on The Island - Context


  Seamus Heaney grew up in a rural Northern Ireland farming community

  Power of natural world
• Storm on the Island - Themes


  - Isolation

  - Helplessness

  - Power of weather

  - Fear
• Storm on The Island - Comparisons


  - Bayonet Charge (nature imagery, fear)

  - Exposure (power of weather, personification of nature as an enemy helplessness, nothing happens)

  - The Prelude (power of nature)

  - Kamikaze (power of nature)
• London - Quotes


  "Runs in blood down palace walls" (metaphorical image with allusion to French Revolution)

  
  

  "How the chimney- sweeper's cry, Every black'ning church appalls' (abuse of power, emotive image of child labour)

  
  

  "Chartered street...chartered Thames" (repetition)

  
  

  "Mind-forged manacles" (metaphorical image)

  
  

  "The youthful harlot's curse...blights with plagues the marriage hearse" (contrasts between pure and vulgar images, nothing escapes all-encompassing misery)
• London - Structure


  - Dramatic monologue (1st person)

  - Controlled style (4 stanzas, 4 lines each)

  - ABAB rhyme scheme to echo relentless misery of city
• London - Context


  - French Revolution where the paupers overthrew the government

  - Industrial Revolution

  - William Blake lived in London so was well placed to write about social issues there

  - Radical political views and forward thinking
• London - Themes


  - French Revolution

  - Neglect

  - Suffering of innocents

  - Abuse of power

  - Social issues
• London - Comparisons


  - TCOTLB (abuse of power)

  - Ozymandias (abuse of power, humans perpetrating this, radical thinkers, end of power/power forever))

  - Checking Out Me History (abuse of power)

  - Kamikaze (abuse of power, control of state, violent imagery forced on nature)
• Bayonet Charge - Quotes


  "King, honour, human dignity, etcetera," (anti-patriotic attitude)

  
  

  "In what cold clockwork of the stars and nations was he the hand pointing that second?" (Rhetorical question represents realisation of how he is used as a pawn, caesura)

  
  

  "a yellow hare that rolled like a flame" (simile, nature imagery)

  
  

  "Running like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs" (simile, abject terror and blind panic)

  
  

  "shot-slashed furrows" (onomatopoeia contrasts between nature and war imagery)

  
  

  "The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye' (burdened, past tense shows rejection)
• Bayonet Charge - Structure


  - Enjambment (fast pace emphasises intensity)

  - Regular structure emphasises cold and calculated precision of war

  - Caesura abruptly stops rhythm of poem as soldier physically and mentally stops
• Bayonet Charge - Context


  - Ted Hughes was brought up in the countryside and had a passion for nature

  - Father was a WW1 veteran who had survived the massacre of his regiment @ Gallipoli

  - Experience of an unnamed WW1 soldier going 'over-the-top
• Bayonet Charge - Themes


  - Transformation

  - Anti-patriotic views

  - Active battle

  - Fear

  - Bravery and sacrifice
• Bayonet Charge - Comparisons


  - Storm on The Island (nature imagery)

  - Exposure (against war, anti-patriotism, nature imagery, difference in structure, sense of separation from civilians, experience in WW1)

  - Charge of the Light Brigade (active battle, sacrifice, bravery presented differently)

  - Remains (fear, realization of situation)

  - Kamikaze (fear of fulfilling duty, anti-patriotism)
• Exposure - Quotes


  "But nothing happens." (refrain with little variation, anticlimactic)

  
  

  "Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here?" (simile then refrain)

  
  

  "Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army, attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey," (personification of weather as an enemy)

  
  

  "Flock, pause and renew" (personification of nature as enemy, onomatopoeia mimics sound of gun loading)

  
  

  "Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow" (distant battle is less of a threat than insidious weather)

  
  

  "snow-dazed"/"sun-dozed" (hallucinating from bitter cold)

  
  

  "On us the doors are closed, we turn back to our dying" (would not be welcomed home and must face reality of dying)

  
  

  "For love of God seems dying." (war shook his belief in God, rejecting patriotic ideals)
• Exposure - Structure


  - Refrain with alternating rhetorical questions shows that there is no escape and the men are despairing

  - Regular structure represents harsh and rigid control of war
• Exposure - Context


  - Wilfred Owen was a soldier in WW1

  - Exposure is about his experience at Redan Ridge in the winter of 1917

  - He wanted to convey the 'pity of war' to the public and had an anti-patriotic attitude

  - Inspired by famous war poet Siegfried Sassoon when he met him in Craiglockhart military hospital
• Exposure - Themes


  - 'pity of war'

  - passive suffering

  - power of weather

  - mental damage

  - anti-patriotism/anti-war
• Exposure - Comparisons


  -Storm on the Island(power of weather, nature as an enemy, refrain/last line questioning fear, based on own experiences, longing for tangible fear)

  -Bayonet Charge(nature presented differently, anti-patriotism, based on experiences of WW1, questioning purpose of war, active/passive conflict)

  - War Photographer (mental damage of being powerless/bathos and anticlimax)

  - Remains (passive suffering, mental damage)
• Poppies - Quotes


  "Released a song bird from its cage" (metaphorical image as she lets her son go)

  
  

  "You were away, intoxicated"/"The world overflowing like a treasure chest" (simile, her son was overwhelmed with patriotic feeling)

  
  

  "steeled the softening of my face." (sibilance, fighting down emotions)

  
  

  "spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer." (language of war and consonance represent how war tainted her memories with her son)

  
  

  "The dove pulled freely against the sky" (ambiguous metaphorical image of peace, her son is at peace now he has died)

  
  

  "My stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats" (metaphorical image shows her anguish and grief)

  
  

  "I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind." (yearning for her son and remembering him in a happier time)