Poetry

• Ozymandias themes

  power of nature

  decay

  pride
• ozymandias quotes

  • “sneer of cold command”
  • ”look on my works, ye mighty, and despair”
  • ”the lone and level sands stretch far away”
• ozymandias summary and meaning

  • narrator meets traveller who tells him about a decayed structure in the desert
  • statue was of a long forgotten ancient King: arrogant ozymandias: ‘king of kings’
  • poem is ironic and a metaphor saying human power is temporary, human cannot resist power of nature
• ozymandias context

  • romantic period
  • shelley disliked concept of monarchy and oppression of ordinary people
  • inspired by french revolution
• ozymandias form and structure

  • iambic pentameter is disrupted
  • sonnet with unconventional structure
  • structure portrays destruction of human structures
• exposure themes


  conflict

  suffering

  nature

  reality of war

  patriotism
• exposure content and meaning

  • war as a battle against weather and conditions
  • imagery of cold and warm reflect delusional man dying of hypothermia
  • owen wanted to draw attention to suffering and futility of war
• exposure quotes

  • “our brains ache”
  • ”the merciless iced east winds that knives us”
  • ”mad gusts tugging on the wire”
  • ”we” and “our”
• exposure context

  • written 1917
  • written by a soldier
  • war and pity of war
  • highlights tragedy of war and mistakes of senior commandment
• exposure structure

  • contrast of cold and warm shows delusions of dying soldier
  • repetition of ”but nothing happened”shows never ending suffering
  • rhyme scheme ABBA emphasises monotony
  • half rhymes barely hold poem together, like the man
• kamikaze themes

  conflict

  power

  patriotism

  nature
• kamikaze content and meaning

  • japanese kamikaze pilots would fly manned missiles into targets
  • poem explores a kamikaze pilots journey towards battle and his decision to return and how he is shunned by society
  • beauty of nature and memories of childhood made him turn back
• kamikaze quotes

  • “dark shoals of fish flashing silver”
  • ”they treated him as though he no longer existed”
  • ”was no longer the father we loved”
  • ”he must have wondered which had been the better way to die”
• kamikaze context

  • cowardice or surrender was a great shame in wartime japan
  • surrender meant shame for you and family and rejection from society
• kamikaze structure

  • third person to represent distance between speaker and father
  • only full stop is when he decides to turn back
  • direct speech for personal tone