Power and Conflict Poetry Revision

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)

Poppies - Structure

- Movement: present-past-present

- Last and first stanzas are 6 lines, middle are 11/12 lines to show her emotions taking over as she remembers her son

- Line 19 caesura = inner turmoil and breakup of memories

- Enjambment and time phrases = thoughts being carried through poem and recalling memories

Poppies - Context

- Published in a 2009 collection of war poems commissioned by Carol Ann Duffy as a response to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq

- Addresses female experience

- Was inspired to write by mothers who had lost sons in wars, particularly SUSAN OWEN (Wilfred Owen - Exposure)

Poppies - Themes

- Love

- Patriotism

- Remembrance

- Suffering

- Loss

Poppies - Comparisons

-TCOTLB (remembrance and patriotism)

- Exposure (suffering and yearning for family)

- *War Photographer* (experiencing effects of war second-hand in emotional outbursts, sense of separation, insp. by someone who was in war, fighting down emotions, )

- Kamikaze (losing family members)

War Photographer - Quotes

"spools of suffering set out in ordered rows" (sibilance shows how he is trying to regain control by treating the photos in a cold and detached manner)

"Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh." (full stops fix images in mind, cold and clinical)

"All flesh is grass." (religious imagery contrasts with sacrilegious theme of war and death)

"As though this were a church and he a priest preparing to intone a Mass." (photographer is 'playing god' and he is like a priest as they are both exposed to death and suffering)

"To fields which don't explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat." (haunting image based on famous photo of children running from a napalm attack during the Vietnam war)

"a half-formed ghost" (double meaning, photo is developing but also captured final moments of a man's life)

"do what someone must," (sense of duty)

"he stares impassively at where he earns his living and they do not care." (anticlimax, his photos will make no real difference to people who haven't experienced war for themselves, he is an OBJECTIVE BYSTANDER who feels separated from both his countrymen and those who dies in the war)

War Photographer - Context

- Based on Duffy's friendship with a war photographer

- Imagery in 3rd stanza is based on a famous photo of children fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War

War Photographer - Themes

- Objective bystander

- Passive suffering

- Mental damage

- Horror of war

- Helplessness

War Photographer - Structure

- Regular structure (4 stanzas of 6 lines each) shows how photographer is trying to bring control into his life

- Each stanza ends in a rhyming couplet

- Cold and unemotional tone shows how photographer must remain emotionally detached

War Photographer - Comparisons

- *Poppies* (emotional outbursts, suppressing emotions, insp. by someone who has been to war, sense of separation, passive suffering)

- Exposure (mental damage and passive suffering/anticlimax and bathos)

- Kamikaze (both pilots, reject common attitude to war, don't fit into society)

- *Remains* (PTSD, suppressing emotions, expected to forget when get home, image coming to life, just doing job)

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Quotes

"Someone had blunder'd" (heavy and clumsy, like the thoughtless command)

"'Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!' he said:" (direct speech shows terrible miscommunication)

"the Valley of Death" (biblical metaphor alludes to Psalm 123 - relate to image public can understand)

"Plunged in the battery-smoke, right thro' the line they broke" (dramatic and exciting, shows action of battle and distracts from tragedy)

"Cannon to right of them...cannon in front of them." (repetition to help rote learning and emphasise how cavalry was surrounded)

"Storm'd at with shot and shell" (sibilance and onomatopoeia for sound effects and to immerse reader)

"Rode the six hundred" (refrain with variants to leave reader with memory of 600 men)

"Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die:" (rhyme for rote learning,creates fast paced rhythm to mimic action of battle, patriotism)

"When can their glory fade?" (rhetorical question generating support for the military and reinforces theme of honour and heroism)

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Structure

- Ballad

- Past tense

- Uses structure to tell story:

Stanzas 1-3: attack

Stanza 4: battle

Stanza 5: defeat and retreat

Stanza 6: honour

- 6 stanzas represent 600 men

- Refrain to remind reader of the 600 men who lost their lives

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Context

- Alfred Lord Tennyson was the Poet Laureate at the time of the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War (1853-56)

- There was a miscommunication from the commanding officer to the troops, which resulted in a disastrous cavalry charge into direct fire and many casualties

- ALT was commissioned to write a poem to emphasise the heroics of the soldiers for going into battle regardless of the danger

- He used simple language, rhyme and repetition so his poem could be learnt by rote by the mostly illiterate public

- He believed war was 'a great heroic deed' and was very patriotic

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Themes

- Glorifying war

- Remembrance

- Patriotism

- Abuse of power

- Sacrifice

- Bravery

- Active battle

The Charge of the Light Brigade - Comparisons

- Bayonet Charge (active battle)

- Poppies (remembrance)

- War Photographer (religious imagery)

- London (abuse of power, religious imagery)

- My Last Duchess and Ozymandias (abuse of power)

- Exposure (refrain, largely contrast though)

- Checking Out Me History (abuse of power, oral poetry, manipulated viewpoint, rhythm, glorifying)

Ozymandias - Quotes

"whose frown and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command," (describing statue)

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings! Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'" (Mighty capitalized for emphasis, shows arrogance and boastfulness)

"The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;" (followers perpetrated his greed)

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare," (temporality of earthly power)

"Tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive," (his arrogance, not his achievements, lived on.)

Ozymandias - Structure

- Irregular sonnet form (14 lines, 10 syllables per line, irregular rhyme scheme)

- Iambic pentameter

- Second person to emphasise lost and distant power

- Disrupted sonnet form is ironic as sonnets are love poems, but Ozymandias doesn't truly want the love of people, only their admiration and submission.

Ozymandias - Context

- Bysshe Shelley was a radical thinker and an atheist, he didn't support the monarchy and was critical of people and systems that became huge and believed they were invincible.

- Wrote 'Ozymandias' after the British Museum acquired a fragment of a statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II (Greek name Ozymandias)

Ozymandias - Themes

- Abuse of power

- Time

- Art

- Manipulation

Ozymandias - Comparisons

- London (abuse of power,people perpetrating the abuse, radical thinkers)

- My Last Duchess (manipulation, negative portrayal of power, artistic imagery to show power consolidation)

- Tissue (power of human constructions, extended metaphors, passage of time, temporality of human power)

My Last Duchess - Quotes

"as if she ranked my gift of a nine-hundred years-old name with anybody's gift." (sees himself as superior and is angered that his wife did not)

"none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I" (couldn't control who looked at his wife while she was alive, but is able to now)

"Too easily impressed, she liked whate'er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere." (derived too much pleasure from other people and things, her husband was not special to her)

"She smiled, no doubt, whene'er I passed her; but who passed without much the same smile?" (again shows he believes she didn't value him enough)

"Even had you skill in speech - (which I have not)" (false modesty, trying to gain sympathy)

"Will't please you sit and look at her?" (command, appears to be polite but has a controlling nature)

"the faint half-flush that dies along her throat." (repetitive theme of a flirtatious nature)

"my", "my object", "my lady's" (possessive pronouns show how he believed his wife was merely another of his possessions)

"I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together." (sinister euphemism for his wife's murder)

My Last Duchess - Structure

- Dramatic monologue (in character of Duke and his POV)

- Iambic pentameter mimics human speech

- Rhyming couplets show desire for control

- Enjambment - gets carried away with anger and passion

My Last Duchess - Context

- Browning loved European history and culture

- Big fan of Shelley (Ozymandias) and asked for all of his poems for his 13th birthday

- Fascinated by Italian Renaissance (14th century) during which the arts and culture flourished

- MLD is based on the life of Duke Alfonso II of Ferrera, whose wife Lucrezia died in suspicious circumstances in 1561. Her death was surrounded by rumours that she had been poisoned.

My Last Duchess - Themes

- Abuse of power

- Control

- Manipulation

- Death

- Artistic imagery

My Last Duchess - Comparisons

- War Photographer (desire for control)

- Ozymandias (artistic imagery, abuse of power)

- London (abuse of power)

- The Emigree (exploitation)

Checking Out Me History - Quotes

- 'Bandage up me eye with me own history blind me to me own identity' (metaphor)

- 'Dem tell me dem tell me wha dem want to tell me' (repetition, exclusive pronoun)

- 'Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat' (colloquialism, ref. to satirical 1930s novel)

- 'Dem tell me bout de man who discover de balloon....moon....spoon...but dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon' (white to black = white supremacy in history, mocking 'fictional' history/historical relevancy)

- 'see-far woman of mountain dream fire-woman struggle' (imagery of light, compound adjectives, natural metaphors)

- 'But now I checking out me own history I carving out me identity' (validation, black in emphatic position again but himself)

Checking Out Me History - Structure

- Lack of punctuation (left out like black people, rejection of English lang, convention as he rejects all-white history)

- Rhyme (structural climax to black people)

- 2 alternate structures = black/white history taught separately

- 1st 'regular' = white, rhyming couplets/triplets/quatrains

- 2nd 'irregular' = free verse, irregular rhyme, abbreviated syntax, relaxed and natural, Caribbean Creole

Checking Out Me History - Context

- John Agard brought up in British colony of Guyana, taught Euro-centric view of history.

- Rejection of exclusively white historical curriculum

- Mixing black and white historical figures to show importance of them to him/his own identity

- '1066 and all that' = 1930s satirical novel mocking British history, tongue-in-cheek reference

Checking Out Me History - Themes

- Identity

- Abuse of power

- Social Issues (racism, historical relevancy)

- Human power

Checking Out Me History - Comparisons

- *TCOTLB* (oral poetry, manipulated viewpoint, abuse of power, structure climaxing to important figures)

- Tissue (identity)

- Ozymandias (human power, abuse of power)

- London (abuse of power, references to historical events)

Remains - Quotes

'Well myself and somebody else and somebody else are all of the same mind.' (repetition, delegate blame)

'I see every round as it rips through his life' (violent metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeic effect of 'rip' = turning point

'sort of inside out' (colloquial, euphemism downplaying horror)

'Tosses his guts back into his body, then he's carted off in the back of a lorry' (dehumanizing, meant to be the end.)

'Then I'm home on leave. But I blink-' (caesura, expected to forget, metaphor)

' and the drink and the drugs won't flush him out - he's here in my head when I close my eyes' (enjambment, memories running away with him, turning to vices)

'his bloody life in my bloody hands' (voice shift to 1st person sing. = accepting responsibility, Macbeth allusion)

Remains - Structure

- Free verse representing lack of control over PTSD

- Enjambment shows memory running away from him/flashbacks

- 1st person plural voice = delegating blame, shared responsibility, but shifts to 1st person singular at the end, acknowledging own guilt)

Remains - Context

Simon Armitage was inspired by the effects of PTSD on soldiers.

Takes place during Iraq War

Remains - Themes

- PTSD

- Responsibility

- After-effects of conflict

- Passive suffering

- Mental damage

- Densensitised

Remains - Comparisons

- *War Photographer* (PTSD, flashbacks, emotional suppression, guilt, based on conflicts in Iraq/Vietnam, expected to forget)

- Exposure (passive suffering, mental damage, both based on 20th century conflicts)

Kamikaze - Quotes

- 'a shaven head, full of powerful incantations' (rep. patriotism)

- 'the little fishing boats strung out like bunting on a green-blue translucent sea' (simile, effects of indoctrination, celebrate fulfilling duty)

- 'arcing in swathes like a huge flag waved first one way then the other' (simile, nationalism, contrast between personal conviction and 'dying for the flag')

- 'dark shoals of fishes flashing silver as their bellies swiveled towards the sun' (sibilance, light imagery rep. turning point as militarism never referenced again)

- 'a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous.' (metaphor, power of nature, . indicates decision to return)

- 'he must have wondered which has been the better way to die' (dies metaphorical death, dying for Japan = ultimate fulfillment of duty)

Kamikaze - Structure

- Tight and controlled, 6 lines each stanza represents rigid control of military

- Enjambment and free verse within the poem shows us his desire for freedom

= *conflict within a conflict*

Kamikaze - Context

- Based on the imagined story of a Japanese kamikaze pilot during WW2

- Expected to fly suicide missions = dying is the ultimate honor and fulfillment of duty

- Interested in causes of fundamentalism and what motivates someone to give up their life for their country.

- 'Conflict is personal as well as national'

- Japan = 'land of rising sun', sun on flag used by military forces = impact of man on nature, conflict between pon/pom

Kamikaze - Themes

- Patriotism

- Conflict within a conflict

- Personal conviction

- Abuse of power

- Power of nature vs. power of man

Kamikaze - Comparisons

-*Bayonet Charge* (rigid structures with enjambment = conflict within conflict, anti-patriotism, nature = turning point, causes of fundamentalism)

The Emigree - Quotes

'There once was a country...' (past tense, ellipsis shows her thinking)

- 'It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants, but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.' (metaphor, permanence of happy memories, sibilance, abuse of power)

- 'as time rolls its tanks and the frontiers rise between us' (metaphor, semantic field of war vocab. no longer fits in)

- 'It may now be a lie, banned by the state' (abuse of power, dictatorial government, censorship)

- 'My city takes me dancing through the city of walls' (metaphor, her memories protect her from accepting tyrannical rule)

- 'They accuse me of absence, they circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city' (oppression, exclusive pronouns, traitor)

- 'My shadow falls as evidence of sunlight' (light/dark imagery = she is the only evidence of the happy old city, but is seen as being 'dark' and a threat for it)

The Emigree - Structure

- 3 regular stanzas

- Last stanza = 9 lines, doesn't want to let go of memories, prolonging poem

- City is an extended metaphor.

- Enjambment/caesura = confined, wants to be free

The Emigree - Context

- Travelled widely in war-torn eastern European countries

- Inspired by people forced to flee these countries

- Rejecting dictatorship and oppressive state control

The Emigree - Themes

- Abuse of power

- Personal conviction

- Imagery of light

- Identity

The Emigree - Comparisons

- *London* (abuse of power, oppression, based on own experiences of a country, diff views on lasting power, 'runs in blood down palace walls'/'my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight' = marks of rebellion, controlled structures)

- Kamikaze (light imagery, dictatorial governments)

- Checking Out Me History (manipulation, identity)

Tissue - Quotes

- 'the back of the Koran, where a hand has written in' (could be seen as rejecting controlling religion)

- 'smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention' (gentle verbs, put too much importance in inanimate objects)

- 'what was paid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites' (simile, controlled by paper)

- 'layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line' (paper can have its meaning changed, manipulation)

- 'through the shapes that pride can make' (power of nature over all else, critical)

- 'raise a structure never meant to last' (we perpetrate belief paper is powerful an accord it the control it has over us)

Tissue - Structure

- Regular and controlled quatrains = stuck in own belief we are controlled

- Enjambment = desire to break free from restrictions of inanimate objects

Tissue - Context

- In anthology called 'The Terrorist at My Table' = what causes fundamentalism?

- Against control and restricted freedom

Tissue - Themes

- Control

- Power of inanimate objects

- Light imagery

- Against oppression

- Identity

Tissue - Comparisons

- Checking Out Me History (identity)

- My Last Duchess (power of inanimate objects)

- *London* (similar in structure, rejecting religious control, people perpetrating control, control over everything)

The Prelude - Opinion

Not a fan of this one tbh. Tired now.