Paper 2 English lit poems

The prelude: the power of nature and the sublime

‘a huge peak, black and huge [...] upreared its head’

The prelude: internal conflict, reflection and memory

‘o’er my thoughts / there hung a darkness’

The prelude: pyschological fear/trauma

‘like living men, moved slowly through the mind’

My last duchess: the objectification of women, and jealousy

‘she looked on, and her looks went everywhere’

My last duchess: abuse of authority

‘then all smiles stopped together’

My last duchess: pride and arrogance - obsession with status

‘my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / with anybody’s gift’

Ozymandias: the hubris of Ozymandias

‘Look on my words, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Ozymandias: the tyranny of Ozymandias

‘sneer of cold command’

Ozymandias: the mortallity of human power and the power of nature

‘boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away’

London: mental confinement

‘mind-forged manacles’

London: the control the rich has over the poor, social inequality

‘I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow’

London: corruption of institutions

‘every black’ning church appalls’

Checking out me history: identity and cultural heritage

‘Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat… / But Toussaint L’Ouverture / no dem never tell me bout dat’

Checking out me history: empowerment

‘I carving out me identity’

Checking out me history: resistance to colonial power

‘But now I checking out me own history’

Kamikaze: long-term consequences of war on identity and family

‘he must have wondered / which had been the better way to die’

Kamikaze: nationalism and propaganda

‘a one-way / journey into history’

Kamikaze: social ostracism/shame

‘treated him / as though he no longer existed’

Exposure: the misery and pyschological impact of war

‘dawn beings to grow [...] / we only know war lasts’

Exposure: nature as a larger enemy

‘all their eyes are ice, / but nothing happens’

Exposure: the loss of faith and humanity/love that war evokes

‘for God’s invincible spring our love is made afraid’

Charge of the Light Brigade: military duty/obedience of soldiers

‘Cannon to right of them, / Cannon to left of them, / Cannot in front of them’

Charge of the Light Brigade: the heroism and sacrifice of the soldiers

‘While horse and hero fell / They fought so well’

Charge of the Light Brigade: the horror and brutality of war

‘Came thro’ the jaws of Death’

Storm on the Island: human resilience against nature’s power

‘we are prepared: we build our houses squat’

Storm on the Island: the power of nature

‘it is a huge nothing that we fear’

Storm on the Island: zoomorphism, personification of nature

‘spits like a tame cat / turned savage’

Bayonet charge: a critique of patriotism

‘King, honour, human dignity, etcetera’

Bayonet charge: the destruction of nature

‘threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame’

Bayonet charge: the brutality of war

‘bullets smacking the belly out of the air’

Remains: affects of PTSD on memory

‘Probably armed, possibly not’

Remains: the dehumanisation of victims

‘tosses his guts back into his body’

Remains: theme of blood and how it causes pyschological detriment

‘his bloody life in my bloody hands’

Poppies: the pain of loss and grief

‘spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade / of yellow’

Poppies: the pyschological impact of war

‘steeled the softening of my face’

Poppies: themes of freedom and letting go

‘released a song bird from its cage’

War photographer: the horrors of war and detachment of the western world

‘Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh’

War photographer: pyschological and traumatic effects on photographer

‘a half formed ghost. He remembers’

War photographer: religious imagery

‘all flesh is grass’

Tissue: the fragility of human life and power

‘paper thinned by age or touching’

Tissue: human power limitation and instability

‘fly our lives like paper kites’

Tissue: the transicence of life vs the permanence of nature

‘daylight breaks / through capitals and monoliths’

The Emigree: memory and identity

‘There was was a country…’

The Emigree: the effects of conflict and tyranny

‘It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants’

The Emigree: the speaker’s ubreakable connection to her homeland

‘my city hides behind me’