Power and Conflict

Prelude - initially comforting, conventional beauty of nature

“One summer evening (led by her)” - “summer evening” connotes tranquility, “her” feminine, nurturing connotations

“Small circles glittering idly in the moon” “sparkling light” - lexical field connoting precious objects, “idly” - comfort

Wordsworth initially presents nature as conventionally beautiful, juxtaposed to the later fearful image of nature

Prelude - narrator’s initial hubris

“to reach a chosen point with an unswerving line, I fixed my view upon the summit” - “chosen” “fixed” - narrator is active, mirrors confidence. “summit” - hubristic sense of wanting to overpower mountain

Prelude - narrator’s desperation

“I struck and struck again”

• repetition emphasizes frantic effort and desperation, indicating a struggle against the overwhelming force of nature.

“With trembling oars I turned, / And through the silent water stole my way”

Wordsworth subverts the classical nostos which focuses on the victorious homecoming of the hero - instead presenting an emotional reckoning.

Prelude - power of nature

“A huge peak, black and huge, […] upreared its head” - repetition of “huge” - creates impression he is searching for words, sense of panic

“With purpose of its own/ And measured motion like a living thing/ strode after me” - Simile personifying the cliff, gives it an uncanny human aspect

The Prelude - Long term effect - realisation of nature as Sublime

“Worked with a dim and undetermined sense of unknown modes of being” - “unknown” - there are things beyond our comprehension “no familiar shapes remained, no pleasant images of trees, of sea or sky” - anaphora emphasises just how much he has lost

“trouble to my dreams”

• Dreams associated to peace, etc.

• Trouble to dreams suggests subconscious turmoil

Remains - Shift in responsibility - war as inherently traumatic for combatants

“are all of the same mind/ so all three of us open fire/ three of a kind all letting fly” - emphasises lack of agency - no individual morality, controlled by upper forces. Repetition of “three” - tries to divert the burden of guilt

Armitage suggests that war is inherently dehumanizing, stripping away personal identity and responsibility from soldiers.

“but near to the knuckle, here and now, / his bloody life in my bloody hands” - cannot escape moral implications even with training. He shot him from afar - imagery of “hands” “knuckle” makes it more intimate, illustrating severe impact of guilt. 2 lines - emphasises eventual isolation.

War is inevitably scarring, even with training. Focus on the moral and psychological toll of war on ordinary soldiers serves as a quiet but powerful indictment of those who wield power without accountability.

Isolating nature of trauma.

Remains - Colloquial language

“sort of inside out” “legs it up the road”

Humanises speaker - Armitage wants to reflect the reality of war. Does not use a “high” poetic register because war should not be glorified, but needs to be seen for what it is.

The use of informal phrases and conversational tone in Remains serves to make the experiences of soldiers more relatable and grounded, emphasizing the harsh realities of conflict rather than romanticizing it.

Remains - War as brutal and dehumanising for victims

“I see broad daylight on the other side” - juxtaposition of “light” (symbol of hope) - shocking, graphic imagery.

“Sort of inside out, pain itself, the image of agony” - Metaphor, very graphic

“Tosses his guts back into his body” “carted off” - connotes lack of respect. War brutalises combatants. Pushes idea he is waste, needs to be removed. No funerary respect.

Remains - Guilt + PTSD

“His blood shadow stays on the street” - visual symbol of guilt “his bloody life in my bloody hands” - intertextual reference to Macbeth, portrays how guilt is inevitable consequence of war.

“Blink / and he bursts again “ - repetition, present tense - mimics reliving of shooting.

Emigrée - impermanence of political structures

“There once was a country…” - Past tense, reflects on impermanence of structures.

Emigrée - Power of memory

“It may by now be a lie, banned by the state / but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight”

“It may be at war, It may be sick with tyrants, / but I am branded by an impression of sunlight”

Epistrophe of sunlight, repeated at end of each stanza. Emphasises the power of memory over political conflict. “Branded” - permanently altered. “tastes” “tongue” - gustatory imagery - language is sustaining, maintains memory.

Emigrée - time is enemy. Like Ozymandias

“The white streets of that city, the graceful slopes/ glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks”

• Her memory overpowers time. Offers contrasting view to Ozymandias. However it agrees that time is enemy - military imagery of “tanks” contrasts with “time” - alliteration draws the parallel between the two.

emigrée - Language as powerful

“but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes like sunlight” “every coloured molecule of it”

Emigrée - cares for her identity

“I comb its hair and love its shining eyes” “My city takes me dancing through the city of walls”

City personified as innocent, “docile” - narrator has maternal feelings towards city. As though she must nurture, care for its memory. It takes her “dancing” through the “city of walls”. “my city” vs/ “city of walls” emphasises bias for her city of origin. Importance of identity. “walls” represent barriers, constrictive nature.

Emigrée - conflict between her city and their city

“They accuse me of being dark in their free city” - exposes hypocrisy of “liberal” cities . “they” - repetition of third person emphasises divisions between her and them. Ironic - accused of being “dark” (racist ideas) in a “free city” .

“My city hides behind me. They mutter death, and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight” - “mutter” - connotations of gossip, rumour. Shadow is only possible due to light. Even if there’s darkness, the memory of light still exists. Shadow is metaphor - proof that she is full of light (memory).

Emigrée - Rumens’ intentions

• No named conflict - Rumens’ poem is universally applicable. Reflects on the experiences of Emigrées and how they preserve their identities through memories.

• She travelled in Eastern Europe - published 1993 - time of mass migration of refugees.

My Last Duchess - Context

• Written during Industrial Revolution - beginning of social mobility of class and gender

• Victorian Era - focus on morality, manners, modesty

• Women could only gain status through husband. Criticises male dominance and silencing of women.

• Dramatic monologue - corrupting influence of seeking power. Reveals a lot about himself. Power-hungry.

Exposure - brutality of nature

“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…”

• Intertextual reference to opening of Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”. Subverts the Romantic idea of nature as source of beauty, escape etc. Instead brutalises nature “My heart aches”vs/ “our brains ache”

• “knive” - personification, ironic - it is nature inflicting the suffering. Associating it to a Weapon

“Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army / attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey”

• Dawn is usually associated with hope. Juxtaposed - subverts idea, it is bad thing. Metaphor - weather personified as enemy commander . It is more of a threat.

Exposure - boredom, prolonged nature of suffering

“Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,/ But nothing happens.”

• Anticlimactic, repeated refrain. Cyclical structure - reminds of the futility of war.

“We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy”

• Pathetic fallacy - extent of suffering

• Sibilance - drags line out, mirrrors prolonged nature of suffering

“We cringe in holes”

• Anti-heroic, cowering image

Owen portrays the reality of attrition warfare. He fought in trenches, was waiting for action in Western front. De-glorifies image of war. It is futile suffering - not heroic.

Exposure - effect of pararhyme

• Creates unease - half-rhyme is jarring and incomplete. Mirrors soldiers’ discomfort.

• Lack of closure mirrors drawn-out and unresolved nature of trench warfare.

• Mirrors psychological tension of waiting and suffering - tension in expectation of rhyme.

• Avoids romantic and idealised portrayal of war.

Exposure - existentialism

"What are we doing here?” “Is it that we are dying?”

• Rhetorical questions - portray their existentialist nature. War forces combatants to question their value and existence.

Exposure - barrier between war and domestic

“Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,/ We turn back to our dying”

• Caesura - physical gap between soldiers and idea of comfort, domestic idea.

• Repetition of “doors” as “closed” - extent to which soldiers lament the idea of being isolated, alienated.

“We turn back to our dying.”

• Declarative, resolves question of if they are dying.

• Juxtaposition - idea of heroic soldier would be to fight death.

• Certainty of death shows their weakness in face of nature.

Exposure - ultimate defeat. Lives are devalued.

“For love of God seems dying”

• Religious imagery. Shows extent of suffering - to the point they believe they aren’t being shown love by God.

“This frost will fasten on this mud and us”

• Modal certainty of verb “will”

• Same level as mud. Degrading.

“Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, / But nothing happens”

• Lose their identity.

• Metaphor “ice” - cold, lifeless, worthless - all are the same. Forgotten.

• War was futile. They are forgotten completely.

Poppies - Context

• Poppy - symbol of remembrance WW1. Applied to all conflicts - published 2009 (Afghanistan)

• Commissioned for collection reflecting on modern warfare. Wanted to show often unmentioned perspective of women in war

• Textile designer

London - Context

• Published 1794 - poverty in London. Industrial rev. led to greater social divides.

• Blake was non-conformist - poem of protest against “black’ning Church” (juxtaposed) , institutions of power.

• “mind-forged manacles” - Brits as slaves to ideology - religion, imperialism, capitalism

• Iambic tetrameter + ABAB rhyme scheme - consistent meter creates sense of relentlessness

Storm on the Island Context

• “The Troubles” - 60s - conflict between Protestant Unionists and Republicans. IRA vs/ British Army. Metaphor for political turmoil of the time.

• Part of collection which focuses on Aran islands - traditionally symbol of Irish culture

• Romanticised view of beauty undermined.

• Dramatic monologue - islander as isolated

• Blank verse - conversational, anecdotal tone.

COMH - Rote learning

“Dem tell me, / Dem tell me / Wha dem want to tell me”

• Speaker is passive.

• Accusatory tone through repetition

• “want” - it is for themselves, not for student.

• Use of Caribbean Creole dialect - represents power of own identity

“Bandage up me eye with me own history / blind me to me own identity”

• Passive. Metaphor of learning as powerful, inflicting force .

Was educated under colonial rule in Guyana (colony until 1966) - frustrated with Eurocentric curriculum. Inspired by textbook that claimed West Indian history began with Columbus.

COMH - trivialisation of Eurocentric history

“Dem tell me bout de dish ran away with de spoon/ but dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon”

• Juxtaposition of nursery rhyme to important figure of history

COMH - break in structure

“a healing star/ among the wounded/ a yellow sunrise/ to the dying”

• Seacole - British nurse during Crimean War - less known than Nightingale (and lamp) - but light imagery used. Attributes the importance and healing qualities of Nightingale to Seacole.

• Form is less regulated - mirrors idea of freedom when discussing figures of Caribbean history

COMH - empowering, cyclical

“now i checking out me own history,/ I carving out me identity”

• Contrasts to passive narrator at beginning. Sense of agency with learning, empowerment through education.

COLB - horror of war

“Volley’d and thunder’d; / Storm’d at with shot and shell”

• “Volley’d” verbs of aggression

• Sibilance - “shot” “shell” - sinister hissing sound. Semantic field of war, violence.

• Listing - overwhelming , all consuming attack

“Into the jaws of Death/ into the mouth of Hell”

• Metaphor “jaws of death” - personifies - going to be consumed - no way out.

COLB - War strips of identity

“Theirs not to make reply/ Theirs not to reason why/ theirs but to do and die” “rode the six hundred”.

• Dactylic dimeter

COLB - glorifying

“Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!” “When can their glory fade?”

Bayonet Charge - war as active, chaotic

“Suddenly he awoke and was running”

• In Media Res - shock, confusion, panic of soldier.

“Stumbling”

• Present participle - ongoing sense of chaos

Bayonet Charge - war as brutal

“Bullets smacking the belly out of the air”

• onomatopoeia - evokes sudden, brutal impact of gunfire.

• Metaphor - personifies air.

“Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame[…] its mouth wide open silent, its eyes standing out”

• “Threw up” - connotations of disease

• Hare personified - reflects suffering

Bayonet Charge - Honour

“In bewilderment then he almost stopped - /in what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second?”

• Harsh consonance of “c” - cold, mechanical nature of war

• “second” - insignificant

• Existentialism - rhetorical question

“King, honour, human dignity, etcetera/ Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm/ to get out of that blue crackling air/ His terror’s touchy dynamite”

• “etcetera” - undermines his previous views.

• "luxuries” - simile, worthless in face of war’s reality

BC context

• Ted Hughes’ father survived Battle of Gallipoli - brutality of trench warfare

• Structure is chaotic - enjambment first stanza, caesura second