GCSE English Lit Poetry Anthology

The Charge of the Light Brigade Overview

Tennyson glorifies the bravery, loyalty, and sacrifice of the soldiers, even as they face almost certain death

Tennyson focuses on the soldiers’ obedience and courage rather than the “blunder” in command

Tennyson calls on readers to honour their heroism despite the futility of the mission

The soldiers’ collective identity is defined by loyalty, courage, and sacrifice

Context of Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Lord Tennyson

• Tennyson write poem about the disastrous Charge of the light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War where British Cavalry charged against Russian troops despite the unlikely odds of survival. Tennyson honours the soldier’s military

• Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate from 1850 and celebrates national events and this poem reflects how he turns a military disaster into a noble act of British heroism. He takes away the criticism from those who sent the men and instead focuses on the bravery of the brigade

Charge of the Light Brigade: “Storm’d at with short and shell”

Sibilance - The repetition of the s “sounds” in “shot” and “shell” mimic the sharp, hissing sounds of artillery fire

The auditory imagery creates a violent atmosphere and heightens the sensory experience of warfare and conveying its ferocity.

The violent imagery from the verb “storm’d” connotes a sense of relentless assault, portraying the battlefield as chaotic and inescapable, heightening the soldiers’ vulnerability and portrays how the soldiers are fighting against overwhelming odds.

By emphasising how the soldiers keep on charging despite the overwhelming danger, Tennyson, glorifies their bravery, loyalty and sacrifice even as they face almost certain death

Charge of the Light Brigade: “Cannon to right of them, / Cannon to left of them, / Cannon in front of them”

• The anaphora, the repeated phrase “Cannon…”, at the beginning of each line creates a relentless, drumbeat-like rhythm that mirrors the soldiers’ entrapment and the inescapable nature of the enemy fire as well as their continuing charging into the enemy’s fire

• “Cannon” reflects the term cannon fodder that was used for soldiers that were seen as expendable and were used carelessly in hopeless battles emphasising how the brigade charge against hopeless odds

• The listing of the three directions, right, left and front, builds a sense of complete entrapment, emphasising the soldiers’ bravery in the face of hopeless odds and the claustrophobic danger of the battlefield

Charge of the Light Brigade: “Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!”

• The command/imperative to “honour” the light brigade is repeated, leaving the reader with the idea that they should admire and praise the cavalry.

• Tennyson ends with this message of their bravery and highlights the nobility of their “wild charge” making it sound dramatic and daring, suggesting Tennyson is glorifying war

Charge of the Light Brigade: “Came thro’ the jaws of Death”

• The personification of “Death” , capitalised and imagined with “jaws”, transforms it into a predatory, animate force, suggesting that death is not abstract but actively hunting the soldiers

• This magnifies the sense of inescapable danger and renders their courage even more heroic

• Through the metaphor of “jaws”, death is likened to a monstrous mouth, implying that the soldiers are being swallowed, stripped of individuality in the face of mass mortality

• This imagery highlights the inevitability and horror of war’s outcomes, while reinforcing the bravery of those who ride knowingly into its grasp

Form and Structure of Charge of the Light Brigade

• The poem uses the strong, regular rhythm and a narrative form, echoing traditional heroic storytelling and emphasises how the soldiers’ actions should be remembered and honoured

• The Dactylic Dimetre reflects the rhythm of horses galloping. This mimics the sound and pace of cavalry charging into battle and emphasises the relentless momentum and urgency of the moment

• The constant perfect rhyme throughout reflects the bravery of the soldiers

• Enjambment and caesura are used frequently to quicken the pace of the poem to mirror the chaos and panic of war

• Begins in media res which adds to the tense and unrelenting atmosphere created

Exposure overview

Captures the psychological and physical torment of WWI soldiers through the relentlessness of the cold weather conditioning in which the soldiers wait for combat to being

Owen contrasts patriotic expectation for men to serve their country with the bleak reality of life in the trenches, dismantling glorified notions of warfare

Owen Emphasises the futility of the war by the fact that the soldiers don’t even die from the enemy, they die from waiting for the enemy.

Exposure - Wilfred Owen Context

• Wilfred Owen was a British Soldier and poet who fought on the western front during World War I. He wrote from direct experience of the trenches and sought to reveal war’s true psychological and physical toll

• The winter in which Owen was fighting was particularly cold and many soldiers suffered from hypothermia and frostbite. Owen believed war was meaningless and futile

Exposure: “Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us..”

• The personification of the weather as something that is violently penetrating and hurting the soldiers transforms the weather into a deliberately hostile and almost sentient enemy and emphasises the brutal unforgiving nature of war

• The sibilance creature a sharp auditory texture that mimics the chilling force of the wind and intensifies the physical discomfort that the soldiers feel in the war

• “us” creates a sense of collective pain and emphasises how the weather is effecting everyone

• The fact that the weather is the only thing harming the soldier’s emphasises the futility of the war and how their deaths aren’t noble or valiant, only pointless

• Ellipsis hint that they’re waiting for something to happen emphasising then hopelessness and futility of war

Exposure: “Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence”

• The sibilance mimics the hissing sound of the bullets, creating a very vivid image of the sudden violence that is experienced by the soldiers

• The sudden movement and sense of momentum contrasts to the drawn out moments and stanzas before it which emphasises the suddenness of war and reinforces the the ever present threat an the way violence disrupts the deceptive stillness of the front

Exposure: “black with snow… flowing flakes that flock”

• Snow is usually white (symbolising purity), but here it’s black (symbolising evil or death). The alliteration emphasises the relentlessness and merciless nature of the snow

• The “black with snow” could also be from the guns and explosions and emphasises how man-made things disrupt nature

Exposure: “Pause over half known faces. All their eyes are ice, / but nothing happens”

• “Half known faces” dehumanises the soldiers and emphasises how their deaths were pointless

• The refrain “But nothing happens”, reinforces the soldiers’ endless state of suspension and mental fatigue as they face neither decisive action nor peace, only prolonged emotional and physical decay - emphasises how war is nothing like described in propaganda and isn’t the action packed adventure promised

• The metaphor “eyes are ice” implies both literal death and emotional numbness

• It demonstrates how the men have become desensitised, frozen in spirit and body, highlighting the brutal dehumanisation caused by war and how they lose all their individuality in the face of mass mortality. “half known faces”

• Furthermore, the use of ‘their’ separates the narrator from his comrades, contrasting with the earlier use of personal pronouns, ‘us’ and ‘we’. This could suggest that the earlier sense of unity has been lost now that they are dead.

Form and Structure of Exposure

• The pararhyme creates a discordant, unsettled tone and mimics the fractured experience of war as well as emphasising the uncertainty of the soldiers

• This irregular rhyme scheme suggests incompletion and psychological disturbance, echoing the soldiers’ broken morale and the unnatural experience of waiting for death without action

• The irregular metre reflects the destabilising aspect of war and conflict on the soldier’s state of mind

• The irregular rhythm breaks from traditional expectations, just as the war shatters the soldiers’ expectations of heroism and glory,

Comparisons of Charge of the Light Brigade and Exposure

• Charge of the Light Brigade celebrates noble sacrifice in battle and is narrated from an external perspective and never focuses on the feelings of the soldiers whereas Exposure, Owen who experienced the front lines of the war and understood the harsh realities of it, explores the reality of war

• In Charge of the Light brigade there is a constant sense of momentum and verbs associated with action whereas in Exposure, the pace is quite stretched out and then erratic when some action finally happens and the the pace is slow again - futility of war

• In Exposure, War is presented as futile and pointless as Owen emphasises how the soldiers’ deaths aren’t heroic or valiant, they are only pointless whereas in Charge of the Light brigade, the death’s of the soldiers are presented as heroic and noble

• In Charge of the Light Brigade, there is perfect rhyme whereas in Exposure there is pararhyme

Kamikaze Overview

Explores emotional and social consequences of a Japanese pilot’s decision to abandon his suicide mission during WWII

Although the pilot physically survives, he is treated as though dead upon arriving home, suffering from social exile for the rest of his life

The pilot recalls childhood memories and looks at the beauty of life evoking a sense of nostalgia and an emotional pull towards life

Kamikaze - Beatrice Garland Context

• Kamikaze refers to Japanese pilots in World War II who carried out suicide missions to honour the emperor. Pilots who turned back were viewed as bring shame upon themselves and their families, often resulting in lifelong dishonour and shunning.

• By giving the voice to the daughter of the shunned pilot, Garland highlights the generational ripple effects of cultural shame

• Japan has a deep rooted cultural significance of honour - pilots usually embrace death

Kamikaze: “one-way journey into history”

• Euphemistic language “journey into history” covers up the brutality of the mission and mirrors the language of propaganda and even indoctrination

• The metaphor where the pilot is described as becoming “history” strips the pilot of personal control

Kamikaze: “Strung out like bunting / on a green-blue translucent sea”

• The simile “like bunting” compares the fishing boats to celebratory decorations which starkly contrasts the sombreness of the kamikaze duty

• Evokes innocence and the vibrant continuity of life and may imply how the pilot was admiring the beauty of life and transforming something domestic “fishing boats” into more positive and beautiful things.

• The colour imagery “green-blue translucent” portrays clarity and serenity as the natural imagery emphasises the vibrancy of life, compelling the pilot to reconnect with life

Kamikaze: father’s boat safe / - yes, grandfather’s boat - safe / to the shore, salt-sodden”

• Repetitions of “safe” may reflect the pilot’s desire for preservation and continuity and how he wanted to live in safety

• There is a sense of familiarity and familial ideas, highlighting how he is seeing the beauty in life and doesn’t want to lose them. There is a nostalgic atmosphere created by him admiring normal life which emphasise the value of life and connection.

• He remembers how he would wat for his father - doesn’t want his family to experience that

• The sibilance in “salt-sodden … shore… safe” creates a soothing and calming rhythm which contrasts starkly with the violent expectations of the kamikaze duty

• The story is inter-generationally told which emphasises how his refusal to sacrifice himself for his country was so significant that it is being told across generations highlighting the cultural significance of honour in Japan

Kamikaze: “He must have wondered / which had been the better way to die”

• Evokes a sense of tragedy as instead of physically dying, he metaphorically dies and the people that he comes back to shun him

• Melancholy ending, sense of loss of honour

• The Poem ends in a full stop introducing a tone of finality, closing not only the daughter’s narrative but also symbolising the emotional death that replaced the pilot’s physical sacrifice

Kamikaze Form and Structure

• Poem is structured in seven line stanzas, which impose visual order on an emotionally turbulent narrative

• The formal symmetry contrasts with the psychological turmoil of the pilot reflecting the conflict between the pilot wanting to carry out his duty and the pilot wanting to live

• Written in free verse enhances the poem’s conversational fluidity and reflects oral story telling, creating a sense of authenticity

• The poem only has 3 sentences - the first one being really long - highlighting how his life is so full and overflowing + enjambment emphasises the abundance in his life

• References to family and memory reflects how he turns away from his country to be with his family

Remains Overview

Explores the psychological aftermath of conflict, focusing on how violence continues to haunt the speaker long after the event

Speaker feels the inescapable burden of responsibility and trauma as well as guilt

War causes psychological death and persisting traumatising memories that won’t fade

War fragments the speaker’s identity, forcing him to relive actions he cannot reconcile

Remains Simon Armitage - Context

• Remains is part of a collection of poems which gives voice to veterans of modern conflicts

• Was written to raise awareness about PTSD and the struggles faced by veterans during and after conflict.

• Simon Armitage become Poet Laureate in 2019

• Written when people were starting to oppose war.

Remains: “Probably armed, possible not”

• Reflects the internal conflict and moral uncertainty that torments the speaker, as he questions whether the killing was justified

• Repeated later in the poem highlighting how he is trying to convince his conscience that what he did was right “probably armed” however he knows it wasn’t showing how his guilt causes psychological turmoil in his mind

Remains: “I swear / I see every round as it rips through his life”

• Enjambment reflects his mental conflict and guilt

• Present tense highlights how he is reliving the moment - psychological consequences of war

• The vivid image of the bullets literally ripping through the man highlights the brutality of the action and emphasises how vividly the man remembers his actions

• “rips” connotations of violence and brutality

• The personal pronoun “I” reflects his personal guilt and mirrors the psychological burden that he feels

Remains: “Tosses his guts back into his body”

• The verb “tosses” has very casual connotations, contrasting with the grotesque imagery of the man’s guts being outside of his body, highlighting the emotional numbness and desensitisation experienced by soldiers in the face of such horror and may imply how common something like this is so common

• It also dehumanises the person that they killed as they are less than human/just an object as you toss something that you have no respect for

• The fact that his guts are outside his body emphasises the brutal nature in which he was killed, highlighting the dehumanising nature of war and how the body is reduced to grotesque fragments

Remains: “His bloody life in my bloody hands”

• The repetition of “bloody” captures both the literal gore of the incident and the speaker’s figurative guilt and his psychological trauma

• It also emphasises the extent of his guilt as he feels metaphorically stained by the blood and his violent actions

• Unresolved ending may emphasise how he has no escape from his memories and this psychological torment

Remains Form and Structure

• Free verse with no consistent rhyme scheme or regular metre - lack of structure mirrors the speaker’s disordered psyche and the lingering chaos of his traumatic memories

• Form of a dramatic monologue draws the reader into the speaker’s mental state, exposing the raw and unresolved impact of his experience

• The continual use of enjambment and caesuras mirrors his chaotic psychological state due to his experiences in the war

• Colloquial voice

Remains Comparison with Kamikaze

• Both poems explore the lasting psychological damage of conflict on individuals after an event

• Both characters face extreme isolation; the soldier in Remains is trapped by memory, while the pilot in Kamikaze is shunned by his family

• Both end without resolution and a tone of regret

Poppies overview

• The mother reminisces on memories of his childhood and the poem reflects maternal grief and the unspoken sacrifices made by families during wartime

• Emotional conflict between maternal love and patriotic duty

Poppies - Jane Weir Context

• Weir has two sons of her own, which may have heightened her empathy for the mother figure portrayed.

Poppies: “crimped petals, / spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade / of yellow”

• Violent imagery through the word “spasm” which invokes involuntary movement and bodily trauma, linking the domestic image of poppies to the suffering and unpredictability of combat injuries

• Contrasts with the word “paper” which is delicate and disposable, may reflect human life on the battlefield

• The militaristic language used to describe the fabric of the son’s “blazer” as a “blockade / of yellow” suggests that even ordinary domestic scenes are permeated by the looming presence of conflict. May mirror the mother’s thoughts as they are now only thinking of War

Poppies: “All my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt, / slowly melting”

• Metaphor of her words being “flattened” portrays how she cannot fully articulate the pain that she feels of letting her son leave for war

• The asyndetic listing of all the ways that her words aren’t coming out of her mouth emphasises how she cannot articulate the pain and conflict of letting her son go that she is experiencing

• She wants to say something but knows she can’t

• The enjambment disrupts the flow of the poem and may mirror how she hasn’t processed the grief of letting her son go entirely

Poppies: “released a song bird from its cage”

• The “song bird” symbolises the mother letting go of her son. The act of releasing a caged bird encapsulates how she has allowed her son to leave the safety of the domestic environment to go out into the “overflowing” world where she can’t protect him

• May also reflect how, before her son left, she caged all her emotions and that he is gone, she is releasing it

• Finds comfort in nature

Poppies: “Hoping to hear / your playground voice catching on the wind”

• Auditory imagery is used to evoke the mother’s desperate yearning to hear her son again as the imagined sound of his “playground voice” on the wind conveys memory as intangible and fading, capturing the pain of remembrance after loss

• The phrase “playground voice” creates a sense of naivety and youth and emphasises the mothers longing for the past where he is still a child.

• The fact that she wants to hear his voice on the wind emphasises how for her, he is everywhere

• May reflect how he will lose his innocence along with his “playground voice” in war

Poppies form and structure

• The poem is written from the personal account of a mother who watches her son leave for war. The use of dramatic monologue allows the poem to be imbued with an intensely personal and emotional perspective. It gives voice to someone who is not usually heard and emphasises how her son isn’t present

• The poem is written in free verse which creates a conversational tone and mimics unfiltered thought and makes the account feel personal

• The choice also reflects the speaker’s emotional instability as she attempts to grapple with the loss of her son

• The irregular stanza lengths may emphasise the disjointed memories experienced by the speaker and her fluctuating emotional control

Poppies comparison Remains

Similarly, both poems show the speakers’ powerful and detailed memories to express the haunting effects of conflict

The poem’s speakers are both caught between the present and past throughout the poem, suggesting the relentless nature of their trauma. The speaker in Remains is left in the “hear and now” without resolution, while the speaker in Poppies is left listening for their son’s playground voice on the wind

However, Poppies presents the perspective of a parent remembering comforting and positive memories of their past with their son, while “Remains” presents the perspective of a soldier, his memories cynical and brutal

War Photographer overview

• War photographer reflects on the morality of his job as he contemplates the apathy of the western world that views his photographs in the media

• Duffy uses this poem to critique how the western world has become desensitised and indifferent to the suffering of war, she juxtaposes the overt agony ride within war zones with the impassivity of those in England

• The photographer is alienated as he feels isolated from the people who are experiencing the violence and those who are merely looking at his photos

War photographer Carol Ann Duffy - Context

• The poem protests picture taken of a girl running from a chemical weapon attack in the Vietnam war and published

War photographer: “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass”

• Asyndetic listing of war zones creates a harsh rhythm that mirrors the chaotic and relentless nature of global conflict.

• The listing also reflects how wide spread conflict is

• “all flesh is grass” is a biblical allusion which suggests that all life is temporary

• Implies that human lives are worthless, like grass trampled or cut down without thought, could reflect the photographer’s growing numbness

• The use of the noun “flesh” in the metaphor “All flesh is grass” instead of “people” or “bodies” strips the dead of individuality, reducing them to biological matter, reflecting how war renders human life impersonal and expendable

War photographer: “a half formed ghost. He remembers”

• The metaphorical phrase “half-formed ghost” describes both the photographic image developing and the memory of the subject haunting the photographer emphasising the lasting impact of conflict

• Dehumanises the people in the photos as they are just “half-formed ghost”

• The caesura fragments the line, mirroring the emotional rupture in the speaker’s thoughts and the disjointed way memories surface

War photographer: “The reader’s eyeballs prick / with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers”

• The use of the noun “eyeballs” rather than the more typical description of “eyes”, reduces the response to a physical reflex

• the clinical tone strips the moment of genuine compassion, suggesting a shallow empathy that evaporates amidst everyday indulgences

• "prick” describes how readers briefly react to the war photographs - implies the tears are small, incomplete or momentary - the emotion is shallow and surface level

• The “bath” and “pre-lunch beers” suggests that the images are consumed in comfort and the readers quickly move on from the moment of sadness to self-indulgence (bathing, drinking)

War photographer - Form and Structure

• Poem consists of 4 regular six line stanzas - creates a sense of rigid structure and visual control

• Regular rhyme scheme - the control that he is trying to keep

• Irregular metre may reflect the emotional instability and psychological turmoil of the speaker

War photographer comparisons - Poppies

Both Poppies and War photographer show the experience from a different, more unconventional perspective

Both Poppies and War photographer end without resolution

Both poets reflect on the impact of conflict by presenting the experience of grief by speakers who are traumatised by their memories and whose lives have been affected negatively

Both poems consider the experience of grief as a solitary one; they convey the isolation of the parent and photographer

Bayonet Charge overview

• Captures the immediate physical and psychological impact of war, presenting the soldier’s disorientation and instinct to survive

• Depicts war not as heroic but as panic-stricken and dehumanising

• War is presented as chaotic, senseless and physically and mentally brutal

Bayonet Charge - Context

• Ted Hughes’s father' fought in World War I, and the trauma of that experience influenced his views on war

• Grew up in Yorkshire and witnessed the impact WWII had on his rural home

• Poem was inspired by works of Wilfred Owen and both poets aimed to depict the brutal realities of war rather than glorifying combat

• Bayonet Charge: Bayonet was a gun with sword clipped on the end. Many people were told to charge across no man’s land to push the enemy back

Bayonet Charge: “Suddenly, he awoke and was running - raw / In raw seamed hot khaki”

• Poem begins in Media res which immediately confuses the reader, reflecting the atmosphere of confusion and disorientation the soldier’s experiencing

• The repetition of “raw” emphasises the discomfort and pain of the experience, as well as the soldier’s emotions, which are strong and undisguised. “raw” has connotations of vulnerability emphasising how the Soldier is physically vulnerable while charging and also emotionally vulnerable

• The caesura reflects the disorientation and chaos of the moment

• Present participles and loose metre

• Sense of oppression "in raw-seamed hot khaki” - feels trapped by military orders

Bayonet Charge: “The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye / Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest”

• Contrast between delicate tear and molten iron

• The fact that the “patriotic tear” was no longer in his eye, but coming “from the centre of his chest” in the form of sweat, reveals that while the soldier was once proud to wear his uniform and carry his weapon held high, with a tear of patriotism i his eye, he was now not feeling any sense of patriotism or pride

• He can only feel the weight of his bayonet and the hot sweat on his chest, as though he were numb

• The patriotism that he once felt transformed into iron - weighty reflects the promises made by propaganda vs the reality

• This suggests the patriotism he previously held in his heart painfully leaves his chest, as the soldier is pained by the realisation that he was disillusioned by the idealism of war

Bayonet Charge: “In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations / Was he the hand pointing that second?”

• The soldier suddenly comes to his sense as he stands in “bewilderment” as he begins to wonder why he is there

• “cold” suggests something emotionless and unfeeling reflects his total lack of control of his own circumstance

• “clockwork” indicates the mechanical nature of war suggesting that the soldier believes that he is nothing more than a cog in the machine

• “the stars” refer to fate or destiny, implying that it was simply fate that determined his place in this current war. That in reality it just doesn’t matter

• The soldier is acting passively based on the orders - dehumanisation of war

• Hughes is commenting on the reality and futility of war, especially on those actually involved in it

Bayonet Charge: “threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame” “mouth wide / Open silent, its eyes standing out.”

• The hare is the only other living creature that is mentioned

• The innocent animal is caught up in the horror, reminding us that war is the opposite to what is natural and good

• Hughes suggests, with its mouth “open silent” and “its eyes standing out”, that the hare’s last moments are spent in pain, terror and fear, mirroring the soldier himself

• The hare serves as a metaphor for the devastating impact that war has on the natural world and the living things around it

• “threw up” and “rolled like a flame” - fear and discomfort

• Pastoral imagery of the yellow hare juxtaposed with the violent language of war

Bayonet Charge Form and Structure

• Written in Free verse - mirrors the unstable experience of war and reflects the soldier’s disorientation and unstable mental state as he stumbles through fear and confusion

• Opens in media res, launching immediately into the soldiers charge without any context - immerses the reader in urgency and disorientation, echoing the suddenness of combat and the soldier’s panicked reaction

Bayonet Charge Comparison with Exposure

• Both poems have the narrator questioning the reality of war, They were both promised things from propaganda but instead die a unheroic death. Both reflect the pointlessness of war

• In both poems, the soldiers appear to question the point of living when one is living to die without cause or meaning

• Hughes never directly experienced war however Owen did that is why he uses more brutal descriptions

Bayonet Charge comparison with The Charge of the Light Brigade

Both poems seem to suggest that soldiers are trained with a reflect action that enables them to obey orders instinctively, becoming killing machines without individual thought

Both soldiers are considered expendable and exploited by those in charge who give orders

The charge of the Light brigade views the soldier’s pointless sacrifice as noble and honourable and the soldier’s deaths seem to be celebrated however the soldier in Bayonet Charge doesn’t seem to die honourably and seems to question the reasons that he is even fighting

The reader gets an insight into what the soldier is feeling in Bayonet charge but not the Charge of the Light brigade