0

Power

&

Conflict

Poetry Revision Guide

1

Contents 2. What to expect in the exam

3. Ozymandias – Shelley

4. London-Blake

5. Prelude – Wordsworth

6. My Last Duchess- Browning

7. The Charge of the Light Brigade- Tennyson

8. Exposure – Owen

9. Storm on the Island – Heaney

10. Bayonet Charge – Hughes

11. Remains – Armitage

12. Poppies – Weir

13. War Photographer – Duffy

14. Tissue – Dharker

15 The Émigrée – Rumens

16. Checking Out Me History – Agard

17. Kamikaze – Garland

18. Poetic Techniques Glossary

19. What goes with what?

2

What to expect in the exam…

Paper 2, Section B: Power & Conflict Poetry.

This question is worth 30 marks. (20%)

AO1 – A critical response using quotes = 12 marks

AO2 –Analyse language, sentence structures and form and

the effect created = 12 marks

AO3 – Text – Context relationship = 6 marks

You are being tested on your knowledge of two poems from

the anthology you’ve studied.

One poem will be printed on the exam paper and you will be

asked to compare it to another poem in the anthology.

You need to write 4-5 paragraphs pointing out the differences

and similarities between the poems and their presentation of

conflict or power.

3

Ozymandias – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Overview

The narrator of Shelley's poem says he met a traveller from an ancient land and then tells us

the story the traveller told him. The man had seen the remains of a huge statue in the

desert. At the foot of the statue were words which reflected the arrogance and pride of

Ozymandias. Those words seem very hollow now as the magnificent statue is destroyed and

none of the pharaoh's works have lasted.

Context

Shelley was part of the Romantic Poets. He was largely political and felt that the monarchy

of the time –King George III- were oppressive and war-mongering. The ‘real-life’ Ozymandias

was an Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses who ruled in Biblical times, he is known for protecting

and extending the borders of Egypt. Shelley was inspired by a statue of Rameses at the

British Museum.

Structure

Sonnet – which is a poem composed of 14 lines and written in iambi pentameter

Narrator- The use of a ‘traveller’ removes any opinions the poem expresses away

from Shelley’s.

Techniques

Alliteration – Shelley litters alliteration through the poem, placing emphasis on phrases such

as ‘cold command’; boundless and bare’ and ‘lone and level’

Metaphor – The statur itself is a metaphor for the eventual death of power, it’s Shelley’s

comment on how the powerful are not necessarily invincible.

Key Quotes

‘a shattered visage lies’ (4)

‘sneer of cold command’ (5)

‘king of kings’ (10)

‘Nothing beside remains.’ (12)

‘…colossal wreck, boundless and bare’ (13)

Power; Pride; Art

4

London – William Blake

Overview

The poem describes a journey around London, offering a glimpse of what the speaker sees

as the terrible conditions faced by the inhabitants of the city. Child labour, restrictive laws of

property and prostitution are all explored in the poem.

Context

Blake was a Londoner all his life, being born and raised in Soho. He was a poet, painter and

printmaker. He published works called ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’, which dealt

with the moral observations in a simplistic way, making it accessible to the public. Blake

himself was a faithful man but hated the organised Church of the time. Similarly he opposed

those in power and the class structure of 18th Century London.

Structure

Snapshots – each stanza offers a snapshot of a different person/part of the city

Simplistic – there’s a consistent ABAB rhyme scheme which lends the poem a

nursery rhyme quality

Techniques

Repetition – Blake repeats several words throughout the poem such as ‘charter’d’ and

‘every’ to highlight the inescapable suffering of the oppressed.

Oxymoron – Blake uses several oxymoron’s throughout ‘London’, which exemplifies the

parallels between those is power and the poor: ‘marriage hearse’; ‘black’ning church’ and

‘youthful harlot’

Key quotes

‘…each charter’d street/ Near where the chartered Thames does flow’(1-2)

‘ In every voice, in every ban/ the mind-forged manacles I hear’ (7-8)

‘Runs in blood down palace walls’ (12)

‘And blights with plagues the marriage hearse’(16)

Oppression; Poverty; Places

5

Extract from The Prelude –William Wordsworth

Overview

Taken from a larger poem, this extract describes how Wordsworth went out in a boat on a

lake at night. He was alone and a mountain peak loomed over him; its presence had a great

effect and for days afterwards he was troubled by the experience.

Context

Wordsworth was a Romantic Poet, he spent most of his life in the Lake District, surrounded

by nature. Wordsworth very much believed in the power of nature and was against the vast

Industrialisation of the countryside that was taking place in the 18th Century. Wordsworth

himself said this poem examines his ‘views on man, nature and society’.

Structure

Epic Poetry- the form of epic poems generally tell tales of exciting adventures,

usually featuring the one hero.

Stream of Consciousness – the use of enjambment and lack of stanzas make the

poem flow as one immense thought, it echoes the sense of being overwhelmed that

Wordsworth felt on the sight of the mountain.

Techniques

Imagery – Wordsworth uses feminine imagery often juxtaposed with masculine imagery.

e.g. ‘boat’, ‘cove’ and ‘moon’ are feminine. ‘Chain’ and ‘ridge’ are masculine.

Magical Language- the poet’s use of language such as ‘elfin’ and ‘glittering’ creates a tone

of fantasy and wonder. It also conjures ideas of the supernatural powers of nature.

Key quotes

‘One summer evening (led by her)…’(1)

‘…like one who rows/Proud of his skill…’ (11-12)

‘She was an elfin pinnace; lustily/I dipped my oars into the silent lake’ (17-18)

‘a huge peak, black and huge’ (22)

‘like a living thing/strode after me’ (28-29)

‘huge and mighty forms, that do not live/Like living men’ (43-44)

Pride; Nature; Man

6

My Last Duchess – Robert Browning (1842)

Overview The poem is a dramatic monologue, wherein a Duke shows an unnamed visitor a picture of

his last, deceased wife.

Context

Robert Browning was heavily influenced as a child by his father's extensive collection of books and art. His father was a bank clerk and collected thousands of books, some of which were hundreds of years old and written in languages such as Greek and Hebrew. By the age of fourteen, he'd learned Latin, Greek and French. He married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett but they had to run away and marry in secret because of her over-protective father.

While this poem was written in the Victorian age it is set at the time of the Italian Renaissance, which took place some 150 years before.

Socially and politically, at the time of writing the Women’s Suffrage movement was starting, as women called for more power and control in a male dominated system.

Structure

Dramatic Monologue- the poem is from the point of view of a fictional, controlling

Duke. By using dramatic monologue Browning shows us the tight control he

exercised over his wife. Also no one else speaks, making it an overwhelming tirade as

the speaker ironically fails to control himself.

Techniques

The lack of similes and metaphors – the lack of obvious language techniques is very much a

technique in itself. By not including metaphors and similes, Browning mirrors real life

speech.

Iambic Pentameter – this tightly controlled way of writing highlights the themes with in the

poem.

Key Quotes:

‘Will’t please you sit and look at her I said’ (5)

‘’(since none puts by/ The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)’ (9-10)

‘’She has a heart…too soon made glad’ (21-22)

‘She looked on and her looks went everywhere’ (24)

‘…she ranked/My gift of a nine hundred year old name/ With anybody’s gift’ (33-34)

‘I gave commands; Then the smiles stopped altogether’ (45)

‘Notice Neptune, though/ Taming sea-horse’ (54-55)

Masculine; Domestic Power; Control

7

The Charge of the Light Brigade – Alfred Lord

Tennyson (1854) Overview

‘…Light Brigade’ deals with the real life event which took place during the Crimean War. The

poem features a cavalry of soldiers riding into a doomed battle having only swords and

bayonets against heavy artillery.

Context

The poem is based on the botched battle between to British and the Russian in Balaclava –

orders were mislaid and 600 men ran into heavy fire. 254 soldiers died.

Tennyson was Poet Laureate at the time of the Crimean War, this poem was published 3

days after the event and circulated within the army in Crimea.

Structure

Stanzas 1-3 – the brigade approach the guns; the strong structure could mirror the

formation of the cavalry

Stanza 4-5 – the battle, the longest stanza outlines the desperate attempt at retreat

Stanza 6 –a short conclusion, a memorial to the soldiers.

Techniques

Rhythm – the beats of the poem resemble that of horses’ footfalls.

Anaphora or Repetition– the repetition of ‘Cannon’ highlights the hopelessness of the

situation creating a sense of inevitability and despair for the reader

Personification- Death is stated as having ‘jaws’, suggesting an inescapability & predatory

tone.

Key Quotes ‘All in the valley of Death’ (line 3)

‘Theirs was not to make reply/Theirs not reason why/Theirs but to do and die’ (13-15)

‘Cannon to right of them/ Cannon to left of them/Cannon in front of them’ (18-20)

‘Boldly they rode and well’ (23)

‘Into the Jaws of Death/Into the mouth of Hell/ Rode the six hundred’ (24-26)

‘Storm’d at with shot and shell/While horse and hero fell’ (43-44)

‘Honour the Light Brigade,/Noble six hundred!’

Patriotism; Warfare; Duty

8

Exposure – Wilfred Owen (1917) Overview

Soldiers are waiting overnight in the trenches, while no fighting is happening; the weather

conditions are extremely dangerous.

The poem highlights the agony of waiting and demonstrates how war is not all about action.

Context

Wilfred Owen was a soldier in World War One, he wrote about his time in the trenches, his

poetry contradicting the noble, patriotic propaganda happening at home in Britain.

Owen set about highlighting the other dangers of war – the boredom, the weather. 1917

saw what was reported to be the coldest winter in living memory, soldiers in trenches were

suffering with hypothermia and ‘trench foot’.

Owen himself fought and suffered with ‘shell shock’ (PTSD), spending time in an institution,

on returning to war he was killed a few days before the war ended, he was 26 years old.

Structure

8 stanzas

Each stanza relies on assonance/half-rhyme to unsettle the reader

Stanza’s end in either a rhetorical question or ‘But nothing happens’, emphasising

the pointlessness of war over and over again.

Techniques

Sibilance – the constant ‘s’ sounds give the poem a melancholy tone

Pronouns – by repeating ‘us’ and ‘we’ the reader is drawn in

Rhyme – the ABBA rhyme/half-rhyme scheme fits the theme of monotony in war

Punctuation- the first stanza’s use of ellipsis again highlights the waiting and boredom

involved in conflict

Key quotes

‘Our brains ache’ (1)

‘…incessantly the flickering gunnery rumbles…like a dull rumour of some other war.’ (9-10)

‘But nothing happens’ (6/21/39)

‘Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence’ (17)

‘Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow’ (18)

‘We cringe in holes’ (24)

‘Slowly our ghosts drag home’ (29)

‘All their eyes are ice’ (38)

Warfare; Despair; Weather

9

Storm on the Island – Seamus Heaney Overview

A small town community thinks it is well prepared for a storm. Their confidence starts to

disappear as the storm develops.

Context

Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland in 1939, the eldest child in what was to

become a family of nine children. Much of Heaney's poetry is centred on the countryside

and farm life that he knew as a boy. It could be read that this poem is about the power of

nature however, there are hints that link it to political strife in Northern Ireland between

the Catholics and the Protestants.

Structure

Blank Verse – Heaney uses blank verse – rhyming iambic pentameter – this gives the

reader the effect that the poet is talking to them.

Colons – Heaney’s use of colons separate the beginning, middle and end of the

poem, giving it a narrative structure.

Techniques

Sounds – Heaney uses the senses to show the full force of nature. Assonance and sibilance

are used to have onomatopoeic effects

Violent language – the poet uses metaphors such as ‘space is a salvo’ and ‘strafes invisibly’

to emphasise danger

Juxtaposition – the language of safety used at the beginning of the poem is contrasted with

the war like language towards the end.

Key Quotes

‘We are prepared’ (1)

‘This wizened earth has never troubled us’ (3)

‘…tragic chorus’ 8)

‘Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs’ (13)

‘…spits like a tame cat turned savage’ (15-16)

‘it is a huge nothing that we fear’ (19)

Nature; Fear; Places

10

Bayonet Charge – Ted Hughes (1957)

Overview

A soldier is charging into battle with a bayonet. He has a moment of uncertainty about his

place in war, before seeing a hare getting shot and dying, resuming his charge. It can be

seen as a comment on how soldiers are merely cogs in a war machine.

Context

Hughes was born after World War One and never saw combat, despite being part of the

RAF.

He was heavily influenced by war poets such as Wilfred Owen.

Structure

Stanza 1- the soldier is awake and running, he is slowly starting to question why he

is fighting this war

Stanza 2- an almost slow motion look at the soldier’s questioning

Stanza 3- He sees a hare die in front of him; instinct kicks back in and he resumes

his charge towards death

Techniques

Metaphors- Hughes uses lots of metaphors throughout the poem, creating a rich, sensual

tone

Active verbs- similarly the poet’s choice of language is extremely active,

giving a sense of action to the poem e.g. ‘smacking’ ‘smashed’ ‘stumbling’

Punctuation- Hughes uses dashes in stanzas 1 and 2, this breaks the actions

with the soldiers thoughts

Key quotes

‘Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge’ (3)

‘Bullets smacking the belly out of the air’ (5)

‘The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye’ (7)

‘In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations…’ (10)

‘…Like a man who jumps up in the dark and runs’ (12)

‘King, honour, human dignity etcetera/Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm’ (20-21)

Warfare; Duties; Abandoned Ideals

11

Remains – Simon Armitage

Overview

This poem is from the perspective of a soldier retelling a memory of shooting a looter who

may or may not have been armed. Further on the soldier thinks about the shooting when he

walks down the street. It concludes that the soldier is suffering under the memory of war

and has not left the violence in a foreign land.

Context

This poem comes from a book called ‘The Not Dead’, Armitage made a documentary of the

same name which interviewed the surviving soldiers from the Gulf War. It is largely believed

that it is this war that Armitage is referring to.

Structure

Monologue: the tone of the poem is very conversational; ‘legged it’ ‘carted off’ and

‘mates’

Stanza 5 is where the narration becomes more inward and personal.

The last stanza is only two lines, adding to the impact of this soldiers guilt, making

it stand out in the readers mind.

Techniques

Enjambment – the used of continuous lines adds to the conversational tone of the piece.

Repetition- ‘probably armed, possibly not’ the way this line is repeated shows how the guilt

of the killing plays on the narrators mind

First Person – the reader is placed directly into the guilt ridden mind of the narrator making

the poem very personal and emotive.

Key Quotes

‘On another occasion…’ (1)

‘Well myself and somebody else and somebody else/are all of the same mind’ (5-6)

‘I see every round as it rips through his life’ (9)

‘End of story, except not really’ (17)

‘he’s here in my head when I close my eyes,/dug in behind enemy lines’ (25-26)

‘…distant sun-stunned, sand-smothered land’ (27)

‘…his bloody life in my bloody hands’ (30)

Guilt; Conflict; Memory

12

‘Poppies’ – Jane Weir (2009) Overview

This poem is the narrative of a mother sending her son off to war told from a first person

perspective. It offers a female perspective of a typically male subject.

Context

Weir wrote this poem as part of Poet Laureate’s Carol Ann Duffy’s take on Remembrance

Sunday for The Guardian newspaper. It harks back to the tradition of wearing poppies while

addressing modern warfare and the fact that soldiers are still dying in wars across the world.

Weir has stated that she was ‘subliminally’ thinking of Wilfred Owen’s mum when she wrote

this.

Structure

The key to structure in this poem is the mention of time: ‘Three days before’

becomes ‘Before you left’ which becomes ‘a split second’ and then ‘Later’ this is

demonstrating how the narrator is living with her son’s life all at once, both past

and present.

Stanza 1 deals with the boy as a child. Stanza 2 is the child leaving for school

Stanza 3 is the child leaving for war

The narrator is eventually ‘led’ to the war memorial, hinting that her son died in

combat.

Techniques

Textured language – Weir repeatedly uses the sense of touch and metaphors involving

fabrics, this lends an air of domesticity and texture to the poem

Alliteration – ‘disrupting a blockade/of yellow bias binding around your blazer’, this

alliteration uses both the language of war while being a scene of domesticity

Symbolism – the poem centres on a shared awareness of the symbolism of the poppy as a

sign of peace, similarly the narrator sees a ‘single white dove’ – another peaceful symbol.

Key Quotes

‘I was brave as I walked/with you…’18-19)

‘After you’d gone I went into your bedroom,/released a song bird from its cage’ (23-24)

‘The dove…an ornamental stitch’ (33-34)

Grief; Time; Memory

13

‘War Photographer’ – Carol Ann Duffy

Overview

A war photographer in developing pictures in a dark room, as the pictures start to develop

he remembers the death of the people in the photo. The last stanza tells the reader how the

photo will be printed in newspapers.

Context

Duffy was inspired to write this poem by her friendship with a war photographer. She was

especially intrigued by the peculiar challenge faced by these people whose job requires them to

record terrible, horrific events without being able to directly help their subjects.

Structure

The poem follows the thoughts and actions of the photographer in four regular six

line stanzas, each ending in a rhyming couplet – this is very clinical compared to the

chaos of his job.

Third Stanza: He remembers the death of his subjects

Fourth Stanza: addresses the world outside the darkroom and how his work is

received.

Techniques

Emotive language – Duffy’s use of metaphors such as ‘a hundred agonies in black and white’

stress the suffering in war, whilst juxtaposing with the photographers/society’s apathy.

Religious imagery – the references to religion gives the photographer’s job a sense of

ceremony, almost funeral-like.

Contrasts – The presentation of ‘Rural England’ in comparisons to war zones is notable, as

well as the sense of detachment and horror.

Key Quotes

‘spools of suffering set out in ordered rows’(2)

‘all flesh is grass’ (6)

‘running children in nightmare heat’ (12)

‘blood stained into foreign dust’ (18)

‘he earns his living and they do not care’ (24)

Memory; Conflict; Individual Experience

14

Poetic Techniques – A Glossary

Allusion: Unacknowledged reference and quotations that authors assume their

readers will recognize.

Anaphora: Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a line

throughout a work or the section of a work.

Assonance: The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words in close

proximity.

Caesura: A short but definite pause used for effect within a line of poetry.

Couplet: two successive rhyming lines.

Enjambment: A line having no end punctuation but running over to the next

line.

Iambic pentameter: Iamb (iambic): an unstressed stressed foot .The most

natural and common kind of meter in English; it elevates speech to poetry.

Image: Images are references that trigger the mind to fuse together memories

of sight sounds, tastes smells and sensations of touch. Imagery refers to

images throughout a work or throughout the works of a writer

Internal rhyme: An exact rhyme (rather than rhyming vowel sounds, as with

assonance) within a line of poetry: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I

pondered, weak and weary."

Juxtaposition: an act or idea of placed close together or side by side, especially

for comparison or contrast.

Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things, this describes one thing

as if it were something else. Does not use "like" or "as" for the comparison

Rhyme: The repetition of identical concluding syllables in different words,

most often at the ends of lines. Example: June—moon

Stanza: A group of poetic lines corresponding to paragraphs in prose

15

What Goes With What? You need to be able to link the poem before you in the exam to

another poem from the anthology. They need to be linked by theme.

While the decision is yours in the exam, here are some of the poems

that fit together best, can you see how and why?

The Charge of the Light Brigade Bayonet Charge

Exposure Remains

Remains War Photographer

My Last Duchess Ozymandias

London Checking Out Me History

Tissue Kamikaze

Bayonet Charge Exposure

Poppies War Photographer

London Prelude

Poppies The Émigrée

Tissue Ozymandias

Storm on the Island Exposure

My Last Duchess Checking out Me History

Kamikaze The Émigrée