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English Literature Paper 2 > Anthology > Flashcards

Anthology Flashcards

1
Q

Ozymandias:

What is the structure like at the start of the poem?

A

The image of the statue is built up.

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2
Q

Ozymandias:

What is the structure like at the end of the poem?

A

The focus is on an enormous desert to show the statue is insignificant.

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3
Q

Ozymandias:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • Sonnet form
  • Has volta at line 9 (like a Petrarchan sonnet)
  • No regular ryhme scheme (reflects human power and structures can be destroyed)
  • Iambic pentameter (also often disrupted)
  • Poem is second hand account (distances reader further from dead king)
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4
Q

Ozymandias:

What is some context?

A
  • Shelley hated monarchy (ordinary people being controlled/suppressed)
  • Supporter of French Revolution
  • Ozymandias links to George III
  • Poem is indirect (‘I met a traveller’), can’t directly criticise the monarchy at the time (George III)
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5
Q

Ozymandias:

‘King of kings’

A

Arrogant and powerful.

Challenged other rulers.

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6
Q

Ozymandias:

‘I met a traveller’

A

Frames poem as a story.
Even narrator hasn’t seen the statue himself only heard.
Emphasises how unimportant Ozymandias is.

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7
Q

Ozymandias:

‘Nothing beside remains.’

A

Caesura, stands out and is powerful.

Reinforces the irony of Ozymandias’ bragging and arrogance (there is now nothing left).

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8
Q

London:

What is the structure like in the poem?

A
  • Repetitive structure.
  • Written in quatrains (stanzas of 4 lines).
  • Regular ABAB rhythm, is monotonous, reflecting relentless, overwhelming suffering of the city.
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9
Q

London:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • It’s a dramatic monologue, the narrator speaks passionately and personally about the suffering he sees.
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10
Q

London:

What is some context?

A
  • Blake wrote and illustrated 2 volumes of poetry.
  • ‘Songs of Innocence’ are positive focusing on childhood, nature and love.
  • ‘Songs of Experience’ look at how innocence is lost, how society is corrupted.
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11
Q

London:

‘Every black’ning church apalls’

A

Literal meaning- Church literally blackening with smoke from chimneys of industrial revolution. Criticism of IR.

Metaphorical meaning- Criticism via colour imagery. Black symbolises evil (bad). They should be helping those in need but fail to do so.
Apall - pale. Juxtaposes with black of church, shouldn’t be able to exist together.

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12
Q

London:

‘Youthful harlot’s curse’

A

Young prostitutes.

Contrast of innocence of youth and experience of prostitution.

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13
Q

London:
‘Charter’d’
‘Mark’
‘Every’

A

Use of repetition on all these words means there is no relief from suffering in the city.

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14
Q

The Prelude:

What is the structure like in the poem?

A
  • There is no stanzas,no breaks/pauses.
  • Reader is overwhelmed and breathless
  • Reflection of young Wordsworth and his emotions at the time
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15
Q

The Prelude:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • It’s a first person narrative
  • The poem is personal and shows a turning point in the poets life.
  • Use of blank verse shows it’s serious and important.
  • Regular rhythm so poem sounds like natural speech.
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16
Q

The Prelude:

What is some context?

A
  • Poem is about an experience form Wordsworth’s past.
  • He was a romantic poet (explores the connection between nature and man).
  • Human and character is shaped by experience.
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17
Q

The Prelude:
‘ I found
a little boat’

A

Enjambment (over two lines), adds to the sense of the overwhelming effect nature has upon the child- like the long verse the poem is in the form of.

18
Q

The Prelude:

‘Stealth’

A

Connotations of the boy being secretive and sly.
In the opening of the poem, man is shown as selfish.
Society is made up of people who are proud, who take from nature (shown via the taking of the boat).

19
Q

The Prelude:

‘Proud of his skill’

A

The pride of the boy with be humbled form the mountain soon in the poem.
At the start, man is shown as proud/arrogant.

20
Q

My Last Duchess:

What is the structure of the poem?

A
  • Poem is framed by the visit to the Duke’s gallery.
  • Duke gets caught up in talking about the Duchess instead of describing the art.
  • Poem builds towards a ‘confession’, before identity of visitor is revealed.
  • Duke then moves on to talk about another artwork.
21
Q

My Last Duchess:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • It’s a dramatic monologue written in iambic pentameter,
  • This further shows the Duke in conversation with his visitor.
  • Rhyming couplets show the Duke’s desire for control.
  • Enjambment suggests he gets carried away with his anger and passions.
22
Q

My Last Duchess:

What is the context?

A
  • Poem set during Italian Renaissance (14th-16th centuries) but published during Victorian era.
  • Women were seen as possession and needed to be perfect or they would ruin their husband’s reputation.
  • After suffragette movement attitudes changed.
23
Q

My Last Duchess:

‘My’

A

The pronoun ‘my’ (repeated throughout the poem) shows Duke to be possessive and self-obsessed.
Sees his wife as an object he owns.

24
Q

My Last Duchess:

‘Frà Pandolf’

A

Name of a fake artist who painted the Duchess, the Duke is vain as he is name dropping.
Frà means brother, so likely the artist is a monk/ religious figure and wouldn’t have been romantically involved or even flirtatious with Duchess.
Duke is paranoid for suggesting he might have flirted with her.

25
Q

The Charge of the Light Brigade:

What is the structure of the poem?

A
  • The poem tells a story of the battle in chronological order.
  • First 3 stanzas is the charge.
  • Fourth stanza is the battle.
  • Fifth stanza is the retreat.
  • Final stanza is shorter and summarises the heroism of the brigade.
26
Q

The Charge of the Light Brigade:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • It’s in third person, so seems like a story.
  • Regular, relentless rhythm creates a fast pace, imitating the cavalry’s advance and energy of the battle.
  • Rhyming couplets and triplets drive the poem forwards but momentum is broken by unrhymed lines (mirroring horses stumbling and soldiers falling).
  • Overall lack of rhyme scheme hints at the chaos of the war.
27
Q

The Charge of the Light Brigade:

What is some context?

A
  • Tennyson was a Victorian poet and was Poet Laureate.

- The poem is about the battle of Balaclava (Britain vs Russia) during the Crimean War.

28
Q

The Charge of the Light Brigade:
‘reply’
‘why’
‘die’

A

Rhyme and repetition shows obedience and a sense of duty.
The Brigade are obedient but could be seen as a bad thing as they’re charging to their death and don’t/can’t question it. They have no freedom.

29
Q

The Charge of the Light Brigade:

‘Valley of death’

A

A biblical reference to psalm 23, David and Goliath battling in a valley. David is the underdog- so is Britain, and Russia is resembled by Goliath.
There is no escape, death is inevitable for Britain, Victorians would acknowledge the reference.

30
Q

Exposure:

What is the structure of the poem?

A
  • x8 stanzas, but no real progression.
  • Last stanza ends with the same words as the first (‘but nothing happens’).
  • Reflects monotony of life in the trenches and the absence of change.
31
Q

Exposure:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • Written in present tense using first person plural (our, we, us).
  • Shows how the experience was shared by soldiers across the war.
  • All stanzas have regular rhyme scheme (ABBAC), which builds smomentum and anticipation of the battle but is never realised.
  • Poem stays the same, and so does the situation for the soldiers.
  • Para-rhyme (half rhyming- ‘snow’ & ‘renew’) shows the soldiers are nervously on edge and in complete.
32
Q

Exposure:

What is some context?

A
  • Owen wrote the poem in 1917-18 from the trenches of WW1, not long before he was killed in battle.
  • Owen was a revolutionary war poet, at the time war was seen as honourable but he wanted to expose war.
  • His poems help the reader to understand the truth of war
33
Q

Exposure:

‘Like twitching agonies’

A

It’s a simile.
Twitching is a sudden jerking movement.
Sounds like the men are physically out of control, which extends mentally, descending into madness/trauma and PTSD?

34
Q

Exposure:

‘Black with snow’

A

Black is associated with death (funeral colour).
Snowis associated with usually being pure.
They juxtapose.

35
Q

Exposure:

‘But nothing happens’

A

Anti-climatic.
Emphasises their boredom and tension of waiting for something to happen at an unknown time.
Poem starts and ends with the quote, indicating the soldiers are in an endless cycle and nothing’s changed.

36
Q

Remains:

What is the structure of the poem?

A
  • The poem starts as an amusing anecdote, but quickly turns to a graphic description of a man’s death.
  • Clear volta at start of fifth stanza, where the soldier’s tone, thoughts and emotions are changed by his guilt.
37
Q

Remains:

What is the form of the poem?

A
  • There is no regular rhyme scheme, so sounds like someone is telling a story.
  • Speaker starts with first person plural (we) but switches to first person singular (I), poem becomes more personal and like a confession.
  • Last line ends with caesura, feeling of finality and the guilt will stay with the soldier.
38
Q

Remains:

What is some context?

A
  • The poem is based on an account of an ex British solder who server in Iraq (2003).
39
Q

Remains:

‘His bloody life in my bloody hands.’

A

Double meaning to ‘bloody’- man’s blood or swearing.
‘my’ shows there is no longer a collective responsibility, he now feels completely responsible.
‘bloody hands’ is a possible reference to Macbeth, after persuading her husband to kill King Duncan, Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and tries to wash imaginary blood off her hands. This allusion hints that the speaker has been unbalanced by his guilt, like Lady Macbeth was.

40
Q

Remains:

‘On another occasion’

A

Suggests that these events happen regularly, and the soldiers have lost feelings towards the action of killing.
Killing is apart of the job.
They have become ‘numbed’ to the idea of it.

41
Q

Remains:
‘tosses’
‘carted off’

A

Two very casual, cold actions, shows there is no respect for the dead man.
Make it sound like the body is a piece of rubbish.
It’s graphic and casual which shows the soldiers are desensitised to violence and gory.
Normalises violence and suggests that conflict devalues human life.

English Literature Paper 2 (3 decks)

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