poem Flashcards
Kamikaze context
Japan’s military attitudes were founded on codes of honour and self-sacrifice. Typically, Kamikaze pilots were volunteers which conveys how firmly people believed in these values, enough to sacrifice their own lives
London context
He was a Romantic poet - believed nature was awe-spiring. He was anti-establishment (against he government and church). He believed they abused their power
This poem belongs to ‘songs of experience’ which grieves the loss of innocence in the face of corruption
London quotes
‘Mind forged manacles’ - The semantic field of oppression is so deep, it has formed these ‘manacles’ around individuals minds, thus they are confined to the misery that the authorities have imprisoned them to
‘Manacles’ symbolise chains, mimicking how the people in London are intertwined with their misery and oppression - the ‘manacles’ are inescapable as they are ‘mind-forges’ making them impossible to physically escape
London form
It uses Quatrains paired with a regular ABAB rhyme to emulate the mass oppression and restriction the lower classes were subject to. There is no sense of freedom in the poem
It also has iambic tetrameter which heightens the motif of oppression that permeates the poem; there is no freedom to escape this control
Blake provides a glimmer of hope when he breaks the iambic tetrameter on ‘marks of weakness, marks of woe’. He could be implying that there is hope to break free from this oppression if London was to be united against establishments that controlled them
Checking out me history context
Growing up in British Guyana, John Agard received a British education. After living in Britain for 30 years and seeing the flawed and oppressive education system, COMH was published in a collection named ‘half cast’ which explored the issues of race and identity
CoMH
‘I carving out me identity’ - The use of the personal pronoun shows he is taking personal charge over his identity, a power denied to him through the systematic exclusion of black history. This omission perpetuated a cycle where his identity was constantly stifled
The colloquialism (writes how he speaks) celebrates his regional dialect and a refusal to conform to the lexis of those
Exposure context
Owen wrote the poem while in the trenches in 1917 - he wrote poetry to express the horrors of war opposed to internalising it
inspired by Sasoon who critiqued patriotism
Exposure quotes
‘Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army’- personification of ‘dawn’ being aggressive and violent juxtaposes traditional views of Mother Nature as nurturing
Ironic as ‘dawn’ typically acts as a symbol of renewal, offers no such promise - their future appears as bleak and unyielding as the predawn darkness they emerge from
Exposure form
Pararhyme - ‘knife us’ ‘nervous’
Half rhymes evoke a sense of unease and dissatisfaction in the reader, as they anticipate a full rhyme but are consistently denied
This mirrors the soldiers anxious anticipation of conflict, their minds unsettled by the nervous tension of awaiting battle
Cyclical structure- ‘but nothing happens’ This shows the continuous vicious cycle of war and suffering as well as highlighting that there is no true end to the soldiers plight
The prelude context
Wordsworth was a Romantic poet, he wrote in criticism of industrialism and celebrated nature’s beauty
Both of his parents died during his childhood. He was raised by different relatives, many of whom treated him poorly which had a detrimental impact on his mental health
Growing up in the lake district, the lake’s natural landscape became a place where he could escape
The prelude form and structure
Single Stanza - denies the reader a pause and could make them feel breathless.
It uses enjambment to reinforce this overwhelming quality of nature
Ozymandias quotes
‘Lone and level sands’ ‘nothing beside remains’ - The alliteration emphasises the vast and mighty extent of nature. Whereas the human sees his power eroded and chipped away by time, nature enjoys transcendent power, serving only to show the futility of human power. the statue becomes engulfed by desert sounds, it parallels Ozymandias’ memory being gradually obscured (concealed) by the relentless march of time
Ozymandias form
Iambic pentameter - it is used as a motif of control. Its used throughout the poem in order to demonstrate the frightful regularity of the oppression by those in power on those they rule
It’s used so regularly to suggest that there is no way to break free, they are constrained by the oppressive tyrant that rules them
