Poems Flashcards
London Context
Blake: Romantic poet Lived in London Songs of Innocence of Experience Critique of human power Hated industrial revolution
London Quote
“I wander through each chartered street, / near where the chartered Thames does flow. / And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe” (also mind-forged manacles)
Later intertextual repetition builds to Rousseau “man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” commentary
Ozymandias Context
Romanticism
Shelley was pacifist, opposed George 3 who fought many wars and was the longest reigning English monarch
Ramesses 2 = Ozymandias pharaoh during Moses’ biblical exodus, similar to George 3 as he fought many wars
Ozymandias Quote
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! / Nothing besides remains. Round the decay / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Shelley combines 3 sonnets, shows power gives way
Mandias = mandate of ruler
Storm on the Island Context
Heaney: Northern Irish Catholic poet born 1939 Power of nature on Aran Islands Northern Irish Catholics wanted to rejoin Ireland, Protestants wanted to stay British IRA conflict Stormont = Irish parliament Attack of storm = unending conflict
Storm on the Island Quote
“We are prepared: we build our houses squat, / We sit tight while wind dives / And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo. / We are bombarded by the empty air.”
Blank verse (iambic pentameter without rhyme)
Kamikaze Quote
“Dark shoals of fishes / flashing silver as their bellies / swiveled towards the sun”
Sibilance, beauty of nature (bunting, natural imagery)
Kamikaze Context
Garland interested in motivation to give your life
WW2: kamikaze meant Japanese fighter pilots who went on suicide missions by flying their planes into enemy ships
Seen as honorable sacrifice in Japan
War Photographer Context
Duffy is Poet Laureate
Friends with famous war photographer Don McCullin
Duffy interested in photographer himself
Used to develop photos in dark room
War Photographer Quote
“A hundred agonies in black and white / from which his editor will pick out five or six / for Sunday’s supplement.”
Strong contrast control vs chaos of war
Unchanging structure shows futility
Caesuras
Plosive
Prelude Quote
A huge peak, black and huge, / As if with voluntary power instinct, / Upreared its head.
My Last Duchess Quotes
“Who passed without / Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together”
Charge of the Light Brigade
“Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward”
“Into the jaws of Death”
“Rode the six hundred” refrain
“Cannons to right of them, / cannons to left of them, / Cannons in front of them”
6 stanzas for 600 men
Tennyson Poet Laureate, battle of balaclava
Exposure Quote
Owen wrote from WW1 trenches
“But nothing happens” refrain shows waiting
“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…”
Bayonet Charge
Start in action
Written in RAF
Irregular rhythm
“Suddenly he awoke and was running - raw / In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy”
