poetry

Question 1

a half formed…

Answer 1

ghost (war photographer)

Question 2

running children…

Answer 2

in a nightmare heat (war photographer)

Question 3

spools of suffering…

Answer 3

set out in ordered rows (war photographer)

Question 4

a priest…

Answer 4

preparing to intone a Mass (war photographer)

Question 5

war photographer context?

Answer 5

Duffy was inspired to write this poem by her friendship with a war photographer; she prompts us to consider our own response when confronted with the photographs, and discusses the idea of how photos of war are having lesser and lesser of an impact in modern society.

Question 6

war photographer structure?

Answer 6

The poem is laid out in four regular six-line stanzas, with each stanza ending in a rhyming couplet. This structure is interesting since its very rigid order contrasts with the chaotic, disturbing images described in the poem.

Question 7

I wander…

Answer 7

through each chartered street, near where the chartered Thames does flow (London)

Question 8

runs in blood…

Answer 8

down palace walls (London)

Question 9

mind-forged…

Answer 9

manacles (London)

Question 10

marriage…

Answer 10

hearse (London)

Question 11

London context?

Answer 11

This poem is taken from “songs of experience”. It reveals the poet’s feelings towards the society in which he lived. England in the 1800s became very oppressive, influenced by fears over the French Revolution. Laws began to be imposed which restricted the freedom of individuals. Blake was a Romantic poet, meaning he strongly disliked urban life.

Question 12

London structure?

Answer 12

tight ABAB rhyme scheme, strict 4 line verses

Question 13

the patriotic tear…

Answer 13

that had brimmed in his eye sweating like molten iron from the center of his chest (bayonet charge)

Question 14

his foot hung…

Answer 14

like / statuary in mid stride. Then the… (bayonet charge: consider structure, for example enjambment shown through ‘/’ and caesura)

Question 15

king, honour…

Answer 15

human dignity etcetera, dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm (bayonet charge)

Question 16

his terror’s…

Answer 16

touchy dynamite (bayonet charge)

Question 17

In what cold clockwork…

Answer 17

of the stars and the nations was he the hand pointing that second? (bayonet charge)

Question 18

bayonet charge context?

Answer 18

It is thought that in Bayonet Charge Hughes wanted to highlight the brutality of trench warfare as a tribute to his father’s suffering as well as a way to memorialize war as a warning for future generations. This poem was greatly inspired by Wilfred Owen who similarly tries to depict the reality of war in his poetry.

Question 19

bayonet charge structure?

Answer 19

The poem begins in media-res (straight into the action). The lines are uneven and sporadic, using enjambment and caesura, and have an irregular rhythm.

Question 20

merciless…

Answer 20

iced east winds that knive us (exposure)

Question 21

dawn massing in the east…

Answer 21

her melancholy army attacks once more on shivering ranks of grey (exposure)

Question 22

Less deadly than…

Answer 22

the air that shudders black with snow (exposure)

Question 23

pale flakes…

Answer 23

with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces (exposure)

Question 24

exposure context?

Answer 24

This poem was written during World War I. It depicts the horrific conditions of war. Owen wanted to show the reality of war in contrast to the propaganda that was being feed to the British nation at home.

Question 25

exposure structure?

Answer 25

The poem is structured as a series of eight stanzas of five lines. The last line of each stanza is noticeably shorter and indented which emphasises its importance. It is also part of the more general disruption of the rhythmic structure which uses hexameters as its basis. Hexameters have 6 beats, but Owen often adds other beats to disrupt the flow.

Question 26

half sunk…

Answer 26

a shattered visage lies (ozymandias)

Question 27

wrinkled lip…

Answer 27

and a sneer of cold command (ozymandias)

Question 28

nothing besides…

Answer 28

remains (ozymandias)

Question 29

colossal…

Answer 29

wreck (ozymandias)

Question 30

‘My name is Ozymandias…

Answer 30

king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ (ozymandias)

Question 31

ozymandias context?

Answer 31

Shelley’s poem takes its title from the Egyptian king Ramesses II, known to the Greeks by the name Ozymandias. Shelley was a Romantic poet.

Question 32

ozymandias structure?

Answer 32

Mixture of Patrachan and Shakespearean sonnet forms then a whole new sonnet form to symbolise eternal change. Shelley’s sonnet is a strange mixture of these two forms. It is Petrarchan in that the poem is structured as a group of eight lines (octave) and a group of six lines (the sestet). The rhyme scheme is initially Shakespearean, as the first four lines rhyme ABAB. But then the poem gets strange: at lines 5-8 the rhyme scheme is ACDC, rather than the expected CDCD. For lines 9-12, the rhyme scheme is EDEF, rather than EFEF. Finally, instead of a concluding couplet we get another EF group. The entire rhyme scheme can be schematized as follows: ABABACDCEDEFEF.

Question 33

the prelude context?

Answer 33

wordsworth was a romantic poet and loved nature.

Question 34

my last duchess context?

Answer 34

a dramatic monologue set in italy based on the life of Alfonso II, duke of Ferreira. The dukes first wife died in 1561 after 3 years of marriage at a very young age– there was a suspicion of being poisoned by the duke.

Question 35

charge of the light brigade context?

Answer 35

The charge of the light brigade occurred during the Battle of Balaclava, and was a costly mistake that shouldn’t have happened. Alfred Lord Tennyson was the poet laureate at the time

Question 36

storm on the island context?

Answer 36

stormont = irish government building. there was a civil war about irelands freedom from the uk.

Question 37

remains context?

Answer 37

‘Remains’ is based on the experiences of a soldier who served in Basra in Iraq. He suffered severe PTSD as a result of his experiences

Question 38

poppies context?

Answer 38

Poppies was her response to a commission for war poems by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. This, and nine other poems, appeared in The Guardian newspaper in 2009. Her poem was a response to the losses already suffered during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Question 39

tissue context?

Answer 39

Imtiaz Dharker is a contemporary poet who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Scotland. She has written five collections of poetry and often deals with themes of identity, the role of women in contemporary society and the search for meaning. She draws on her multi-cultural experience in her work.

Question 40

the emigree context?

Answer 40

the 1990s saw an increase in the number of immigrants entering various countries around the world; the poem was published in 1993.

Question 41

checking out me history context?

Answer 41

The poem focuses on the holes in the British colonial education system—particularly that system’s omission of important figures from African, Caribbean, and indigenous history.

Question 42

kamikaze context?

Answer 42

kamikaze pilots would fly their planes into american ships and sacrifice themselves during ww2. kamikaze means ‘divine wind’.