Poetry form and structure

Question 1

Charge of the Light Brigade

Answer 1

Dactylic Dimeter - reflects unrelenting rhythm and momentum
Irregular rhyme scheme - chaos of battle
Anaphora/Repetition - driving force

Question 2

Exposure

Answer 2

Refrain/Repetition - futility of war
Long phrases - draw out rhythm and pace

Question 3

Remains

Answer 3

Caesura and Enjambment - flow of emotion
Dramatic monologue with Informal tone - personal story
Quatrains (broken by enjambment) - facade of control

Question 4

Bayonet Charge

Answer 4

Cyclical structure ‘towards a green hedge’ - futility of war
Caesura and Enjambment - flow of emotion
Third person - disoriented

Question 5

Poppies

Answer 5

Dramatic monologue - personal tone
Caesura and enjabment - disrupting flow to show spiralling emotions
Free verse - free flowing thoughts

Question 6

War photographer

Answer 6

Third person - alienation
Even stanzas and rhyme scheme - controlled and serialised grief

Question 7

Kamikaze

Answer 7

Shifts between 3rd person to 1st person - personal story
Narrative story - contrast with story, memory and regret

Question 8

Ozymandias

Answer 8

Sonnet - irony + context
Detached omniscient narrator ‘I met a traveller’ - distancing self from political message

Question 9

London

Answer 9

Even quatrains and rhyme scheme - excessive organisation and control
First person dramatic monologue - personal yet universal message

Question 10

The Prelude

Answer 10

No stanzas - intensity of memory and emotion
Autobiographical
Past tense with present participles - blurred memory of past and present
Enjambment - lack of control, steam of consciousness

Question 11

My last duchess

Answer 11

Dramatic monologue - dominating, immersive
Heroic verse (Iambic pentameter + rhyming couplets) - irony

Question 12

Tissue

Answer 12

Quatrains - control, oppression of humanity, final line breaks restraints
Enjambment - freedom within restrictive society

Question 13

The Emigree

Answer 13

Caesura and enjambment - disorientation of conflict
No rhythm or rhyme - chaos of conflict
Epistrophe of ‘sunlight’ - power of memory

Question 14

Storm on the Island

Answer 14

Conversational tone, iambic pentameter - immerse audience
Inconsistent rhyme - inability of humans to control nature
Enjambment and caesura - chaos, disorganisation of nature

Question 15

Checking out me history

Answer 15

Repetition ‘dem tell me’ - oppressive
Breaking Rhyme scheme in italics sections - resisting oppressive eurocentric narrative
No punctuation