Romantics and Nature poems Flashcards
London:
Key quotes, Summary, Important contextual information, Poems that link to it/Key themes
key quotes:
- “Marks of weakness, marks of woe”
- “Every blackning Church appalls”
- “Runs in blood down Palace walls“
- “And blights with plagues the Marriage”hearse”
summary:
William Blake is describing London, in which he mentions the living state of the city and the power divide between the rich and the poor.
important contextual information:
- William Blake is lived in London for most of his life
- his work is influenced by the bible
- there was a clear divide between the rich and the poor
poems that link to it/key themes:
My Last Duchess - power
Storm on the Island - conflict
Poverty, rich and the poor
The Prelude:
Key quotes, Summary, Important contextual information, Poems that link to it/Key themes
Key Quotes:
- “It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure”
- “The horizon’s utmost boundary; far above
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky”
- “When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon’s bound”
- “As if with voluntary power instinct”
- “There hung a darkness, call it solitude”
- “Like living men, moved slowly through the mind”
Summary:
Wordsworth recalls a night as a boy where he goes onto a lake on a stolen boat, and gets ‘attacked’ by a mountain on the horizon. They then flee and mention how they have bad emotions because of it on the following days.
Important contextual information:
- it is Wordsworth recalling a night
- he is a small boy
- at the end of the poem the memory of the mountain stays in his mind for days
Poems that link to it/Key themes:
Storm on the Island - power of nature
Storm on the Island - conflict
Ozymandias/London - power
Ozymandias - memory
Ozymandias:
Key quotes, Summary, Important contextual information, Poems that link to it/Key themes
Key quotes:
- “I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—”
- ““Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . .”
- “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive,”
- “boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.””
Summary:
Percy Bysshe Shelley is telling a story of how they met a traveller explaining how he saw a statue of a overpowering dictator destroyed and heavily damaged.
Important contextual information:
- It is a traveller that Shelley met that is explaining how they saw the statue
- Ozymandias was an overruling dictator who exploited the residents of his land to portray his power
Poems that link to it/Key themes:
London/My Last Duchess - power
London - exploiting the poor
The Prelude - Nature overpowering
My Last Duchess:
Key quotes, Summary, Important contextual information, Poems that link to it/Key themes
Key quotes:
- “Will’t please you sit and look at her? “
- “She had A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad, Too easily impressed;”
- “she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift”
- “Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity”
Summary:
A duke is telling a visitor of his house about a painting of his last duchess.
Important contextual information:
- a duke is telling a visitor
- his duchess is dead
- we never hear or know who the visitor is
Poems that link to it/Key themes:
London - power
The Prelude - memory
Ozymandias - abuse of power
Storm on the Island:
Key quotes, Summary, Important contextual information, Poems that link to it/Key themes
Key quotes:
- “The wizened earth had never troubled us”
- “when it blows full Blast: you know what I mean”
- “But there are no trees, no natural shelter.”
- “the flung spray hits The very windows, spits like a tame cat Turned savage”
- “Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear”
Summary:
A person is describing how as a collective group of people they are preparing for what it seems like a war. However it is revealed at the end that they are preparing for a peaceful war.
Important contextual information:
- not describing the troubles
- Heany was catholic and republican
- Heany usually wrote about rural landscapes
- he was also Irish
Poems that link to it/Key themes:
Ozymandias - nature vs humans
The Prelude - power of nature
conflict
