IGCSE ENGLISH POETRY Flashcards
(15 cards)
The City Planners
Themes:
- Order, Power, Control
- Humanity’s destruction of the environment
Ideas:
-Planners depicted as neurotic
-Climate change explored
-Rebuke of the planners
The planners
Themes:
-Roboticness of planners
-Nature fighting a losing war
-Society is being brainwashed
- Dentist metaphor = artificial replacement
Rain
Themes:
- Inevitable death
- Solitude, isolation, alienation
Ideas:
- Depressing, claustrophobic mood
-Vivid brutality of death
- Relentlessness of “rain” (metaphor for death, war?)
Away Melancholy
Themes:
-Hope
-Mankind vs nature
Ideas:
-Motivational tone, like a song
-Allusion to book of psalms: Praise to god, form/structure, intimate relationship with reader (imperatives)
-Call to action
A consumers report
Themes:
-Consumerism
-The realities of life
Ideas:
- Life=product, deglorifying life
- Paradoxically correct claims
- Tongue in cheek parody
- Cynical and diatribe
Ozymandias
Themes:
- The transience of power
-The power of art
-Man vs nature
Ideas:
-No amount of power can withstand mercilessness of time
-Art brings the statue back to life
Night sweat
Themes:
-Creative anxiety and self doubt
-The pain and power of relationships
Ideas:
-Extreme anxiety
-Feverish vivacity
-Wife is given god-like ability
-Claustrophobic mood
Request to a year
Themes;
-Art as an expression
-Feminism/Motherhood
Ideas:
-Great-Great Grandmother went against feminism norms
-Great-Great Grandmother is given god-like ability and status
The Man With Night Sweats
Themes:
-Illness and vulnerability
-Nostalgia
-Mortality
Ideas:
-Nolstalgic “golden era” mood
-Inevitable death
-Powerlessness
-Sympathy for speaker
On finding a small fly crushed in a book
Themes:
-Death
-Legacy
Ideas:
-We do not know when we will die so we must live our lives like we want to be mourned
-Volta—> critique to humanity?
-Book = life
The spirit is too blunt an instrument
Themes:
-The beauty of the anatomy
-The messiness of the spirit
Ideas:
-Advanced diction = complexity of body
-The body is perfect
-Manifesto
Long distance II
Themes:
-Grief, longing
-Love/emotion
Ideas:
-Father’s internal conflict/emotional distance
-Inability to cope
-Believes mother will come back
-Pathos rich
-Shaped by society’s expectations
Funeral Blues
Themes:
-Grief
-Isolation
Ideas:
-Exaggerated/hyperbolic tone
-The end of the world (the end of his world)
He never expected much
Themes:
-Realism
-Acceptance
Ideas:
-World = God
-Melancholic tone near end summarizes his life
-Reflection of life: As if we had already died
-Sombre mood
The telephone call
Themes:
-Experiences
-Hope vs Reality
Ideas:
-Equivocation: Our minds perception
-Sympathy for speaker
-Lottery = metaphor of life
