Poetry notes. Flashcards
(44 cards)
What is the poem about?
- It describes the experiences of a group of soldiers in WW1.
- They are freezing and exhausted.
- They feel attacked by the weather.
Key aspects.
- Repetition emphasises the monotonous experience the soldiers are having to endure.
- The viewpoint Owen chooses shows the soldiers as a united force.
- The use of half-rhyme has a considerable effect.
- Owen uses alliteration.
Key setting.
- Owen doesn’t describe the immediate setting of the trenches but their wider surroundings.
- The reader sees the soldiers’ “cringe in holes” which are compared with “grassier ditches”.
- It evokes the experience.
Key technique.
- Owen’s use of the present tense throughout the poem has the effect of creating immediacy for the reader.
- The tense makes the soldiers’ experiences seem never-ending.
Key quotation.
- Owen focuses on the soldiers’ readiness for action and the repeated dashing of their expectations.
London.
Summary:
- The speaker notices how oppressed people in London have become now that everything is chartered.
- This is apparent in all kinds of people.
- The speaker refers to child workers and soldiers, and connects them to institutions such as the Church and the palace, both of which are presented as dramatically stained.
- Finally, the speaker reflects on the pitiful state of the streets at night, linking the ideas of prostitutes, new born babies, disease, marriage and death
Key aspects.
- The repetition in the first half of the poem is a key language technique, emphasising the speaker’s initial unhappiness with the situation in London and building up to a strong picture of universal oppression with the five-fold repetition of ‘every’.
- Blake uses a regular rhythm and rhyme scheme.
- Some of Blake’s vocabulary choices are worth noting.
Key setting.
Eighteenth-century London was developing rapidly under industrialisation which resulted in considerable poverty and extremely poor living conditions. Child labour was commonplace, and poorer children in particular worked long hours in dangerous environments. Blake’s poem outlines his concerns about Londoners’ lack of personal freedom by underscoring the way the city was being controlled by charters at the time, and suggesting that even the River Thames was controlled by the powerful.
Key theme.
Blake states that everyone he sees is affected by weakness and woe.
Key context.
Blake was a supporter of the French revolution.
Extract from the Prelude.
Summary:
The speaker comes across a boat and uses it to row into a lake at night.
- The boy is pleased with his skill in rowing and describes how he fixes his point on a ‘craggy ridge’ in the distance.
- The boy suddenly becomes scared and turns the boat around.
- He is haunted by the experience afterwards.
Key aspects.
- Wordsworth uses the first person viewpoint.
- Personification of nature is used throughout.
- It is in the epic tradition.
Key setting.
- Wordsworth presents the reader with realistic descriptions of the lake and its surroundings at night.
Key technique.
Wordsworth makes considerable use of figurative language to show the power of nature in ‘The Prelude’. He focuses on the speaker’s attention on small details to demonstrate the beauty in tiny things.
My Last Duchess.
Summary:
- The speaker, a duke, points out a portrait of his former wife, inviting the implied listener to admire its lifelike quality.
- The Duke implies that his wife may have been flirting with Fra Pandolf, the painter, and it quickly becomes clear that the Duke believed his wigfe was too friendly or flirtatious with everyone and did not appreciate her husband enough.
Key aspects.
- The poem is a dramatic monologue.
- Browning uses iambic pentameter.
- Browning presents the Duke as having no ‘skill in speech’.
Key setting.
- This poem is about the Duke of Ferrara, in Northern Italy, whose first wife died at the age of 17.
- At the time, women’s sexuality was often regarded as dangerous.
Key theme.
Browning makes it clear that the Duke is upset not just about the Duchess’s perceived infidelity; he is also offended by the fact that she seems as content with less materially valuable gifts than the ones his marriage to her has conferred.
The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Summary:
- Six hundred soldiers - the Light Brigade - charge forward into a valley to engage in a battle between British and Russian troops during the Crimean war.
- In the valley they meet the enemy and are badly disadvantaged, but the soldiers press on bravely not acknowledging that their leaders have made an error in sending them into this situation.
- The sights and sounds of battle are described and the poem ends with a call to celebrate the bravery of the soldiers.
Key aspects.
- Tennyson uses a strong rhythm to replicate sounds like horses’ hoof beats and cannons.
- Repetition and rhyme combine to make the poem highly memorable.
- The poem’s structure carefully presents the battle as a story in six stanzas with longer stanzas for the battle itself and a short concluding stanza in which Tennyson makes clear how the reader should respond.
- Tennyson chooses many active verbs to create a very lively poem and he uses onomatopoeia.
Key setting.
Tennyson’s poem is set in the famous Battle of Balaclava between British and Russian troops in which the Light Brigade were reduced from well over 600 men to 195 partially because of a miscommunication of orders. At the time of writing, Tennyson was poet laureate. It was his job to record national events in verse. The reaction was ambiguous.
Key technique.
This is a poem which is well known particularly for its formal elements. The stanza patterns are also tightly controlled.
Storm on the Island.
Summary:
- The speaker explains how the community’s houses are well equipped to last through storms, built of strong materials and low to the ground.
- The land is not the type to grow hay or trees which can be difficult in high winds but that means the landscape is wide open.
Key aspects.
- Heaney uses the plural pronoun ‘we’ to create a viewpoint which is that of the whole community.
- There are several examples of personification, similes and metaphors.
