Power and Conflict Poetry Examination Guide

Apr 16, 2025

Lecture Notes: Power and Conflict Poetry Analysis

Welcome to Mr. Everything English's comprehensive lecture, focusing on the analysis of all 15 power and conflict poems. This session is designed to equip you with essential insights and prepare you for your upcoming English literature exam.

Exam Overview

  • Exam Structure: 2 hours, 15 minutes total
    • Power and Conflict Section: 45 minutes
  • Question: One question on power and conflict, marked out of 30
  • Assessment Objectives (AOs):
    • AO1: Point and task
    • AO2: Effect of language, structure, and form
    • AO3: Contextual understanding

Key Literary Terms

  • Czora: Punctuation within a line
  • Enjambment: Lines carrying on without punctuation
  • Volta: Turning point in the poem
  • Forms to Recognize:
    • Narrative, Epic, Free Verse, Sonnet, Dramatic Monologue

Poem Analyses

1. Ozymandias

  • Form: Sonnet
  • Themes: Power, pride, the transient nature of power
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Nothing beside remains" - Volta indicating nature's triumph over man
    • "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings" - Hyperbole, symbolism
    • "Shattered visage lies" - Symbolizes the inevitable decay
  • Context: Patriarchy, Freud's Id, and nature's dominance

2. London

  • Form: Narrative
  • Themes: Oppression, bleakness of urban life
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" - Repetition and imagery
    • "Mind-forged manacles" - Symbolizes mental imprisonment
    • "Hapless soldier's sigh" - Enjambment and symbolism
  • Context: Critique of the British Empire

3. Extract from The Prelude

  • Form: Epic
  • Themes: Nature's power, human arrogance
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Troubled pleasure" - Oxymoron
    • "Huge peak, black and huge" - Volta
    • "No pleasant images of trees" - PTSD and realization
  • Context: Danger of unchecked desires

4. My Last Duchess

  • Form: Dramatic Monologue
  • Themes: Power, control, jealousy
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you but I" - Enjambment, juxaposition
    • "I choose never to stoop" - Patriarchy and power
    • "All smiles stopped together" - Sinister tone

5. The Charge of the Light Brigade

  • Form: Epic
  • Themes: Bravery, futility of war
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Into the valley of death" - Symbolism, foreshadowing
    • "Theirs not to make reply" - Anaphora, depicts blind obedience
    • "Cannon to right of them" - Shows the danger and bravery
  • Context: Propaganda and historical honor

6. Exposure

  • Form: Narrative
  • Themes: Harshness of war, nature
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Our brains ache" - Sibilance, personification of nature's attack
    • "The mad gusts tugging on the wire" - Symbolizes relentless nature
    • "But nothing happens" - Irony, soldier's helplessness

7. Storm on the Island

  • Form: Epic
  • Themes: Nature’s power, human vulnerability
  • Key Quotes:
    • "We are prepared" - Confidence juxtaposed with vulnerability
    • "The thing you fear" - Personification of the storm
    • "Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear" - Irony and realization

8. Bayonet Charge

  • Form: Narrative
  • Themes: War’s chaos, a soldier’s realization
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Bullets smacking the belly out of the air" - Vivid imagery
    • "King, honor, human dignity" - Juxtaposes soldier's realization
    • "Yellow hare that rolled like a flame" - Simile depicting chaos

9. Remains

  • Form: Narrative
  • Themes: Effects of war, PTSD
  • Key Quotes:
    • "On another occasion" - Conversational tone
    • "His bloody life in my bloody hands" - Guilt and responsibility
    • "End of story, except not really" - Reflects on PTSD

10. Poppies

  • Form: Narrative
  • Themes: Loss, remembrance
  • Key Quotes:
    • "I wanted to graze my nose" - Maternal love
    • "I was brave" - Mother's strength and grief
    • "The dove pulled freely" - Symbolizes letting go

11. War Photographer

  • Form: Narrative
  • Themes: War, ethics, and the media's role
  • Key Quotes:
    • "In his darkroom he is finally alone" - Isolation
    • "A hundred agonies in black and white" - Metaphor for captured suffering
    • "He earns a living and they do not care" - Modern indifference
  • Context: PTSD and media desensitization

12. Tissue

  • Form: Metaphorical
  • Themes: The fragility of life, human connections
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Paper thinned by age" - Symbolizes fragility
    • "The sun shines through" - Enlightenment and understanding
    • "Turned into your skin" - Symbolizes human life

13. The Emigrée

  • Form: Epic
  • Themes: Memory, nostalgia, displacement
  • Key Quotes:
    • "My original view" - Denial and nostalgia
    • "They accuse me of absence" - Conflict with change
    • "My shadow falls" - Symbolizes remaining connection

14. Checking Out Me History

  • Form: Free Verse
  • Themes: Identity, history, oppression
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Dem tell me" - Repetition emphasizing control
    • "Blind me to me own identity" - Cultural oppression
    • "Carving out me identity" - Reclamation of self

15. Kamikaze

  • Form: Epic
  • Themes: Duty, family, and regret
  • Key Quotes:
    • "Head full of powerful incantations" - Propaganda's influence
    • "Till we too learned to be silent" - Societal pressure
    • "Which had been the better way to die" - Reflects on choices

Paragraph Structure for Exam Responses

  • PTZEA Structure:
    • Point: State your point
    • Technique: Identify technique
    • Zoom: Focus on a specific word/phrase
    • Effect: Explain the effect
    • Analysis: Compare and analyze across poems
  • Aim for Three Paragraphs: Ensure a breadth of language, structure, and form across your essay.

Final Tips

  • Review quotes and techniques for each poem.
  • Ensure understanding of context and its application in essays.
  • Practice comparing and contrasting poems using the PTZEA structure.

Full transcript