Power and Conflict Poetry
Cluster
AQA GCSE Revision Notes
English Literature
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1 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
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2 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Table of Contents
Contents ................................................................................................................................. 5
Ozymandias ............................................................................................................................ 7
Summary/Context.............................................................................................................................. 8
Annotation ......................................................................................................................................... 9
London ................................................................................................................................. 10
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 11
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 12
Prelude (Extract) ................................................................................................................... 14
Summary/Context............................................................................................................................ 15
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 16
My Last Duchess.................................................................................................................... 18
Summary/Context............................................................................................................................ 20
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 21
Charge of The Light Brigade ................................................................................................... 23
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 25
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 26
Exposure ............................................................................................................................... 28
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 30
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 31
Storm on The Island .............................................................................................................. 33
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 34
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 35
Bayonet Charge ..................................................................................................................... 36
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 37
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 38
Remains ................................................................................................................................ 40
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 41
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 42
Poppies ................................................................................................................................. 44
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 45
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 46
War Photographer ................................................................................................................ 48
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 49
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 50
3 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Tissue ................................................................................................................................... 51
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 52
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 53
The Émigree .......................................................................................................................... 55
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 56
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 57
Checking Out Me History ....................................................................................................... 59
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 61
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 62
Kamikaze .............................................................................................................................. 64
Context/Summary............................................................................................................................ 66
Annotation ....................................................................................................................................... 67
Sample Answers .................................................................................................................... 69
Compare how poets present ideas about the effects of power in ‘Ozymandias’ and in one other
poem from Power and Conflict. ....................................................................................................... 69
Compare the ways poets present feelings about separation because of conflict in ‘The Emigrée’
and one other poem from Power and Conflict. ....................................................................... 70
Compare how poets present attitudes to warfare in ‘Bayonet Charge’ and in one other poem
from Power and Conflict. ................................................................................................................. 71
4 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
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5 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Contents
Poems (Poem–Summary/Context–Annotation)
1. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelly
2. London by William Blake
3. Prelude (Extract) by William Wordsworth
4. My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
5. Charge of The Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
6. Exposure by Wilfred Owen
7. Storm on The Island by Seamus Heaney
8. Bayonet Charge by Ted Hughes
9. Remains by Simon Armitage
10. Poppies by Jane Weir
11. War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy
12. Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker
13. The Émigree by Carol Rumens
14. Checking Out Me History by John Agard
15. Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland
6 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Ozymandias
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
7 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Summary/Context
Written by Shelly in a collection in 1819, this poem was inspired by the recent unearthing of
part of a large statue of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramesses II. The Egyptian Pharaohs like
Ramesses believed themselves to be gods in mortal form and that their legacy would
last forever. The reference to the stone statue is likely a direct reference to the
statues and sculptures like the one which was unearthed, which the ancient Egyptians
made.
On the base of the statue is written (translated), ‘King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If
anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.’
8 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Annotation
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land (poet’s varied way of saying ‘ancient’)
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, (the traveller’s physical description of how
the statue appears now; time has crumbled it, and yet the former king’s prominent
features still thrive, strengthened, arguably, by the decay of the rest of the statue; these
are its characteristics that he will continue to be remembered by – that are immortal)
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, (as before, what the king was noted
for, his ‘passions’, has outlived him in the memory of others and in history)
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: (suggests that the sculptor’s work is a
true, realistic depiction of this man; that the ‘sculptor’ remained unbiased in his work,
regardless of what was said and what he’d hear about ‘Ozymandias’)
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' (this inscription sets up an intriguing contrast
that’s completed by the closing three lines)
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away." (though it seems as if Ozymandias’ chosen ‘last
words’ are an attempt to goad and antagonise all who visit his memorial, actually, to the
trained eye and mind, they reveal his wisdom and self-awareness; he realises that he will
be judged and remembered only by his actions in life, and what he has left behind him in
death; his memory will fade away and disintegrate, just like this statue that serves to
perpetuate it)
9 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
London
London
I wander through each chartered street
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls .
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
10 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Context/Summary
William Blake was a poet in Victorian/Georgian England, he wrote a selection of poems in
his anthologies songs of innocence and experience, most of those poems had a counterpart.
The Experience poems were often more bitter or cynical whereas the innocence poems
were often naïve and simple. London is one of the few without a counterpart.
The poem is set during a time in England where there was poverty, child labour and a
horrific war with France. Women had no rights, death rates from disease and malnutrition
were high and the industrial revolution has resulted in many large oppressive factories.
Blake’s poems often railed against these and how London, arguably the greatest city in the
world at that time, was so dirty and corrupt.
11 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
Annotation
London
I wander through each chartered street (streets used and regulated for transport, typically
of goods, rather than for free, public use and access)
Near where the chartered Thames does flow, (even the city’s main river is controlled for
economic purposes, it seems)
And mark in every face I meet (old way of saying observe/see)
Marks of weakness, marks of woe. (repetition of the noun a light play on the verb of the
previous line; everyone the narrator meets seems desperate and unhappy)
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban, (old word for ‘curse’, a person calling out to swear, we
presume; the despair the narrator noted in the previous stanza is universal and found in
every age and walk of this world – ‘every’x3)
The mind-forged manacles I hear: (the narrator feels that these people are imprisoned by
their own minds, by what comes from within them, rather than the bleakness of their
situation; arguably, he is proposing that they need to make the best of life and that they
are failing to do so, hence their despair)
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls. (in this stanza, we move from all image in stanza 1 and
all sound in stanza 2 to an alternation between sound and image; because of man’s selfserving despair, even potential sources of hope, i.e. the ‘Church’, are ‘black’ning’)
But most thro' midnight streets I hear (and yet, as bleak as the suffering of the people in
this world is, there is always someone whose situation is even worse)
How the youthful Harlots curse (young prostitutes)
Blasts the new-born Infants tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse. (these young women are so desperate that
they have resorted to ‘blasts’ directed towards children and newly-weds; not only do they
not believe that they can be happy, and escape their ‘mind-forged manacles’, they are
trying to ensure that everyone else shares their pain)
12 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.
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13 Power and Conflict Poetry Cluster – AQA GCSE Revision Notes – English Literature.