Power and Conflict AQA GCSE Poetry Notes

Power and Conflict AQA Poetry
Notes:
For GCSE AQA Students

,Ozymandias:
Written in 1819 when a large Egyptian statue was unearthed. Egyptians were
highly superstitious and believed that their legacy would continue to exist in the
underworld. Allegory for King George III. Percy was greatly against the monarchy.
The statue was found in a Cairo slum - ironic for high power being buried under
slums (poverty above him).
 A sonnet (Admiration/Mocking)
 One stanza (Shape of statue/Control)
 Irregular rhyming scheme (Disjointed power)
 London – Both were romantic poets critiquing power
‘Traveller from an antique land’
 Two forms of separation between reader and story (Political views)
 ‘Antique’ adds value
‘Well those passions read’
 The King’s cold nature is obvious/easily repeatable (Warning)
‘Ozymandias, King of Kings’
 Ozymandias – King of air – Nothing (Irony)
 Delusions of power are temporary (Allegory)
‘Nothing beside remains’
 Switch of tone – Finality + Death (Power always ends for one)
 Only the ruins remain (Ironic)
London:
Highlighting poverty and injustice of the poor. Criticising authority such as the
police force and the monarchy. Set during the industrial revolution as Blake was a
romantic poet who wrote a collection of poems (innocence vs. experience).
 Four quatrains with ABAB rhyming scheme to appear more memorable
 Repetition emphasizes the prevalence of the horrors the speaker describes
+ Emphasizes the restriction of language and oppression
 Enjambment emphasizes the lack of control in terms of disease and order
 Iambic tetrameter stops in stanza 3, reflecting a disjointed society
 Ozymandias – Both were romantic poets critiquing power
‘I wander through each chartered street’
 Juxtaposition of ‘Wandered’ and ‘Chartered’, illusion of freedom in a reality
of control, legalistic tone
 Rules on who could take part in trading and where (‘Chartered’) showing
divide between classes
‘The mind-forged manacles I hear’
 Societal constraints from expectations, controlled by ideologies and
opinions
 No deviance from these ideologies as no deviance from iambic tetrameter
‘Every black’ning church appalls’
 Reference to pollution from the industrial revolution

,  Tone of corruption and impurity
 The church’s reputation is being tarnished by the economy
 Ironic how the church is blackened instead of the chimney sweeper
mentioned previously
‘And blights with plagues the marriage hearse’
 Oxymoron of ‘marriage hearse’
 Marriage is a metaphor for funeral processions of dying love and
forthcoming death
 Tainted by disease so the cycle continues (Cyclical structure)
Extract from the prelude:
Part of an autobiographical epic poem about a boy who steals a boat but is afraid
of the power of nature and flees. Written by a romantic.
 Cyclical structure (Change is internal, not physical)
 Iambic pentameter – Natural speech relates to nature
 Personification – Nature is female (Nurturing and a source of life)
 Caesuras to emphasize power of nature
 Semantic field of peace (Poem is a euphony but becomes a cacophony)
 Enjambment – Nature can’t be restrained by humanity
 Storm on the island – Power of nature
‘Lustily//I dipped my oars into the silent lake’
 Love letter to nature
 Humanity is currently respectful and appreciative
 ‘Lustily’ connotes to desire for freedom but ‘dipped’ connotes to childish
caution
 ‘Silent’ lake is unaffected by the movement of humanity
‘Heaving through the water like a swan’
 Juxtaposition between ‘Heaving’ and ‘Swan’
 Nature has more grace and power and humanity can’t replicate it, fragility
of humanity
‘Like a living thing, strode after me’
 ‘Thing’ shows his inability to describe nature – It’s too powerful
 ‘Strode’ personifies nature with an aura of power and authority
 Nature becomes physically + mentally bigger to the boy
‘That do not live like living men, moved slowly through the mind’
 Nature is superior – Element of supernatural characteristics
 The boy had been awoken to the truth of the world – Symbolism of
maturity + Spiritual and moral development
 Nature is not only to be enjoyed but also feared
My Last Duchess:
Inspired by the death of duchess Ferrera who was presumably murdered by her
husband (Duke Ferrera). Writing for the treatment of Victorian women, criticising
inequality. Set in the Italian Renaissance where art was prevalent.
 1 Stanza + Enjambment represents the Duke’s lack of control