Power and conflict anthology (1)

Ozymandias
1. The first of the three speakers is a traveller who talks about how someone (the second speaker) found the remnants of an ancient statue from the egyptian age
2. The legs and pedestal are all that remain
3. The inscription on the pedestal shows how egotistical and proud Ozymandias was
4. The statue is of ancient Egyptian ruler Ozymandias
5. This is ironic because he is actually shown as very weak compared to the power of time which has made his once-majestic statue into a ruin and his land that he ruled into a barren desert
6. Structure
  1. Written as a sonnet
  2. Caesura used in quotation 'who said:' which sets up the second speaker's story
7. Context
  1. Europeans at the time were very interested in ancient Egyptian artifacts and travellers often took them home
8. Key quotations
  1. 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone'
  2. 'A shatter'd visage lies'
  3. 'Sneer of cold command'
  4. 'The hand that mock'd them'
  5. 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works ye mighty and despair!'
  6. 'Boundless and bare'...'The lone and level sands stretch far away'
My Last Duchess
1. The Duke of Ferrara boasts about a painting of his late wife to a visitor and remenicises about the portrait sessions
2. He calls the way she behaved 'disgraceful' and claimed that she didn't appreciate him
3. There is a hint to him possibly murdering her
4. Once he is done, he promptly returns to talking with the visitor who is revealed as a representative of a new proposed wife
5. Context
  1. This was at a time when debauched men like the Duke asserted themselves
6. Structure
  1. Written as a dramatic monologue
7. Key quotations
  1. 'None puts by the curtain I have drawn'
  2. 'Calling up that spot of joy'
  3. 'She had a heart...too soon made glad'
  4. 'She liked whate'er she looked on'
  5. 'She thanked men, I know not how'
  6. 'My gift of a nine-hundred-year-old name'
  7. 'I gave commands...then all smiles stopped
  8. 'Even had you skill in speech'
  9. 'Notice Neptune...taming a sea horse'
London
1. The writer describes what it is like in London
2. The conditions are ghastly
3. The problems that are brought to the fore are: child labour, private property laws and prostitution
4. The powers at play appear to work behind the scenes
5. Structure
  1. Presented very regularly
  2. Strict ABAB rhyme scheme
  3. Focus goes victims - institutions - victims
6. Context
  1. Inspired by the French revolution
  2. Blake was identified as an anarchist and questioned the ways of the church
7. Key quotations
  1. 'Each chartered street... the chartered Thames'
  2. 'Marks of weakness, marks of woe'
  3. 'Every cry... every infant... every voice'
  4. 'Mind forged manacles'
  5. 'Chimney sweeper's cry'
  6. 'Blackening church'
  7. 'Hapless soldier's cry'
  8. 'Runs in blood down palace walls'
  9. 'Youthful harlot's curse'
  10. 'Blights with plagues the marriage hearse'
Exposure
1. Soldiers are in the trenches of WW1 and fear an attack from the enemy
2. However, the weather is the most dangerous power and the real enemy
3. It is very cold
4. The soldiers are disappointed as they expected war to be heroic...
5. 'But nothing happens'
6. Structure
  1. ABBAC rhyme scheme with some para-rhymes
  2. Written in the present tense before moving to the future
  3. Cyclical action
7. Context
  1. Wilfred Owen was a soldier himself during WW1 and tragically died just days before the war ended
8. Key quotations
  1. 'Merciless iced east winds that knive us'
  2. 'Dull rumour of some other war'
  3. 'Dawn massing in the east'
  4. 'Air that shudders black with snow'
  5. 'Sudden successive flights of bullets'
  6. 'Slowly our ghosts drag home'
  7. 'For the love of god seems dying'
Storm on the Island
1. The narrator talks about how people in an unnamed coastal area prepare themselves for an incoming storm
2. They feel very relaxed and confident about getting through the storm
3. When it actually arrives, they are shocked by the power and violence of the storm and they sit scared, waiting for it to pass
4. The narrator admits that they are scared of something invisible
5. Structure
  1. One, nineteen long block
    1. 'We build our houses squat'
  2. Two halves
    1. First about how they feel safe and comfortable
    2. Second is how the storm brings fear
6. Context
  1. May show either the conflict in Ireland's history or man vs nature
7. Key quotations
  1. 'This wizened earth has never troubled us'
  2. 'Nor are there trees that may prove company when it blows full blast'
  3. 'Leaves and branches can raise a tragic chorus in a gale'
  4. There are no trees, no natural shelter'
  5. 'The flung spray hits... the very windows'
  6. 'Spits like a tame cat turned savage'
  7. 'Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear'

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Power and conflict anthology (1)

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	Created by Joseph Hill over 5 years ago