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The Manhunt - Quotes

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- "After the first phase, / after passionate nights and intimate days, // only then would he let me trace": 'only then' repeated - "blown hinge of his lower jaw" - "the parachute silk of his punctured lung" - "feel the hurt / of his grazed heart" - "sweating, unexploded mine / buried deep in his mind"

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The Manhunt - Context

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- Written for a Channel 4 Documentary - Speaker is Laura, wife of a soldier who served in the Bosnian War and was discharged due to injury and depression, named Eddie

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The Manhunt - Structure and Form

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- Two-line stanzas: fractured - Some rhyming - Dramatic monologue - Enjambment

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Sonnet 43 - Quotes

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- "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" - "I love thee to the breadth and depth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight / For the ends of Being and ideal Grace" - "I love thee with the passion put to use / In my old griefs": volta - "if God choose, / I shall but love thee better after death"

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Sonnet 43 - Context

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- Part of a wider collection of sonnets addressed to Browning's husband, Robert Browning: show how he 'saves' her from her opressive father - Browning suffered spinal and head pain from childhood

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Sonnet 43 - Structure and Form

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- Petrarchan Sonnet: octave, sestet and volta - Shift to focus on past and then future with the sestet

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London - Quotes

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- "I wander thro' each charter'd street - "Marks of weakness, marks of woe" - "every cry of every Man [...] the mind-forg'd manacles I hear" - "every black'ning Church appalls" - "the youthful Harlot's curse [...] blights with plagues the Marriage hearse"

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London - Context

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- Blake lived in 18th century London: Industrial Revolution (late 18th and early 19th century) - Blake lost faith in religion due to the Church refusing to help homeless children

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London - Structure and Form

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- Iambic tetrameter - Enjambment - 4 quatrains: regular ABAB rhyme scheme - Each quatrain focuses on a different aspect of his journey

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The Soldier - Quotes

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- "If I should die, think only this of me:" - "A body of England's, breathing English air, / Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home" - "A pulse in the eternal mind" - "English heaven"

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The Soldier - Context

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- Written in 1914, before Brooke experienced war; later became an officer - Used as a propaganda piece but not written for this reason - Reflects Brooke's patriotic views

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The Soldier - Structure and Form

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- Sonnet - Octave uses Shakespearean rhyme scheme and sestet uses Petrarchan: British vs Italian

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She Walks in Beauty - Quotes

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- "She walks in beauty, like the night, / Of cloudless climes and starry skies" - "One shade the more, one ray the less / Had half impaired the nameless grace" - "A mind at peace with all below, / A heart whose love is innocent!"

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She Walks in Beauty - Context

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- Possibly inspired by a woman, Byron's cousin, that he met at a party the night before - Romantic era, which placed more emphasis on the heart and feelings than on the head and thoughts

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She Walks in Beauty - Structure and Form

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- Iambic tetrameter - Consistent ABABAB rhyme scheme - Enjambment: slight contrast to steady rhyme scheme + beat

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Living Space - Quotes

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- "There are just not enough / straight lines. That / is the problem." - "whole structure leans dangerously / towards the miraculous" - "someone has squeezed / a living space" - "eggs in a wire basket [...] hung out over the dark edge / of a slanted universe"

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Living Space - Context

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- Revealed later that the poem is set in Mumbai - Dharker lives between London and Mumbai

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Living Space - Structure and Form

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- Stanzas use enjambment - No rhyme scheme - Stanza 2 is short, as if squeezed between stanzas 1 and 3

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As Imperceptibly as Grief - Quotes

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- "As imperceptibly as Grief / The Summer lapsed away" - "A Quietness distilled" - "The Morning foreign shone" - "harrowing Grace" - "Summer made her light escape"

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As Imperceptibly as Grief - Context

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- Lived a very lonely, isolated life - Final version written the year Dickinson's mother died - Poem can be interpreted as about Dickinson's emotional struggles caused by the death of her mother

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As Imperceptibly as Grief - Structure and Form

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- Blank verse - No stanzas - Reflects unordered nature of thoughts and feelings

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Cozy Apologia - Quotes

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- "I could pick anything and think of you" - "There you'll be [...] chain mail glinting, to set me free" - "post-post modern age is all business [...] take-no-risks" - "hurricane is nudging up the coast, / Oddly male: Big Bad Floyd, who brings a host / Of daydreams [...] Of teenage crushes on worthless boys" - "We're content, but fall short of Divine" - "I fill this stolen time with you"

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Cozy Apologia - Context

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- Speaker is Rita Dove - Poem is dedicated to her husband Fred - Hurricane Floyd occurred off the coast of the USA in 1999

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Cozy Apologia - Structure and Form

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- Likely first-person narrative - Three 10-line stanzas - Stanza 1 is made up of 5 rhyming couplets - Rhyme scheme breaks down in stanza 2 as storm arrives - New rhyme scheme begun to emerge by stanza 3 - Some enjambment: flowing of thoughts

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Valentine - Quotes

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- "Not a red rose or a satin heart." - "I give you an onion. / It is a moon wrapped in brown paper." - "It will blind you with tears / like a lover." - "I am trying to be truthful.": isolated stanza - "Not a cute card or a kissogram.": isolated stanza - "possessive and faithful / as we are, / for as long as we are." - "Lethal. / Its scent will cling to your fingers, / cling to your knife."

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Valentine - Context

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- Poem refers to Valentine's Day, when people traditionally give gifts to their partner, especially roses - Valentine's Day has become much more commercialised

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Valentine - Structure and Form

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- Free verse: no beat - No rhyme scheme - Short stanzas of varied length: mimics layers of an onion, potentially - Not a sonnet!

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A Wife in London - Quotes

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- "The Tragedy" - "She sits in the tawny vapour / That the City lanes have uprolled / Behind whose webby fold on fold [...] The street-lamp glimmers cold" - "Flashed news is in her hand [...] He - has fallen - in the far South Land ..." - "The Irony" - "the fog hangs thicker" - "The postman nears and goes: / A letter is brought whose lines disclose [...] His hand, whom the worm now knows" - "Page-full of his hoped return [...] And of new love they would learn"

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A Wife in London - Context

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- Critical of Victorian society and decline of rural life - Hardy spent much time seeing women other than his wife Emma, who spent much time by herself in her attic rooms as a result - Poem written in 1899, at the start of the 2nd Boer War, which was fought in Africa: "far South Land"

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A Wife in London - Structure and Form

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- ABBAB rhyme scheme - 4 stanzas - Metre is varied and inconsistent

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Death of a Naturalist - Quotes

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- "All year the flax-dam festered" - "There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies, / But best of all was the warm thick slobber / Of frogspawn" - "I would fill jampotfuls [...] Miss Walls would tell us how / The daddy frog was called a bullfrog" - "they were yellow in the sun and brown / In rain." - "Then one hot day [...] angry frogs / Invaded the flax-dam" - "The air was thick with a bass chorus" - "The slap and plop were obscene threats." - "I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings / Were gathered there for vengeance"

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Death of a Naturalist - Context

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- The speaker is Heaney as a child, who grew up in rural Northern Ireland - He visited a flax-damn as a child - Flax is often associated with Northern Ireland - Contrast to Heaney's later poems, which often comment on the Troubles

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Death of a Naturalist - Structure and Form

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- Blank verse - Iambic pentameter: beating of the heart and passing of time - "Then" at start of stanza 2 signals change in focus

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Hawk Roosting - Quotes

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- "I sit in the top of the wood" - "in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat" - "The convenience of the high trees!" - "the earth's face upward for my inspection" - "The allotment of death" - "No arguments assert my right"

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Hawk Roosting - Context

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- Hawks have exceptional eyesight, are intelligent and are known for being violent - Can be interpreted as a metaphor for a military leader, particularly a dictator

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Hawk Roosting - Structure and Form

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- Dramatic monologue - Stanzas 1 and 2 focus on nature while 3-6 focus on the god-like nature of the hawk

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To Autumn - Quotes

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- "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!" - "fill all fruit with ripeness to the core" - "Thee sitting careless on a granary floor" - "soft-dying day" - "gathering swallows twitter in the skies"

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To Autumn - Context

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- Keats wrote this as he was dying of tuberculosis so poem can be considered a metaphor for his life

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To Autumn - Structure and Form

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- Chronological - Enjambment - Non-regular but frequent rhymes - Iambic pentameter

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Afternoons - Quotes

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- "Summer is fading: / The leaves fall in ones and twos" - "Young mothers assemble" - "And the children, so intent on / Finding more unripe acorns, / Except to be taken home" - "pushing them / To the side of their own lives"

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Afternoons - Context

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- Larkin lived a restricted life as a librarian and never married or travelled abroad

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Afternoons - Structure and Form

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- Stanzas reflect on past, present and future respectively - Enjambment - No rhyming

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Dulce et Decorum Est - Quotes

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- "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks" - "coughing like hags" - "Men marched asleep." - "All went lame; all blind;" - "Gas! Gas! Quick boys!" - "face, like a devil's sick of sin" - "The old Lie"

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Dulce et Decorum Est - Context

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- Wilfred Owen fought in the war so was writing from experience - The phrase "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" was used in war propaganda and originally written by Horace

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Dulce et Decorum Est - Structure and Form

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- Mostly steady beat - Stanza length varies - Rhyme scheme varies but in general alternating lines rhyme

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Ozymandias - Quotes

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- "I met a traveller from an antique land" - "Half sunk, a shattered visage lies" - "Sneer of cold command" - "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay"

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Ozymandias - Context

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- Inspired by a statue of Ramses II which was en route to London in 1817 - Egyptian pharaohs were dictators, which Shelley was opposed to

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Ozymandias - Structure and Form

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- Petrarchan sonnet but with modified rhyme scheme, which is mostly unclear - Iambic pentameter - Combined octave and sestet with volta

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Mametz Wood - Quotes

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- "the wasted young" - "A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade, / the relic of a finger" - "They were told to walk, not run" - "And even now the earth stands sentinel" - "twenty men buried [...] their skeletons paused mid dance-macabre" - "Boots that outlasted them"

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Mametz Wood - Context

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- Mametz Wood was the fight of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Somme in WW1 - Soldiers of the Welsh division were ordered to take the wood - They succeeded but their bravery and sacrifice was not acknowledged - Grave of twenty Allied soldiers with linked arms uncovered

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Mametz Wood - Structure and Form

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- Three-line stanzas + some lines longer than others - Stanzas alternate between focus on the land, bones and people with stanza 7 acting as a conclusion

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The Prelude - Quotes

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- "The cottage windows through the twilight blaz'd" - "It was a time of rapture: clear and loud" - "Proud and exulting, like an untired horse" - "And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn" - "The Pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare" - "The leafless trees and every icy crag"

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The Prelude - Context

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- Autobiographical - Wordsworth spent much time outside as a child - Wordsworth frequently visited his grandparents, who lived in an extremely rural location

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The Prelude - Structure and Form

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- Autobiographical - Conversational poem - Blank verse: carefree - Enjambment: increases pace

WJEC/Eduqas English Literature GCSE Poetry Anthology – Flashcards

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