Power and Conflict
What's covered
Key facts
Bayonet Charge (Ted Hughes)
A hare is caught in the gunfire and the soldier sees it suffering as he runs past.
Checking Out Me History (John Agard)
John Agard was born in Guyana, South America, in 1949 and moved to Britain in the late 1970s.
Comparing the poems
Events and wars: The Charge of the Light Brigade concerns the Crimean War; Exposure concerns the First World War; Kamikaze concerns the Second World War; Poppies is set three days before Armistice Sunday, the Remembrance Sunday.
Exposure (Wilfred Owen)
Owen was killed in action on 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice; almost all his poems appeared after his death.
Extract from, The Prelude (William Wordsworth)
The extract is written in blank verse, which is unrhymed with a set number of syllables per line, giving a free, narrative effect.
Kamikaze (Beatrice Garland)
The pilot's story is told by his daughter, recounting it later to her own children; Bitesize says the poem explores her testimony.
London (William Blake)
The word 'chartered' is used for both the street and the Thames; Bitesize reads it as London being owned and controlled by the rich, and as a sense of restriction and lack of freedom.
My Last Duchess (Robert Browning)
The Duke keeps the portrait behind a curtain that only he draws; the guide reads this as him keeping the painting, and by extension his wife, under his power.
Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
The pedestal carries the king's boast: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Poppies (Jane Weir)
After the son has gone, the parent goes into his bedroom and releases a song bird from its cage (stanza 3); later a single dove flies from the pear tree.
Practice questions with answers
A taste of the 109 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
Who is the focus of Bayonet Charge?
- •A mother waiting for her son
- •A named officer leading a battalion
- •A war poet remembering a battle
- ✓An unnamed soldier, described as 'he'
Which war did Mary Seacole travel to help soldiers in?
- •The Boer War
- ✓The Crimean War
- •The Napoleonic Wars
- •The Zulu War
In Section B, what do you compare the named poem with?
- •An unseen poem printed on the paper
- •Any poem from either anthology cluster
- ✓One other poem from the same cluster
- •Two other poems from the same cluster
What is happening to the soldiers in Exposure?
- •The soldiers bury their dead after a battle
- •The soldiers charge across no man's land at dawn
- •The soldiers retreat after a failed attack
- ✓The soldiers wait through a freezing night in the trenches
What does the young Wordsworth do at the start of the extract?
- •Climbs a craggy ridge above the lake
- •Swims out to an island in the dark
- ✓Takes a boat without permission and rows out
- •Waits for a friend by the willow tree
What happens to the pilot after he returns home?
- ✓Family and neighbours shun the pilot
- •The pilot is honoured as a national hero
- •The pilot is sent on a second mission
- •The pilot leaves Japan to start a new life
Three minutes a day. Knowledge that sticks.
Practise all 109 Power and Conflict questions with spaced repetition, so what you revise today is still there in the exam. Free to use, no card needed.