english
Prescribed Poems
Ozymandias: Percy Bysshe Shelley
perfect rhyme
↳ dir
↳ ruler of
everything A I met a traveller from an antique land ISt P
4
Egypt
↳ Bible times B Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneimperfect
2nd P
rhyme
lifeless
A Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, ENJAMBMENT !
Shakespearean Statue face
Sonnet B Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
art survives, he doesn't : JuXT ↓ alliteration
random Full stop A And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Sculptor didn't like sculptee
↳
Coesura : internal knows well
C Tell that it’s sculptor well those passions read impression B4 image
↳ breaks
rhythm temph .
Passion survive, not Empire oppressive ruler
↳ power crumbles
from Within
D Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, confused
Sculptor vs ruler
. ,
↳
nothing remains C The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: Octave
part of Italian :
Volta(son)
E And on the pedestal these words appear: Sestet
high regard ? L
God solutions
D ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
imperative verb irony
& Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing remains ,
Neg adj .
semantic
egotistical Shift in focus be Sad Neg .
G Nothing beside remains. Round the decay ↳ JUXT
colossus of wrodes ↳
simple vs .
Complex sentence
F Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare power of time
G The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
power of nature 3 allit
. Nature is great equaliser
Has 14 lines, isn’t about love, aspects of both Shakespeare and Italian sonnet
• rebels, “how does form relate to content”
Themes
• human power; trancience; art and culture; pride
Anti-monarchist, disliked King George and urban life
1817 - discovery of Ramesses ll (industrial revolution)
Message: power fades over time (deeply political)
Structure and form:
• iambic pentameter rhythm (becomes less clear, like power)
• allegory - stature is disappearing like power
• elizabethen sonnet: quatrain, sestet, volta
Enjambment helps story flow
Namaqualand After Rain: William Plomer
- flat ,
rural areas
happened Again the veld revives
b4
imbued with lyric rains, light
flowing ,
Lsaturated ,
soaked
, and sap re-sweetening dry stalks
landscape is full of
perfumes the quickening plains; possibilities
y
↳
personification (plants +
pregnancy)
small roots explode in strings of stars, metaphors
each bulb gives up its dream, value their flowers
E
honey drips from orchid throats
connotation + exotic
metaphor jewels each raceme; Sexual
cluster of flowers
arranged
along a stem
the desert sighs at dawn - personifies
calm
as in another hemisphere Land is reawakening
serenity
Caesurd
the temple lotus breaks her buds
L
on the attentive air - feminine , soft
onomatopoeid (sound of skirts moving down)
-
a frou-frou of new flowers,
like women making
metaphor
:
puff of unruffling petals, are fine
sure skirts
while rods of sunlight strike pure streams
Sowlance from rocks beveined with metals;
,
personified exhausted long winter
:
,
fair in the gaunt karoo shift to the dry katoo
dark
the winter denudes,
grey-blue
calves ironstone caves gives back the burr all it .
of lambs in multitudes; ↳ spiky weed that latches
↳ symbols of
fertility
onto
passing creatures
and life
grass waves again where drought
Y
symbol of
bleached every upland kraal,
rebirth and grass is
waving i
fertility a peach-tree shoots along the wind for rain
pink volleys through a broken wall,
Shootingthroughthen shows determination
and willows growing round the dam
to
grow
may now be seen
, delicate outlines
with all their traceries of twigs
just hesitating to be green,
(
personified hesitates
,
to have leaves again
, soon to be hung with colonies
all swaying with the leaves
of pendeent wicker love-nests hint at reproduction
the pretty loxia weaves.
black-headed weaver birds will build many
William Plomer (1903 - 1973)
nests on the branches of willows
• poet and campaigner for racial equality
Namaqualand
• Plural form of Nama - the name of the large Khoisan tribe settlement (Namibia and SA)
Structure
• Rigid rhyme scheme in each quatrain: ABCB DEFE
• Regular and predictable structure mirrors systemic racial injustices in Apartheid
• Meter: alternate lines of iambic trimeter (6 syllables) and iambic tetrameter (8 syllables)
Themes
• appreciation of beauty and nature’s rejuvenating powers of nature
• reminder that life finds a way to survive and renew itself
• romanticist
Enjambment
• Inexplorable, inevitable journey
• highlighting the excitement that is felt when nature gets close to revealing its glory
Tone: appreciative/romantic tone, personified nature and beautful imagery
Mood: Blissful, beautiful, calming imagery
Touch: Hugh Lewin
limited time
When I get out -
(suggests hope)
I’m going to ask someone
tender,
desperation : Isolated and deprived
sensitive
to touch me
engagement very gently please
reflects
intensity and slowly,
touch me
I want
to learn again
how life feels.
living us existing