English resources/Power and Conflict/Quotes
Power and Conflict quotes, in plain words
Every big quote from the fifteen poems. Which poem, which poet, and what it means. Start with the ones marked with a dot.
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Learn these twenty first
Short. Easy to remember. Between them they cover every theme and every main character.
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans · power of nature
The king's boast on his statue. Look at what I built and be afraid. Around it there is nothing.
Nothing beside remains
Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans · power of nature · loss
The statue is broken. The empire is gone. The sand is what lasts.
mind-forg'd manacles
Blake · London · power of humans · identity
Chains made in the mind. The people of London are locked up by their own thoughts and by the powerful.
a huge peak, black and huge
Wordsworth · Extract from The Prelude · power of nature · memory
A boy steals a boat. A mountain rises up behind him. He repeats huge because he has no other word for it.
I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together
Browning · My Last Duchess · power of humans · conflict
The Duke had his wife killed because she smiled at everyone. He says it calmly, in passing.
Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · power of humans
Soldiers do not ask why. They obey and they die. Someone made a mistake and they paid.
But nothing happens
The line at the end of four stanzas. They wait. They freeze. Nothing happens. That is the horror.
Bullets smacking the belly out of the air
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict
Bullets punch the air itself. The soldier runs through it.
his bloody life in my bloody hands
Armitage · Remains · conflict · memory
Bloody as blood and bloody as a swear word. The last line. It echoes Macbeth.
spasms of paper red
Weir · Poppies · conflict · loss · memory
Paper poppies on a blazer. Spasms sounds like pain. A mother pins one on her son.
A hundred agonies in black and white
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict · memory
A hundred photos of pain. The editor will pick five or six.
turned into your skin
Dharker · Tissue · power of humans · identity
Paper that becomes skin. Maps, receipts and records are all thin. So are we.
I am branded by an impression of sunlight
Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity
She left her city as a child. Her memory of it is all sunlight. It is stamped on her.
Dem tell me Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me
Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity · power of humans
They taught him their history and hid his. The beat is a drum.
a shaven head full of powerful incantations
Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · power of humans
The pilot's head is full of the words that sent him to die.
We are prepared: we build our houses squat
Heaney · Storm on the Island · power of nature · conflict
The islanders build low and strong. They think they are ready for the storm.
Every quote, in order
All 49, in the order they happen.
- Power of nature and of humans20 quotes
- Conflict and its effects23 quotes
- Identity, memory and place6 quotes
Power of nature and of humans
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans · power of nature
The king's boast on his statue. Look at what I built and be afraid. Around it there is nothing.
Nothing beside remains
Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans · power of nature · loss
The statue is broken. The empire is gone. The sand is what lasts.
The lone and level sands stretch far away
Shelley · Ozymandias · power of nature
Flat empty desert in every direction. Nature outlasts every king.
sneer of cold command
Shelley · Ozymandias · power of humans
The face on the statue is cruel and proud. The sculptor caught it. The king did not notice.
mind-forg'd manacles
Blake · London · power of humans · identity
Chains made in the mind. The people of London are locked up by their own thoughts and by the powerful.
In every cry of every Man, In every Infant's cry of fear
Blake · London · power of humans · loss
Everyone is crying. Even babies are afraid. Blake hears it on every street.
Every black'ning Church appalls
Blake · London · power of humans
The church is going black with soot and shame. It does nothing for the poor.
the hapless Soldier's sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls
Blake · London · conflict · power of humans
The soldier's sigh turns into blood on the palace. The rich send the poor to die.
a huge peak, black and huge
Wordsworth · Extract from The Prelude · power of nature · memory
A boy steals a boat. A mountain rises up behind him. He repeats huge because he has no other word for it.
And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me
Wordsworth · Extract from The Prelude · power of nature
The mountain seems to walk after him. Nature has become alive and angry.
huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men
Wordsworth · Extract from The Prelude · power of nature · memory
For days after, he sees giant shapes in his mind. Nature has changed how he thinks.
I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together
Browning · My Last Duchess · power of humans · conflict
The Duke had his wife killed because she smiled at everyone. He says it calmly, in passing.
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive
Browning · My Last Duchess · power of humans
He shows off her portrait like a possession. As if she were alive. She is not.
I choose Never to stoop
Browning · My Last Duchess · power of humans
He would not lower himself to tell her what annoyed him. So he had her removed.
We are prepared: we build our houses squat
Heaney · Storm on the Island · power of nature · conflict
The islanders build low and strong. They think they are ready for the storm.
Spits like a tame cat Turned savage
Heaney · Storm on the Island · power of nature
The sea is a cat that turns wild. Nature that seemed tame is not.
Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear
Heaney · Storm on the Island · power of nature
The last line. Wind is nothing you can see. It is still what they fear.
turned into your skin
Dharker · Tissue · power of humans · identity
Paper that becomes skin. Maps, receipts and records are all thin. So are we.
Paper that lets the light shine through
Dharker · Tissue · power of humans · power of nature
Thin paper lets light in. Dharker wants buildings and borders made that way too.
Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines
Dharker · Tissue · power of humans
Borders are lines on paper. The sun does not see them.
Conflict and its effects
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict
The beat of the horses. The poem gallops. The men ride into the guns.
Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · power of humans
Soldiers do not ask why. They obey and they die. Someone made a mistake and they paid.
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · loss
Six hundred men ride into a valley of death. The line comes back again and again.
Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!
Tennyson · The Charge of the Light Brigade · conflict · memory
Tennyson asks us to honour them. He praises the courage and skips the blunder.
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us
Owen · Exposure · conflict · power of nature
The cold is the enemy, not the Germans. The wind cuts like a knife.
But nothing happens
The line at the end of four stanzas. They wait. They freeze. Nothing happens. That is the horror.
Slowly our ghosts drag home
Owen · Exposure · conflict · memory · loss
The men imagine going home. Only their ghosts can go.
For love of God seems dying
Owen · Exposure · conflict · loss
Owen loses faith out there. God's love seems to be dying too.
Bullets smacking the belly out of the air
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict
Bullets punch the air itself. The soldier runs through it.
In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict · power of humans
Mid-run he wonders what machine put him here. Stars, nations, cold clockwork. He is a part in it.
King, honour, human dignity, etcetera
Hughes · Bayonet Charge · conflict · power of humans
The big words for why he is fighting. Etcetera. They fall away when the bullets come.
Probably armed, possibly not
Armitage · Remains · conflict · memory
The soldier shot a looter. He does not know if the man had a gun. The doubt is what stays.
his bloody life in my bloody hands
Armitage · Remains · conflict · memory
Bloody as blood and bloody as a swear word. The last line. It echoes Macbeth.
He's here in my head when I close my eyes
Armitage · Remains · memory · conflict
He came home. The dead man came with him.
spasms of paper red
Weir · Poppies · conflict · loss · memory
Paper poppies on a blazer. Spasms sounds like pain. A mother pins one on her son.
I was brave, as I walked with you, to the front door
Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict
The front door is her front line. She has to be brave to let him go.
the world overflowing like a treasure chest
Weir · Poppies · loss · conflict
To the son, leaving is exciting. To the mother it is loss.
A hundred agonies in black and white
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict · memory
A hundred photos of pain. The editor will pick five or six.
spools of suffering set out in ordered rows
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict · memory
The film rolls in his darkroom. Suffering, filed neatly.
they do not care
Duffy · War Photographer · conflict
The readers look at his photos over breakfast and forget. The last words of the poem.
a shaven head full of powerful incantations
Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · power of humans
The pilot's head is full of the words that sent him to die.
he must have wondered which had been the better way to die
Garland · Kamikaze · conflict · identity · loss
He turned back and lived. His family never spoke to him again. The last line asks which death was worse.
a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous
Garland · Kamikaze · power of nature · memory
Looking down at the sea, he remembers his father's fishing boat. The sea wins.
Identity, memory and place
I am branded by an impression of sunlight
Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity
She left her city as a child. Her memory of it is all sunlight. It is stamped on her.
There once was a country
Rumens · The Emigrée · memory · identity · loss
The first words. Like a fairy tale. The country she remembers may not exist any more.
They accuse me of absence, they circle me
Rumens · The Emigrée · identity · conflict
The new place blames her for leaving the old one. Her city stands behind her.
Dem tell me Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me
Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity · power of humans
They taught him their history and hid his. The beat is a drum.
Bandage up me eye with me own history Blind me to me own identity
Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity · power of humans
School wrapped a bandage over his eyes. He could not see who he was.
I carving out me identity
Agard · Checking Out Me History · identity
The last line. He is making his own story now, with a knife.
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