Newest Poetry Anthology

 Hi all!

I'll be preparing annotations for the latest poetry anthology for AQA shortly. I've been preparing over the holidays and wanted to release them as they come. If there are any poems I am missing or if there is a deep dive that you wish me to go over for any of the novels, please let me know in the comments below.

Thanks and happy revising! 

Frankenstein - Getting your knowledge set

Characters:

Victor Frankenstein - the guy that creates a creature

Elizabeth Lavenza - Victor's adopted sister/'cousin'

Alphonse Frankenstein - Victor's father 

Caroline Beaufort - Victor's mother
William Frankenstein - Victor's younger brother, is murdered 

Justine Moritz - servant to Frankenstein family after her mum dies, executed for 'murdering William'
Monster - gross looking creature created from dead bodies, just wants to be loved
Robert Walton - opener and closer of the novel, sails the sea, writes letters to his sister
Henry Clerval - Victor's best friend, studies with him, looks after Victor

Basic Plot:
Beginning (Letters): Story starts with Robert Walton writing a series of letters to his sister. These letters detail how Robert got to become a sailor of the seas and the obstacles he had to overcome. The last letter before the story starts even states, "I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day." Robert Walton says this to his sister because he almost couldn't believe his own experiences. The rest of the story is written through the letter. This is called an epistolary novel and is a form of structuring. 

Beginning (Chapters): At the beginning, we received the necessary background needed to build Victor's character. We learn much about his childhood, his personality, and his family. After losing his mother, he starts contemplating life. He wants to figure out a cure for all disease so that human death only occurs from some sort of accident. However, after much deliberating, Victor decides to try and create human life by building a body. While creating his monster, he is comments on how attractive it is. The luscious hair, the black lips, the eyes, and how the blood vessels in his muscles are so graceful. The minute the monster comes to life, Victor realises his mistakes and abhors his creation for how ugly it is.

Middle: The monster runs away but Victor is put into emotional turmoil. He hopes that his monster has run off and died somewhere but can't shake the feeling that his creation has done something horrible. He returns home but keeps hearing of all these horrible accidents and can't help but to piece together the idea that his monster was somehow responsible. His brother is murdered, his cousin killed for justice, his friends die.

Around the middle, we also hear from the monsters side of things. He went on and observed a family which is how he learned to speak English. When he tried to introduce himself to the blind old man, he was interrupted by the son of the man and the monster is cast away, yet again. All the monster really wanted was to feel the sense of belonging and attachment to someone else. We also hear about how the monster stole Victor's brother (without realising it was Victor's brother) and how he had accidentally killed him. He allowed the cousin (Justine) to take the blame (funny how Justice is the root of Justine... Hmm..) for which she hung. Victor tries to run off but the monster promises to follow him to the ends of the earth. Victor finds an abandoned hut by the sea to create a companion for the monster but soon changes his mind. For this, the monster kills Victor's best friend.

End: Victor and Elizabeth get married and on their wedding night, the monster kills Elizabeth. Victor runs away, the monster follows. That's where this comes full circle. Victor climbs aboard a ship led by Robert Walton. Victor is so unwell, he can barely speak. Before he dies, the monster finds him, and tries to speak to him but Victor is unconscious but Robert allows the monster to talk with him. Victor dies, the monster vows to never be seen again, and Robert goes off having the weirdest sea trip he's ever had. 

Poetry Annotation Help - year 11

This is a found resource that you are welcome to use to get a basic understanding of poetry. This goes through the basic annotations that you need to help you understand and analyse the poems deeper.


Do not just copy these annotations and expect to understand the poem. You need to apply what you have learned and make your own annotations of what you think the poems are about!

Click here to find the poetry annotations

Reminder: this is not the work of Miss Harasen. It was not done by a teacher at our school, simply a resource found online that would be able to help you.

Links Between Poems

In an effort to go paperless, I'm adding this resource online for you to have and revise with. This has information about the links between all of the poems we are going to study. This is a found resource meaning the work is not mine.
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Ozymandias
Thematic or contextual links:
"My Last Duchess" also presents ideas about social control: both Ozymandias and the Duke proudly protect their power.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"Ozymandias" uses a distanced third person speaker, while "My Last Duchess" is a dramatic monologue providing the Duke's voice first hand.

London
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Checking Out Me History", "London" shows awareness of the oppression of different social groups, but is from the eighteenth century, while "Checking Out Me History" is contemporary.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"London" uses a very measured and regular rhythm and rhyme scheme; "Checking Out Me History" uses two different stanza layouts to present the different social groups it features.

Extract from "The Prelude"
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Remains", this extract explores the effects of one moment on the mind, but "The Prelude" is strongly influenced by its context of Romanticism.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both use a first person viewpoint, but the voice in "Remains" is more modern and colloquial.

My Last Duchess
Thematic or contextual links:
"London" also criticizes the structures and system of social class.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"London" openly criticizes the class system using an outsider viewpoint; the Duke's voice relies on the reader to infer Browning's criticism.

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Exposure", this poem explores the catastrophic effects of war upon individual soldiers.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both make strong use of repetition and sound patterning.

Exposure
Thematic or contextual links:
"Bayonet Charge" also presents a soldier's First World War experience, but was written later and not from personal experience.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"Exposure" uses a more formal stanza structure; the more modern "Bayonet Charge" employs more enjambment and less repetition and rhyme.

Storm on the Island
Thematic or contextual links:
The extract from "The Prelude" also explores the power of nature.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both use a first person voice; neither are broken into stanzas.

Bayonet Charge
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Kamikaze", this focuses on one moment in wartime, but "Bayonet Charge" describes what happens around that moment whereas "Kamikaze" explores the impact of that moment on the rest of the pilot's life.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both poems use a third person viewpoint, but "Kamikaze" uses words and phrases that create a storytelling atmosphere while "Bayonet Charge" has a more condensed style, using harsher sound techniques as well as imagery to create its effects.

Remains
Thematic or contextual links:
"War Photographer" also explores the effects of conflict, but while "Remains" focuses on the devastating effects on the soldier, "War Photographer" focuses on the lack of effect on the public, and how the photographer feels about this.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"Remains" uses enjambment between stanzas; "War Photographer" uses end-stopping.

Poppies
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Exposure", this explores ideas about family and home in the context of conflict. While "Poppies" presents a mother's thoughts on her son's departure for war, "Exposure" features the soldiers' yearning for home.
Voice or formal/structural links:
While both have a first person speaker, "Poppies" uses direct address to include the son.

War Photographer
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "The Charge of the Light Brigade", this is concerned with how the public reacts to conflict.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both use a third person viewpoint, but in "The Charge of the Light Brigade" the tone is celebratory while in "War Photographer" it is resigned.

Tissue
Thematic or contextual links:
"Poppies" is also about memory, but "Tissues" explores this in terms of records.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both use imagery related to texture and layering.

The Emigree
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Checking Out Me History", this explores ideas about resisting the abuse of power.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"Checking Out Me History" uses distinct stanza layouts and dialect; "The Emigree" uses vivid imagery.

Checking Out Me History
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Ozymandias", this shows a decline of power, but this is explicit in "Ozymandias" while "Checking Out Me History" describes how power is reclaimed.
Voice or formal/structural links:
Both poems use form to highlight meaning: "Ozymandias" is a sonnet which deviates from traditional forms; "Checking Out Me History" uses two different stanza layouts to separate British and Caribbean culture.

Kamikaze
Thematic or contextual links:
Like "Remains", this shows the impact of one moment on a person's like, although in "Remains" this event is in the recent past.
Voice or formal/structural links:
"Remains" uses a strong first person voice, while "Kamikaze" mostly uses a third person speaker to evoke a story-like tone.

Analysis of War Photographer

Before we begin, there was a method for not posting this until the night before class. I was hoping you would take the onus unto yourselves and begin revising and annotating without my help. After all, we have done some annotating as a class, I had assumed that you would have been prepared to do it on your own. That said, it appears we have more work to do with annotating! Keep in mind, you are comparing War Photographer and Remains. There are some obvious connections between the two poems (war, duh), but try to spot the smaller details, things that would take a more critical and insightful view to realise (aka how to get a better mark 😊).
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"In his darkroom he is finally alone/with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows"
Ahh, the stanza we have visited as a class what must be close to a thousand times. I think I repeated this line at least ten times (if your GCSE is on this poem and this quote is not in your memory, I will have failed you). You will notice that for this stanza, my annotations are different from the ones we did in class (I lost my book, definitely a good role model here). Anyways! We have established that a darkroom is where a photographer goes to develop their photos. The presence of light ruins the photograph. There is a lot to be said about this. Perhaps the art of being a war photographer means you need to see the darkness, that having an optimistic and light personality will not allow you to see the full realities of war. Being alone allows the photographer to reflect on what he has seen and photographed. In the second line, we spent loads of time talking about the alliteration but we did not spend time on "ordered rows". With these words, the photographer is trivialising the suffering. The suffering of the victims in his photographs are not important. "Ordered rows" also refers to military graves.
"The only light is red and softly glows,/as though this were a church and he/a priest preparing to intone a Mass."
The fact that the light is red can be a symbol of a few different things. The first being obvious. Thinking about our conversation on connotations, we realise that red is a symbol of blood. When we think of blood we think of war. The photographer refers to himself as a priest. The priest is the person in charge of Christian religious ceremonies and church services. He is considered the "voice of God". Intone here means to recite in song, monotone. Think ritualistic chanting. (Remember our conversation of the religious undertones present in this poem??)
"Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass."
That last sentence is perhaps my favourite within this poem. We'll get there though.
The poet uses the rule of three here to draw effect to the names of places of war. It also has the aggressive sounds that we associate with war. "All flesh is grass." This is a quote from the Bible. Does grass stay forever? Does a single blade of grass withstand nature's course and survive the harsh winters? No. Life, much like grass, is temporary.
"He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays/beneath his hands, which did not tremble then/though seem to now. Rural England. Home again" 
The first few sentences of this stanza are monosyllabic. This means the majority of the words contain one syllable. This monosyllabic sound shows that the photographer is detached from human emotions. This is heavily juxtaposed with the first stanza. It's as if the photographer is not recognizing the human behind the photos. When we get to "Rural England" and such, we see the breaking of the sentences. Short, snappy sentences to get your attention but to also show the sort of state of mind the photographer is in. When someone is talking in short sentences, their mind is usually frantic with all of their ideas trying to escape at once. They have so much to say but perhaps only a short period. Hmmmm..................................
"to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,/to fields which don't explode beneath the feet/of running children in nightmare heat."
The poet is also trying to draw our attention to the fact that the problems we face here are not real problems. They are so small (#firstworldproblems) compared to the hardships faced in war. The poet is again using juxtaposition to compare home to war. She is also linking the soldiers to the children, but children are a symbol of innocence. What does this mean?
"Something is happening. A stranger's features/faintly start to twist before his eyes,/a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries" 
Within these lines, the reader is zooming in on one person. The features starting to twist could suggest pain or perhaps the image is becoming clearer. The poet uses "half-formed ghost" to be ambiguous. As a photo clears, people can look like ghosts. However, this could also be referencing the dead man in the photograph. The photographer is remembering the memory.
"of this man's wife, how he sought approval/without words to do what someone must/and how the blood stained into foreign dust."
To recall a memory so vividly, it must have affected the photographer very strongly. By seeking approval without words, we can assume that maybe they don't speak the same language. However, the photographer could also be using body language to say what words are failing to do. To photograph someone in their last moments is a sensitive subject. At what point does this become wrong? How do you photograph a person dying only to be told by your editor that the photo is not emotional enough to be put in the paper? (These are the questions that keep me up at night.)
"A hundred agonies in black-and-white/from which his editor will pick out five or six/for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick"
The public is only seeing what the editor deems worthy. This raises the question: who is in control of the media? Why are we letting someone else decide what we can and cannot see? If the images are too brutal for the public to handle, does that not mean war is too brutal? If that's the case, why have war in the first place? I have a lot of questions...
"with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers./From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where/he earns his living and they do not care."
The start of the last line is an echo of line 7. Remember? "He has a job to do"? He is earning his living as if this were a chore for him to do.
Who is they?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!

As promised, here are the annotations. I took the photos with my iPad, so hopefully it's not as blurry as usual. Nah, it's just as blurry. Turns out I have shaky hands.

Happy revising, kiddos :)