In 2007 Armitage made a programme for Channel 4 called ‘The Not Dead’. He also wrote a collection of poems (including Remains) under the same title. In preparation Armitage interviewed a number of soldiers who had fought in wars, including the Gulf War. Remainsseems to relate to the Gulf War as he mentions ‘desert sand’. Content

Throughout the poem the adjectives used work with the structure to emphasise the delicacy of paper – ‘fine’, ‘thin’ and ‘transparent’. Alongside this, Dharker often refers to light and to its effects on the delicate paper. Repeated ideas like: ‘lets the light shine through’, ‘sun shines through’, ‘luminous’ and ‘daylight’ show how light illuminates the paper and how our uses for paper are dependent on light. Demonising her own life is an interesting idea, but you need to explain it, for example ‘so that we imagine…’Weir also structures the poem around personal pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘You’ throughout, which creates the sense that the poem is an eulogy and a collection of memories that the loving mother continuously replays in her head. Shelley had quite radical views. One interpretation of Ozymandias is that the poem criticises people or organisations that become too big and powerful and think they can’t be challenged. Content The first four lines of each stanza have a regular ‘abba’ rhyme to convey the consistency of the soldiers’ experience. The difficulties they are facing go on and on without change. However, some of the rhymes are half-rhymes, “knive us/ nervous”, “wire/ war” and “brambles/ rumbles”. This adds to the sense of unease. The men fear the effects of the weather and the constant threat of death. Language The poem has 6 stanzas – one for each hundred soldiers of the Light Brigade. The form, rhythm and structure of the poem reflect the charge of the horses, and the vicious fighting. The first stanza is 8 lines long, followed by two 9 line stanzas mirroring the increasing pace of the charge. The fourth and fifth stanzas are particularly long (12 and 11 lines respectively) as Tennyson depicts the frenzied slog of the hand-to-hand fighting and dangerous retreat. The final short stanza reflects the loss of life. It leaves the reader pondering the message of the poem – “honour the charge they made”.

Humanity –Dharker compares the delicacy of paper to buildings and structures that can easily be destroyed. The poem ends by drawing human life into this comparison, suggesting that human life is fragile like paper, but that the essence of humanity has the power to outlast structures and ideas. Loneliness– Wordsworth is alone. He meets and gains knowledge from nature (the mountain, the lake and the night), but not any other characters. My Last Duchess (Robert Browning) ContextThe power of memory is linked to several of the other key themes, as is the related idea of loss. It can explore: Light vs dark– there are numerous images of light breaking through darkness. These support the idea of conflict. Exposure focuses on the long, dull, grim days in-between battles. Here the weather and modern weaponry took its toll on soldiers physically and psychologically. There is no glory or honour for soldiers here. Only boredom, illness, fear, injury and death. Form and Structure At first glance the language used in this poem looks fairly natural. It’s the sort of language that is used in everyday speech, so it seems as though the speaker is talking to us. Alongside this natural language, however, Rumens uses lots of metaphors and similes to emphasise her message. Metaphors like: ‘the bright, filled paperweight’, ‘branded by an impression of sunlight’ and ‘time rolls its tanks’ create contrasting images of the positive memories of the speaker versus the conflict that has now engulfed the homeland. The city itself could also be considered an extended metaphor for a lost childhood that everyone can relate to.