The Charge of the Light Brigade, Exposure, Bayonet Charge, Remains, Poppies, War Photographer and Kamikaze: what each says about conflict and its cost.
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1.Who wrote The Charge of the Light Brigade and when?
Alfred Lord Tennyson, in 1854, weeks after the event during the Crimean War.
2.What was Tennysons position when he wrote it?
He was Poet Laureate, so the poem is partly a public commemoration.
3.What is the central idea of The Charge of the Light Brigade?
It honours the courage and obedience of the soldiers while making clear that a blunder sent them to their deaths.
4.How does the rhythm of the poem work?
A galloping rhythm imitates the horses charging, driving the poem relentlessly forward.
5.What does the repetition in the poem achieve?
It creates the relentless momentum of the charge and emphasises how many rode and how few returned.
6.Who wrote Exposure and when?
Wilfred Owen, written in 1917 to 1918 during the First World War.
7.What is the central idea of Exposure?
That the real enemy is the weather and the waiting. Nothing happens, and the men die of cold rather than combat.
8.What is the effect of the repeated line about nothing happening?
It creates monotony and futility, denying the reader the action a war poem seems to promise.
9.Why is Owens perspective significant?
He served and died in the war, so his account directly contradicts patriotic poems written from home.
10.Who wrote Bayonet Charge and when?
Ted Hughes, published in 1957.
11.What is the central idea of Bayonet Charge?
It puts the reader inside the panic of a single soldier mid charge, where patriotic ideals collapse into raw terror.
12.Why does Bayonet Charge begin in the middle of the action?
Starting without context throws the reader straight into confusion, mirroring the soldiers own disorientation.
13.Who wrote Remains and when?
Simon Armitage, published in 2008, based on the accounts of a soldier who served in Iraq.
14.What is the central idea of Remains?
A soldier shoots a looter and cannot escape the memory, showing that the trauma continues long after the event.
15.Why is the colloquial voice of Remains effective?
The everyday, blunt speech makes the horror feel real and immediate rather than literary.
16.What condition does Remains explore?
Post traumatic stress disorder, and the way the memory intrudes without warning.
17.Who wrote Poppies and when?
Jane Weir, published in 2009.
18.What is unusual about the perspective of Poppies?
It is written from the point of view of a mother whose son has gone to war, not the soldier.
19.What is the central idea of Poppies?
That the grief of those left behind is a form of loss that war poetry usually overlooks.
20.How is domestic imagery used in Poppies?
References to sewing and household detail contrast tenderness with the violence the son is heading towards.
21.Who wrote War Photographer and when?
Carol Ann Duffy, published in 1985.
22.What is the central idea of War Photographer?
A photographer develops images of atrocity at home and confronts the gap between suffering abroad and indifference in Britain.
23.What internal conflict does the photographer face?
Whether recording suffering does any good, when readers glance at the pictures and forget them.
24.Who wrote Kamikaze and when?
Beatrice Garland, published in 2013.
25.What is the central idea of Kamikaze?
A Japanese pilot turns back from a suicide mission, and is then shunned by his family and community for surviving.
26.How is Kamikaze narrated?
Through the daughter, at a distance, which shows how the shame was passed down and how the pilots own voice was silenced.
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