10. Jane Weir, Poppies (2009)

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we explore Jane Weir's 'Poppies', focusing in particular on the relationship between the mother and the son, the importance of the song bird "released … from its cage", the emotions of pity and loss, and the symbols of peace and war – the poppy, the war memorial, the dove.

Course

In this course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores the fifteen poems that make up the 'Power and Conflict' cluster for GCSE English Literature (AQA). Each poem is read in detail, with a short commentary highlighting aspects of language, style, themes, motifs, and so on. In the case of Shelley's 'Ozymandias', for example, we think about the multitude of voices in the poem and the idea of the 'waste land' in the history of poetry. When we come to 'My Last Duchess', we focus on the dramatic monologue form and the contrast between the character of the Duke and his "last Duchess". And so on for the whole collection.

The poems discussed in this course are:
1. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias (1818)
2. William Blake, London (1794)
3. William Wordsworth, Extract from The Prelude (1798-1850)
4. Robert Browning, My Last Duchess (1842)
5. Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854)
6. Wilfred Owen, Exposure (1917)
7. Seamus Heaney, Storm on the Island (1966)
8. Ted Hughes, Bayonet Charge (1957)
9. Simon Armitage, Remains (2008)
10. Jane Weir, Poppies (2009)
11. Carol Ann Duffy, War Photographer (1985)
12. Imtiaz Dharker, Tissue (2006)
13. Carol Rumens, The Émigrée (1993)
14. Beatrice Garland, Kamikaze (2013)
15. John Agard, Checking Out Me History (2007)

Lecturer

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies and Teaching Associate in the School of English at Nottingham University, and holds Visiting Professorships in China, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. He is co-author of The Routledge History of Literature in English with Ron Carter, and also wrote The Language of Poetry, Literature with a Small 'l' and the first critical edition of Teleny by Oscar Wilde and others.